Note 296 — Chapter II

A fair idea of the facts may be had by combining the narratives of Gibbon, Finlay, and Mr. Oman (The Byzantine Empire, ch. x). Gibbon and Mr. Oman ignore the threat to make Carthage the capital; Gibbon ignores the point as to the stoppage of the grain supply; Finlay ignores the Church loan; Mr. Oman (p. 133) represents it as voluntary, whereas Gibbon shows it to have been compulsory (ch. 46. Bohn ed. v, 179, note). Mr. Bury alone (History of the Later Roman Empire, 1889, ii, 217-21) gives a fairly complete view of the situation. He specifies a famine and a pestilence as following on the stoppage of the grain supply.