Justinian I: The Byzantine Emperor Who Tried to Restore Rome

Justinian I was emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, often called the Byzantine Empire, from 527 until his death in 565. From Constantinople he set out to win back the western provinces lost to Germanic kingdoms in the fifth century, to put Roman law in order and to unite the church. His reign gave the world Hagia Sophia and the body of law later known as the Corpus Juris Civilis, but it also saw riots, plague and wars that left the empire overstretched.

Background: from Balkan village to imperial court

Justinian was born around 482 in Tauresium, a village near modern Skopje in North Macedonia, into a Latin-speaking peasant family. His original name was Petrus Sabbatius. His career was made by his maternal uncle Justin, a soldier who rose through the palace guard and became emperor in 518 as Justin I.

Justin brought his nephew to Constantinople, saw to his education and adopted him; Justinian took his name from his uncle. During Justin’s reign Justinian was already a powerful figure behind the throne. He was named co-emperor on 1 April 527 and became sole ruler when Justin died on 1 August 527.

Around 525 Justinian married Theodora, a former actress. Roman law barred senators from marrying actresses, so Justin issued a new law allowing it. Theodora was crowned alongside Justinian and became one of the most influential empresses in Roman history.

When Justinian came to power, the western half of the Roman Empire had been gone for half a century. The last western emperor had been deposed in 476. Italy was ruled by the Ostrogoths, North Africa by the Vandals, Spain by the Visigoths and Gaul by the Franks.

The eastern empire was still rich. It controlled the Balkans, Anatolia, Syria, Palestine and Egypt, and its predecessor Anastasius I had left a large treasury. Its main rival was Sasanian Persia, and war on the eastern frontier had resumed in the 520s.

The church was divided. The Council of Chalcedon in 451 had defined Christ as having two natures, but many Christians in Egypt and Syria, today often called Miaphysites, rejected that formula. Reconciling them with Chalcedonian believers and with the pope in Rome was a problem Justinian never solved.

Wars in the East and the West

Justinian’s early years were dominated by war with Persia. His young general Belisarius won a notable victory at Dara in 530 but was defeated at Callinicum in 531. In 532 Justinian agreed the so-called Eternal Peace with the new Persian king Khosrow I, paying around 11,000 pounds of gold.

The same year, in January 532, the Nika riots nearly cost Justinian his throne. The Blue and Green circus factions joined forces, burned much of the city centre and proclaimed a rival emperor. The revolt ended with a massacre in the Hippodrome that contemporary writers put at about 30,000 dead (see Nika riots).

With peace in the east, Justinian turned west. In 533–534 Belisarius destroyed the Vandal kingdom in North Africa in a remarkably fast campaign. In 535 the empire invaded Ostrogothic Italy, starting a Gothic War that lasted until 554 and ruined much of the peninsula. Around 552 imperial forces also seized a strip of southern Spain from the Visigoths.

The Eternal Peace did not last. In 540 Khosrow invaded Syria and sacked Antioch, one of the empire’s greatest cities. Fighting in Mesopotamia, Armenia and Lazica (in modern Georgia) dragged on until a Fifty Years’ Peace was agreed in 562. Meanwhile Slavs, Bulgars and other peoples raided the Balkans, and the empire relied heavily on fortifications and payments to hold the Danube frontier.

Law, government and religion

Justinian’s most lasting achievement was legal. In 528 he ordered a new collection of imperial laws, and under his minister Tribonian a commission produced the Code (529, revised 534), the Digest of classical jurists’ writings (533) and a textbook, the Institutes (533). His later laws, the Novels, completed what scholars since the sixteenth century have called the Corpus Juris Civilis (see Code of Justinian).

Justinian was a tireless administrator, said to work late into the night. His praetorian prefect John the Cappadocian squeezed the provinces for revenue to pay for wars and buildings, and was deeply unpopular until his fall in 541. Justinian also tried to curb the sale of offices and the power of provincial governors.

In religion he saw himself as responsible for the orthodoxy of his subjects. He issued laws against pagans, heretics, Samaritans and Jews, and in 529 forbade pagans to teach, a measure traditionally linked to the end of the Platonic Academy in Athens. He summoned the Second Council of Constantinople in 553 to condemn the so-called Three Chapters, hoping to win over Miaphysites, but the move angered the western church and failed to heal the division.

Building programme

The Nika riots destroyed the old cathedral of Constantinople, and within weeks Justinian began a replacement. Designed by Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus, the new Hagia Sophia was dedicated on 27 December 537. Its vast dome made it the largest church in Christendom for centuries (see Hagia Sophia).

Procopius devoted a whole work, the Buildings, to Justinian’s construction projects. They included the rebuilt Church of the Holy Apostles, the great underground Basilica Cistern, fortresses along the Danube and the eastern frontier, and the monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai now known as St Catherine’s. The famous mosaic portraits of Justinian and Theodora survive not in Constantinople but in the church of San Vitale in Ravenna, consecrated in 547.

Plague and later years

In 541 plague reached Egypt, and in 542 it struck Constantinople. Procopius, who witnessed it, described thousands of deaths a day at its height. Justinian himself caught the disease and recovered. The pandemic returned in waves for two centuries and cut into the population, tax base and army that his ambitions depended on.

Theodora died in 548, and Justinian’s later reign was quieter but troubled. He spent much of his energy on theology, while the treasury struggled with war costs and payments to neighbours. In 559 a Kutrigur raid reached the outskirts of Constantinople, and the elderly Belisarius had to be called out of retirement to drive it off.

Justinian died on 14 November 565, aged about 83, and was buried in the Church of the Holy Apostles. His nephew Justin II succeeded him.

Key people

• Theodora (c. 497–548): empress and political partner, credited with stiffening Justinian’s resolve during the Nika riots.
• Belisarius (c. 500–565): general who won at Dara, crushed the Nika revolt, conquered the Vandal kingdom and led the first phase of the Gothic War.
• Narses (c. 480–c. 574): palace eunuch and general who won the decisive battles of the Gothic War in 552.
• Tribonian (died c. 542): jurist who directed the compilation of the Corpus Juris Civilis.
• John the Cappadocian: praetorian prefect and chief tax gatherer until his fall in 541.
• Procopius of Caesarea (c. 500–after 554): historian whose Wars, Buildings and hostile Secret History are the main sources for the reign.

Myths and facts

Myth: Justinian was a Slav originally called Upravda. This story comes from a supposed biography by a monk named Theophilus, published in the seventeenth century. The historian James Bryce showed in 1887 that it was a later invention, and modern scholars reject it.

Myth: Justinian restored the Roman Empire. He recovered important territories, but not Gaul, Britain or most of Spain. The Lombards invaded Italy in 568, only three years after his death, and within a century the Arab conquests took Syria, Egypt and Africa.

Fact with caution: the Secret History. Procopius wrote both praise and a vicious private attack on Justinian, calling him a demon in human form. Historians use the Secret History carefully, as evidence of court gossip and resentment rather than plain fact.

Legacy

Justinian’s legal work proved his most durable legacy. Rediscovered in Italy in the late eleventh century, the Digest and Code became the basis of legal study at Bologna and other universities and shaped the civil-law tradition of much of Europe and beyond.

His reconquests are more debated. Some historians see them as a heroic last effort to restore Roman unity; others argue they drained resources needed against Persia and on the Danube. Either way, his reign marks the point where the late Roman world gave way to medieval Byzantium. The Eastern Orthodox Church venerates Justinian as a saint, and Dante placed him in Paradise in the Divine Comedy as the voice of Roman law and empire.

Timeline

• c. 482: Justinian born at Tauresium, near modern Skopje.
• 518: His uncle Justin I becomes emperor.
• 1 August 527: Justinian becomes sole emperor after Justin’s death.
• January 532: Nika riots in Constantinople.
• 533–534: Belisarius conquers the Vandal kingdom in North Africa; the Digest, Institutes and revised Code are issued.
• 27 December 537: Hagia Sophia is dedicated.
• 540: Khosrow I sacks Antioch; Belisarius takes Ravenna.
• 542: Plague strikes Constantinople.
• 553–554: Second Council of Constantinople; the Gothic War ends with imperial victory.
• 14 November 565: Justinian dies in Constantinople.

Why it matters

Justinian’s reign was the last great attempt to rule the Mediterranean as a single Roman empire. It failed in the long run, but its law code, its architecture and its image of the Christian emperor shaped both Byzantium and western Europe for more than a thousand years.