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In spite of all his great achievements it cannot be disputed that Justinian left the empire weaker than he found it. Its territorial expansion in Italy, Africa, and Spain did not compensate for the exhaustion of the Eastern provinces. By his ruthless taxation Justinian had drained off their vital energies, and left them poorer and weaker than they had ever been before. Even his armies felt the reaction; at the end of his reign we read that they were sinking both in numbers and efficiency; the new and extended frontiers were more than they could guard, and the old race of generals who had followed Belisarius was dead. Justinian himself is said to have neglected their pay and maintenance, while he set his aged brains to wrestle with the problem of the ‘Three Chapters’ or the heresy of Aphthartodocetism. Like Louis XIV. of France, whom he resembles in many other respects, Justinian closed a reign of unparalleled magnificence as a gloomy pietist, whose despotism drained and crushed a people who had grown to abhor his very name.