Note 1103 — Chapter III · BIRTH AND FORTUNES OF THE ELDER JUSTIN: THE ORIGINS OF JUSTINIAN

Procopius, Anecdot., 6. Nearly all the chronographers note his illiteracy. A certain Marinus painted in one of the public baths a sequence of pictures in which he portrayed the career of Justin from his youth upwards. For this he was taken to task by the Emperor, but he extricated himself by explaining that his intention was an ethical one, in order to teach the people that in the Byzantine Empire a man might raise himself by his talents from the dunghill to the first position in the state; Zachariah Mytil., viii, 1.