Justinian I

(Latin: Flavius Petrus Sabbatius Iustinianus, Greek: Ιουστινιανός; commonly known as Justinian I, or (among Eastern Orthodox Christians) as Saint Justinian the Great; ca. 482/483 – November 13 or November 14 565) was Eastern Roman Emperor from 527 until his death, and second member of the Justinian Dynasty, after his uncle Justin I.

Justinian is one of the most historically significant rulers of Late Antiquity. Constituting a distinct epoch in the history of the Byzantine Empire, the impact of his administration extended far beyond the boundaries of his time period and of his empire. Justinian's reign is marked by the ambitious, but ultimately unrealistic project of renovatio imperii, a "restoration of the empire".^[1] This ambition was expressed in the partial recovery of the territories of the Western Roman Empire, including the city of Rome itself, but also, of great long-term significance, in the uniform rewriting of Roman law, the Corpus Iuris Civilis, which is still the basis of civil law in many modern states. His reign also marked a blossoming of Byzantine culture, and his building program has left such masterpieces as the church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, which was to be the center of Eastern Orthodox Christianity for many centuries. The devastating Plague of Justinian in the early 540's, however, marked the end of an age of splendor never to be regained by the Empire.

Justinian is considered a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church and is also commemorated by the Lutheran Church.^[2]

Life

Justinian was born a Latin-speaking peasant in a small village called Tauresium near Scupi, around 482.^[3] His mother was Vigilantia, the sister of the highly esteemed General Justin, who was in the imperial guard (the Excubitors).^[4] Justin adopted Justinian, brought him to Constantinople, and ensured the boy's education.^[4] As a result, Justinian was well educated in jurisprudence, theology and Roman history.^[4] Justinian served for some time with the Excubitors but the details of his early career are unknown.^[4]

When Emperor Anastasius died in 518, Justin was proclaimed the new emperor, with significant help from Justinian.^[4] During Justin's reign (518-527), Justinian was the emperor's close confidant and by the end, when Justin started to become senile, Justinian had become the de facto ruler.^[4] Justinian was appointed consul in 521, and later as commander of the army of the east.^[4][5] He was functioning as virtual regent long before Justin made him associate emperor on April 1, 527.^[4]Four months later, upon Justin I's death on August 1, 527, Justinian became the sole sovereign.^[4]

On account of his work habits, Justinian was known as the "Emperor who never sleeps." He seems to have been amenable and easy to approach.^[6] He surrounded himself with men and women of extraordinary talent, "new men" selected not on the basis of aristocratic origin, but on the basis of merit. Around 525 he married Theodora, who was by profession a courtesan about 20 years his junior. Justinian would have, in earlier times, been unable to marry her because of her class, but his uncle Emperor Justin I had passed a law allowing intermarriage between social classes.^[7] Theodora would become very influential in the politics of the Empire, and later emperors would follow Justinian's precedent and marry outside of the aristocratic class. The marriage was a source of scandal, but Theodora would prove to be very intelligent, "street smart", a good judge of character and Justinian's greatest supporter.

Other talented individuals included Tribonian, his legal adviser; his finance ministers John of Cappadocia and Peter Barsymes, who managed to collect taxes more efficiently than any before thus funding Justinian's wars; and finally, his talented general Belisarius.

Procopius provides our primary source for the history of Justinian's reign, although the Syriac chronicle of John of Ephesus, which does not survive, but was used as a source by later chronicles, contributes many valuable details. Both historians became very bitter towards Justinian and Theodora. Aside from his main history, Procopius also wrote the Anekdota (the so-called Secret History), which reports on various scandals at Justinian's court. Other sources include the histories of Agathias, Menander Protector, John Malalas, the Paschal Chronicle, the chronicles of Marcellinus Comes and Victor of Tunnunna.

Theodora died in 548; Justinian outlived her by almost twenty years. During the later years of his life, Justinian became increasingly devoted to religion. When he died, on the night of November 13-November 14, 565, he left no children. He was succeeded by Justin II, the son of his sister Vigilantia, who was married to Sophia, the niece of Empress Theodora. Justinian's body was entombed in a specially built mausoleum in the Church of the Holy Apostles.

Legal activities

Justinian achieved lasting fame through his judicial reforms, and in particular through the compilation of a summa of all Roman law, something that had not previously been attempted. Justinian appointed the quaestor Tribonian to oversee this task, and he issued the first draft of the Corpus Juris Civilis on April 7, 529 in three parts: Digesta (or Pandectae), Institutiones, and the Codex. The Corpus was in Latin, the traditional language of the Roman Empire, but which most citizens of the Eastern Empire understood only poorly. The Authenticum or Novellae Constitutiones, a collection of new laws issued during Justinian's reign, later supplemented the Corpus. The Novellae appeared in Greek, the common language of the Eastern Empire.

The Corpus forms the basis of Latin jurisprudence (including ecclesiastical Canon Law: ecclesia vivit lege romana) and, for historians, provides a valuable insight into the concerns and activities of the later Roman Empire. As a collection it gathers together the many sources in which the leges (laws) and the other rules were expressed or published: proper laws, senatorial consults (senatusconsulta), imperial decrees, case law, and jurists' opinions and interpretations (responsa prudentum).

Tribonian's law code ensured the survival of Roman Law. It formed the basis of later Byzantine law, as expressed in the Basilica of Basil I and Leo VI. It would pass to Western Europe in the 12th century and become the basis of much European law code. It eventually passed to Eastern Europe where it appeared in Slavic editions, and it also passed on to Russia.^{[citation needed]} It remains influential to this day.

Nika riots

Main article: Nika riots

Justinian nearly lost his throne during the Nika riots in Constantinople in January 532. Partisans of the chariot racing factions forced him to dismiss the unpopular Tribonian and two of his other ministers, and then attempted to overthrow Justinian himself and replace him by the senator Hypatius, a nephew of the late emperor Anastasius. While the crowd was rioting in the streets, Justinian considered fleeing the capital, but he remained in the city on the advice of Theodora. Shortly thereafter he ordered the brutal suppression of the riots by his generals Belisarius and Mundus.

Military activities

One of the most spectacular features of Justinian's reign was the recovery of large stretches of land around the Western Mediterranean basin which had slipped out of imperial control in the 5th century.^[8] As a Christian Roman emperor, Justinian considered it his divine duty to restore the Roman Empire to its ancient boundaries. Although he never personally took part in military campaigns, he boasted of his successes in the prefaces to his laws and had them commemorated in art.^[9] The reconquests were for a large part carried out by his general Belisarius.

From his uncle Justinian inherited ongoing hostilities with the Sassanid Empire.^[10] In 530 a Persian army was defeated at Daras, but the next year saw the defeat of Roman forces under Belisarius near Callinicum. When king Kavadh died (September 531), Justinian concluded an "Eternal Peace" with his successor Khosrau I (532). Having thus secured his eastern frontier Justinian turned his attention to the West, where Arian Germanic kingdoms had been established in the territories of the former Western Roman Empire.

Conquest of North Africa (533–534)

The first of the western kingdoms Justinian attacked was that of the Vandals in North Africa. King Hilderic, who had maintained good relations with Justinian and the North African Catholic clergy, had been overthrown by his cousin Gelimer in 530. Imprisoned, the deposed king made an appeal to Justinian. In 533, Belisarius landed at Caput Vada in modern Tunisia with an army of c. 15.000 men and a number of barbarian troops. They defeated the Vandals, who were caught completely off guard, at Ad Decimum (14 September 533) and Tricamarum (mid-December 533), and took Carthage. King Gelimer fled to Mt Pappua in Numidia, but surrendered the next spring. He was taken to Constantinople, where he was paraded in a triumph. An African prefecture was established in April 534.^[11] Although the Berbers were restless and the area was not completely pacified until after 560,^[12] the Vandal kingdom had ceased to exist and North Africa was again an imperial province. Sardinia and Corsica, the Balearic Islands, and the stronghold Septem near Gibraltar were recovered in the same campaign.^[13]

War in Italy, first phase (535–540)

Main article: Gothic War (535–552)

As in Africa, dynastic struggles in Ostrogothic Italy provided an opportunity for intervention. The young king Athalaric had died on 2 October 534, and a usurper, Theodahad, had imprisoned queen Amalasuntha, Theodoric's daughter and mother of Athalaric, on an island in Lake Bolsena, where he had her assassinated in 535. Thereupon Belisarius invaded Sicily (535) and advanced into Italy, sacking Naples and capturing Rome on 9 December 536. By that time Theodahad had been deposed by the Ostrogoth army, who had elected Vitigis as their new king. He gathered a large army and besieged Rome from February 537 to March 538 without being able to retake the city. Justinian sent another general, Narses, to Italy, but tensions between Narses and Belisarius hampered the progress of the campaign. Milan was taken, but was soon recaptured and razed by the Ostrogoths. Justinian recalled Narses in 539. By then the military situation had turned in favour of the Romans, and in 540 Belisarius reached the Ostrogothic capital Ravenna. There he was offered the title of Western Roman Emperor by the Ostrogoths at the same time that envoys of Justinian were arriving to negotiate a peace which would leave the region north of the river Po in Gothic hands. Belisarius feigned to accept the offer, entered the city in May 540, and reclaimed it for the Empire.^[14] Then, having been recalled by Justinian, Belisarius returned to Constantinople, taking the captured Vitigis and his wife Matasuentha with him.

War with the Sassanid Empire (540–562)

Belisarius had been recalled in the face of renewed hostilities by the Persians. Following a revolt against Byzantium in Armenia in the late 530s and possibly motivated by the pleas of Ostrogoth ambassadors, king Khosrau I broke the "Eternal Peace" and invaded Roman territory in the spring of 540.^[15] He first sacked Beroea and then Antioch (June 540), besieged Daras, and then went on to attack the small but strategically significant satellite kingdom of Lazica near the Black Sea, exacting tribute from the towns he passed along his way. Belisarius arrived in the East in 541, but, after gaining some successes, was again recalled to Constantinople in 542. The exact reasons for his withdrawal are not known, but it may have been instigated by rumours of disloyalty on behalf of the general reaching the court.^[16] The outbreak of the plague caused a lull in the fighting during the year 543. The following year Khosrau unsuccessfully besieged the major city of Edessa. Both parties made little headway, and in 545 a truce was agreed upon for the southern part of the Roman-Persian frontier. After that the Lazic War in the North continued for several years, until in 557 a second truce was made, which was followed by a Fifty Years' Peace in 562. Under its terms, the Persians agreed to abandon Lazica in exchange for an annual tribute of 400 or 500 pounds of gold to be paid by the Romans.^[17]

War in Italy, second phase (544–552)

While the main military efforts of the empire were being directed to the East, the situation in Italy had taken a turn for the worse. Under their respective kings Ildibad and Eraric (both murdered in 541) and especially Totila, the Ostrogoths made quick gains. After a victory at Faenza in 542, they reconquered the major cities of Southern Italy and soon held almost the entire peninsula. Belisarius was sent back to Italy late in 544, but lacked sufficient troops. Making no headway, he was relieved of his command in 548. During this period the city of Rome changed hands three more times, first being taken and depopulated by the Ostrogoths (December 546), then reconquered by the Byzantines (547), and then again by the Goths (January 550). In addition to his territorial gains, Totila plundered Sicily and attacked the coasts of Greece. Finally, Justinian dispatched a huge force under the command of Narses. The Roman army, numbering around 30.000, reached Ravenna in June 552. Less than a month later the Ostrogoths were decisively defeated in the battle of Busta Gallorum near Taginae in the Apennines, during which Totila himself was slain. After a second battle at Mons Lactarius in October that year, the resistance of the Ostrogoths was finally broken.

In addition to the other conquests, Byzantine forces took part of southern Spain from the Visigoths in 551. This marked the apogee of Byzantine expansion; large parts of the conquests in the West would be lost again soon after the emperor’s death. Nevertheless, under Justinian, the empire's territory had expanded greatly, if only for a short time.

During Justinian's reign, the Balkans suffered from several incursions by the Turkic and Slavic peoples who lived north of the Danube. Here, Justinian resorted mainly to a combination of diplomacy and a system of defensive works. In 559 a particularly dangerous invasion of Sklavinoi and Kutrigurs under their khan Zabergan threatened Constantinople, but they were repulsed by the aged general Belisarius.

Results

Justinian's ambition to restore the Roman Empire to its former glory was only partly realised. In the West, the brilliant early military successes of the 530s were followed by years of stagnation. The dragging war with the Goths was a disaster for Italy, even though its long-lasting effects may have been less severe than is sometimes thought.^[18] The heavy taxes that the administration imposed upon its population were deeply resented. While the final victory in Italy and the conquest of the coast of southern Spain significantly enlarged the area over which Byzantium could project its power and influence, and while they must have contributed to the empire's prestige, most of the conquests proved ephemeral. The greater part of Italy would be lost to the invading Lombards three years after Justinian's death (568), and within a century and a half Africa and Spain were forever lost for the empire.

Events of the later years of the reign showed that Constantinople itself was not safe from barbarian incursions from the north, and even the relatively benevolent historian Menander Protector felt the need to explain the emperor's failure to protect the capital from the weakness of his body in his old age.^[19] In his efforts to renew the old Roman Empire, Justinian dangerously stretched the resources of the Eastern Empire while failing to take into account the changed realities of 6th-century Europe.^[20] Paradoxically, Justinian's military successes probably contributed to the empire's subsequent decline.^[21]

Religious activities

Suppression of non-Christian religions

Justinian's religious policy reflected the imperial conviction that the unity of the Empire unconditionally presupposed unity of faith; and it appeared to him obvious that this faith could be only the Orthodox (Nicaean). Those of a different belief had to recognize that the process of consolidation, which imperial legislation had effect from the time of Constantius II, would now vigorously continue. The Codex contained two statutes^[22] which decreed the total destruction of paganism, even in private life; these provisions were zealously enforced. Contemporary sources (John Malalas, Theophanes, John of Ephesus) tell of severe persecutions, even of men in high position.

Perhaps the most noteworthy event occurred in 529 when the Neoplatonic Academy of Athens was placed under state control by order of Justinian, effectively strangling this training-school for Hellenism. Paganism was actively suppressed. In Asia Minor alone, John of Ephesus claimed to have converted 70,000 pagans.^[23] Other peoples also accepted Christianity: the Heruli,^[24] the Huns dwelling near the Don,^[25] the Abasgi,^[26] and the Tzani in Caucasia.^[27]

The worship of Amun at Augila in the Libyan desert was abolished;^[28] and so were the remnants of the worship of Isis on the island of Philae, at the first cataract of the Nile.^[29] The Presbyter Julian^[30] and the Bishop Longinus^[31] conducted a mission among the Nabataeans, and Justinian attempted to strengthen Christianity in Yemen by despatching an bishop from Egypt.^[32]

The Jews, too, had to suffer; for not only did the authorities restrict their civil rights,^[33] and threaten their religious privileges,^[34] but the emperor interfered in the internal affairs of the synagogue,^[35] and forbade, for instance, the use of the Hebrew language in divine worship. The recalcitrant were threatened with corporal penalties, exile, and loss of property. The Jews at Borium, not far from Syrtis Major, who resisted Belisarius in his Vandal campaign, had to embrace Christianity; their synagogue became a church.^[36]

The emperor had much trouble with the Samaritans, finding them refractory to Christianity and repeatedly in insurrection. He opposed them with rigorous edicts, but yet could not prevent hostilities towards Christians from taking place in Samaria toward the close of his reign. The consistency of Justinian's policy meant that the Manicheans too suffered severe persecution, experiencing both exile and threat of capital punishment.^[37] At Constantinople, on one occasion, not a few Manicheans, after strict inquisition, were executed in the emperor's very presence: some by burning, others by drowning^[38]

Religious policy

As with his secular administration, despotism appeared also in the emperor's ecclesiastical policy. He regulated everything, both in religion and in law.

At the very beginning of his reign, he deemed it proper to promulgate by law the Church's belief in the Trinity and the Incarnation; and to threaten all heretics with the appropriate penalties;^[39] whereas he subsequently declared that he intended to deprive all disturbers of orthodoxy of the opportunity for such offense by due process of law.^[40] He made the Nicaeno-Constantinopolitan creed the sole symbol of the Church,^[41] and accorded legal force to the canons of the four ecumenical councils.^[42] The bishops in attendance at the Second Council of Constantinople in 553 recognized that nothing could be done in the Church contrary to the emperor's will and command;^[43] while, on his side, the emperor, in the case of the Patriarch Anthimus, reinforced the ban of the Church with temporal proscription.^[44] Justinian protected the purity of the church by suppressing heretics. He neglected no opportunity for securing the rights of the Church and clergy, for protecting and extending monasticism.

Although the despotic character of his measures is contrary to modern sensibilities, he was indeed a "nursing father" of the Church. Both the Codex and the Novellae contain many enactments regarding donations, foundations, and the administration of ecclesiastical property; election and rights of bishops, priests and abbots; monastic life, residential obligations of the clergy, conduct of divine service, episcopal jurisdiction, etc. Justinian also rebuilt the Church of Hagia Sophia, the original site having been destroyed during the Nika riots. The new Hagia Sophia, with its numerous chapels and shrines, gilded octagonal dome, and mosaics, became the centre and most visible monument of Eastern Orthodoxy in Constantinople.

Religious relations with Rome

From the middle of the fifth century onward increasingly arduous tasks confronted the emperors of the East in ecclesiastical matters. For one thing, the radicals on all sides felt themselves constantly repelled by the creed adopted by the Council of Chalcedon to defend the biblical doctrine of the nature of Christ and bridge the gap between the dogmatic parties. The letter of Pope Leo I to Flavian of Constantinople was widely considered in the East as the work of Satan; so that nobody cared to hear of the Church of Rome. The emperors, however, had a policy of preserving the unity between Constantinople and Rome; and this remained possible only if they did not swerve from the line defined at Chalcedon. In addition, the factions in the East which had become stirred up and disaffected because of Chalcedon needed restraining and pacifying. This problem proved the more difficult because, in the East, the dissenting groups exceeded supporters of Chalcedon both in numerical strength and in intellectual ability. Tension from the incompatibility of the two aims grew: whoever chose Rome and the West must renounce the East, and vice versa.

Justinian entered the arena of ecclesiastical statecraft shortly after his uncle's accession in 518, and put an end to the Monophysite schism that had prevailed between Rome and Byzantium since 483. The recognition of the Roman see as the highest ecclesiastical authority^[45] remained the cornerstone of his Western policy. Offensive as it was to many in the East, nonetheless Justinian felt himself entirely free to take a Despotic stance toward the popes such as Silverius and Vigilius. While no compromise could ever be accepted by the dogmatic wing of the church, his sincere efforts at reconciliation gained him the approval of the major body of the church. A signal proof was his attitude in the Theopaschite controversy. At the outset he was of the opinion that the question turned on a quibble of words. By degrees, however, Justinian came to understand that the formula at issue not only appeared orthodox, but might also serve as a conciliatory measure toward the Monophysites, and he made a vain attempt to do this in the religious conference with the followers of Severus of Antioch, in 533.

Again, Justinian moved toward compromise in the religious edict of March 15, 533,^[46] and congratulated himself that Pope John II admitted the orthodoxy of the imperial confession.^[47] The serious blunder that he had made at the beginning by abetting a severe persecution of the Monophysite bishops and monks and thereby embittering the population of vast regions and provinces, he remedied eventually. His constant aim now remained to win over the Monophysites, yet not to surrender the Chalcedonian faith. For many at court, he did not go far enough: Theodora especially would have rejoiced to see the Monophysites favored unreservedly. Justinian, however, felt restrained by the complications that would have ensued with the West. But in the condemnation of the Three Chapters Justinian tried to satisfy both the East and the West, but succeeded in satisfying neither. Although the pope assented to the condemnation, the West believed that the emperor had acted contrary to the decrees of Chalcedon. Though many delegates emerged in the East subservient to Justinian, many, especially the Monophysites, remained unsatisfied; all the more bitter for him because during his last years he took an even greater interest in theological matters.

Building activities, art and literature

Justinian was a prolific builder. He strengthened the borders of the empire through the construction of fortifications, and assured Constantinople of its water supply through construction of underground cisterns. The emperor also built a bridge over the river Sangarius, securing a major trade route. He restored cities damaged by earthquake or war, and built a new city near his place of birth called Justiniana Prima. In Constantinople, he had the Hagia Sophia, a basilica style church that had been burnt down during the Nika riots, splendidly rebuilt according to a completely different ground plan. It was also during his reign that the San Vitale in Ravenna, which features two famous mosaics representing Justinian and Theodora, was completed. ^[4] Excavations at the site of the Great Palace of Constantinople have yielded several high-quality mosaics dating from Justinian's reign. A column topped by a bronze statue of Justinian on horseback and dressed in a military costume was erected in the Augustaeum in Constantinople in 543.^[48]

Furthermore, under Justinian's patronage, Byzantine culture produced noteworthy historians, including Procopius and Agathias, and poets such as Paul the Silentiary.

Economy

As was the case under Justinian's predecessors, the empire's economic health rested primarily on agriculture. In addition long-distance trade flourished, reaching as far north as Cornwall where tin was exchanged for Roman corn.^[49] Within the empire, convoys sailing from Alexandria provided Constantinople with corn, and Justinian made the traffic more efficient by building a large granary on the island of Tenedos for storage and further transport to Constantinople.^[50] Justinian also tried to find new routes for the eastern trade, which was suffering badly from the wars with the Persians. One important luxury product was silk, which was imported and then processed in the empire. In order to protect the manufacture of silk products, Justinian granted a monopoly to the imperial factories in 541.^[51] When in the early 550s two monks succeeded in smuggling eggs of silk worms from Central Asia back to Constantinople,^[52] silk became an indigenous Byzantine product.

Under Justinian's rule, measures were taken to counter corruption in the provinces and to make tax collection more efficient. Greater administrative power was given to both the leaders of the prefectures and of the provinces, while power was taken away from the vicariates of the dioceses, of which a number were abolished. The overall trend was towards a simplification of administrative infrastructure.^[53]

Throughout Justinian's reign, the cities and villages of the East prospered, although Antioch was struck by two earthquakes (526, 528) and sacked and evacuated by the Persians (540). Justinian had the city rebuilt, but on a slightly smaller scale.^[54]

Despite all these measures, the empire suffered several major setbacks in the course of the 6th century. The first one was the plague, which lasted from 541 to 543 and, by decimating the empire's population, probably created a scarcity of labour and a rising of wages.^[55] The lack of manpower also led to a significant increase in the number of "barbarians" in the Byzantine armies after the early 540s.^[56] The protracted war in Italy and the wars with the Persians themselves laid a heavy burden on the empire's resources, and Justinian was criticized for curtailing the government-run post service, which he limited to only one eastern route of military importance.^[57]

See also

• Plague of Justinian
• Cleon II, a science-fiction version of Justinian from Isaac Asimov's Foundation series
• History of the Roman Empire
• The Sarantine Mosaic, a historical high fantasy version of Justinian's reign by Guy Gavriel Kay

Notes

References

• This article incorporates text from the Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religion.

Bibliography

• Bury, J. B. (1958). History of the later Roman Empire, Vol. 2. New York (reprint).
• Cameron, Averil et al.(eds.). The Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. 14, Second Edition, Cambridge 2000.
• Evans, James Allan. The Emperor Justinian and the Byzantine Empire. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005 (hardcover, ISBN 0-313-32582-0).
• Maas, Michael (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian, Cambridge 2005.
• Meier, Mischa. Das andere Zeitalter Justinians. Kontingenzerfahrung und Kontingenzbewältigung im 6. Jahrhundert n. Chr. Göttingen, 2003.
• Meier, Mischa. Justinian. Herrschaft, Reich, und Religion. Munich, 2004.
• Moorhead, John. Justinian, London 1994.
• Rubin, Berthold (1960). Das Zeitalter Iustinians. Berlin. — German standard work; partially obsolete, but still useful.
• Sarris, Peter. Economy and society in the age of Justinian. Cambridge, 2006.

Wikipedia information about Justinian I This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Justinian I". It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer). Help contribute to Americola and edit this article.