able by the excellence of his education to throw into the shade his
affliction of avarice. But John was oppressive and severe alike with all
men, inflicting blows upon those whom he met and plundering without
respect absolutely all their money; consequently in the tenth year of
his office he rightly and justly atoned for his lawless conduct in the
following manner.

The Empress Theodora hated him above all others. And while he gave
offence to the woman by the wrongs he committed, he was not of a mind to
win her by flattery or by kindness in any way, but he openly set himself
in opposition to her and kept slandering her to the emperor, neither
blushing before her high station nor feeling shame because of the
extraordinary love which the emperor felt for her. When the queen
perceived what was being done, she purposed to slay the man, but in no
way could she do this, since the Emperor Justinian set great store by
him. And when John learned of the purpose of the queen regarding him, he
was greatly terrified. And whenever he went into his chamber to sleep,
he expected every night that some one of the barbarians would fall upon
him to slay him; and he kept peeping out of the room and looking about
the entrances and remained sleepless, although he had attached to
himself many thousands of spearmen and guards, a thing which had been
granted to no prefect before that time. But at daybreak, forgetting all
his fears of things divine and human, he would become again a plague to
all the Romans both in public and in private. And he conversed commonly
with sorcerers, and constantly listened to profane oracles which
portended for him the imperial office, so that he was plainly walking on
air and lifted up by his hopes of the royal power. But in his rascality
and the lawlessness of his conduct there was no moderation or abatement.
And there was in him absolutely no regard for God, and even when he went
to a sanctuary to pray and to pass the night, he did not do at all as