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Updated: June 6, 2025
XXIV. MARCUS VALERIUS PROBUS, of Berytus , after long aspiring to the rank of centurion, being at last tired of waiting, devoted himself to study. He had met with some old authors at a bookseller's shop in the provinces, where the memory of ancient times still lingers, and is not quite forgotten, as it is at Rome.
A fair wind soon withdrew us from these charming prospects, and after driving us swiftly and roughly over the remainder of our way, rewarded us with a brighter and more welcome vision still the coast of Syria and our destined port, Berytus.
At this period, during the reign of Justinian, silk had become an article of very general and indispensible use: but the Persians had occupied by land and sea the monopoly of this article, so that the inhabitants of Tyre and Berytus, who had all along manufactured it for the Roman market, were no longer able to procure a sufficient supply, even at an extravagant price.
This was followed by the Institutes, embracing the principles of Roman jurisprudence, which was to be studied in the schools of Constantinople, Berytus, and Rome; and the Digest, or Pandects, comprising the most valuable passages from the writings of the old jurists, that were deemed of authority. In this last work three million lines were reduced to a hundred and fifty thousand.
When the presidents, and the rest that belonged to the cities, were come to Berytus, he kept his sons in a certain village belonging to Sidon, called Platana, but near to this city, that if they were called, he might produce them, for he did not think fit to bring them before the assembly: and when there were one hundred and fifty assessors present, Herod came by himself alone, and accused his sons, and that in such a way as if it were not a melancholy accusation, and not made but out of necessity, and upon the misfortunes he was under; indeed, in such a way as was very indecent for a father to accuse his sons, for he was very vehement and disordered when he came to the demonstration of the crime they were accused of, and gave the greatest signs of passion and barbarity: nor would he suffer the assessors to consider of the weight of the evidence, but asserted them to be true by his own authority, after a manner most indecent in a father against his sons, and read himself what they themselves had written, wherein there was no confession of any plots or contrivances against him, but only how they had contrived to fly away, and containing withal certain reproaches against him, on account of the ill-will he bare them; and when he came to those reproaches, he cried out most of all, and exaggerated what they said, as if they had confessed the design against him, and took his oath that he had rather lose his life than hear such reproachful words.
To Marcus it was a sad place, haunted by a thousand memories, yet he loved it because those memories were all of Miriam. Titus, said rumour, having accomplished the utter destruction of Jerusalem, had moved his army to Caesarea or Berytus, where he passed the winter season in celebrating games in the amphitheatres.
"As for the pretended army," he said, "it was no army, but a party sent out to require the just payment of the money; that this was not sent immediately, nor so soon as the bond allowed, but that Sylleus had frequently come before Saturninus and Volumnius, the presidents of Syria; and that at last he had sworn at Berytus, by thy fortune, that he would certainly pay the money within thirty days, and deliver up the fugitives that were under his dominion.
Upon drawing near to the ancient Baalbec, I found on inquiry of our guide, that we were not to pass through it, as I had hoped, nor even very near it, not nearer than between two and three miles. So that in this I had been clearly deceived by those of whom I had made the most exact inquiries at Berytus.
Here more than ten thousand died of starvation, while some were set aside to grace the Triumph, some to be slaughtered in the amphitheatres at Caesarea and Berytus, but the most were transported to Egypt, there, until they died, to labour in the desert mines.
This is especially the case in the central region between Berytus and Arka, opposite the highest portion of the Lebanon; and again in the north between Cape Possidi and Jebili, opposite the more northern part of Bargylus. The hilly region in these places is a broad tract of alternate wooded heights and deep romantic valleys, with streams murmuring amid their shades.
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