Justinian
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the
Eastern Roman Empire, also called the Byzantine
Empire, and sometimes called "The Other Roman
Empire", was flourishing. After the fall, a new
emperor came to power in the Eastern Roman
Empire. His name was Justinian.
Justinian lived in his palace in the capital city of
Constantinople. As part of his job of emperor,
Justinian ran the Catholic Church. He built a
majestic cathedral, organized and strengthened
the government, and established a law code that is still famous for its
excellence today. Except for his continual worry about a takeover, Justinian
did rule his empire wisely. Justinian had dreamed of restoring the Roman
Empire in Europe. In order to accomplish his goal, Justinian was faced with
the difficult task of retaking the Western provinces once controlled by Rome.
Much of the Western Roman Empire had fallen into the hands of four groups
of Germanic barbarian tribes. But what he wanted more than anything was
to restore the entire Roman Empire to its former glory, under his direction.
To do this, he had to win back the lost provinces in the west. He started to
wage war on the many barbarian tribes who had overrun the Western
Roman Empire. His military forces did gain back a lot of land that was lost
when Rome fell. Justinian's army took back southern Spain, all of Italy, and
northern Africa, until only the Franks in the rest of Europe, and the Saxons
in Britain, remained. War was costly. The Eastern Empire was nearly broke.
Justinian had to stop. He had to focus on his people at home.
Justinian's own birth-based status in society
was not high enough to command respect
without the imperial office, and his wife's
position was even worse. His wife, Theodora,
was the daughter of a bear-keeper father, an
acrobat mother, and she herself is considered
a courtesan. With most historical figures, the
spouses traditionally take a secondary role to
their spouses. However, Theodora, the wife of
Justinian, played a central role in the events
of Justinian's reign. Theodora was a strong-willed ally whose title of Empress
was not merely an honorary title for an Emperor's wife, but symbolized a
strong partnership in governing the world's largest and strongest Empire of
its time .
In January 532, crowds resentful of taxation and corruption rioted at the
games at the Hippodrome, in what became known as the Circus, or Nika,
Revolt. Justinian considered fleeing Constantinople. Instead of taking flight,
Theodora urged her husband to remain in the city to fight back and crush
the revolt: Justinian heeded her advice and the revolt was crushed, with
some thirty thousand rebels slaughtered by his soldiers that day.
Theodora led the way for social reforms that uplifted the role of women in
Byzantine society. She is credited with influencing many reforms, including
some which expanded the rights of women in divorce and property
ownership, forbid exposure of unwanted infants, gave mothers some
guardianship rights over their children, instituted the death penalty for rape
and forbid the killing of a wife who committed adultery. Theodora died early
in Justinian's reign, in 548, and was buried at the Church of the Holy
Wisdom, one of several churches she and her husband would build in
Constantinople. Justinian would not remarry, ruling his empire alone until his
own death in 565.
Justinian, the last emperor to use Latin, ruled until 565, leaving an
impressive list of achievements that included a vigorous attempt to reclaim
lost imperial lands in the west, the codification of old Roman law, and the
construction of Hagia Sophia.
Justinian was perhaps the last emperor that seriously entertained notions of
reconquering the west—the rule of the western empire fell permanently
vacant in 476 and the Byzantine emperors claimed as theirs. His expeditions
against Italy, however, failed. Although he conquered North Africa and
retook Italy from the Ostrogoths, these wars drained the Byzantine Empire
of much-needed resources. The Italian territories fell into the hands of
another Germanic tribe, the "Long Beards," or Lombards.
Justinian, however, is most famous for the body
of laws that he organized— the Corpus Juris
Civilis. This was a great legal achievement in
codifying Roman law. The Justinian Code, was
the result of Emperor Justinian's desire that
existing Roman law be collected into a simple
and clear system of laws, or "code." Tribonian,
a legal minister under Justinian, lead a group of
scholars in a 14-month effort to codify existing
Roman law. Emperor Justinian chose ten men to
review 1,600 books full of Roman Law (Twelve
Tables) and create a simpler legal code. These men were able to create the
Justinian Code with just over 4,000 laws. The laws were recorded in four
books.
Although Byzantium would eventually fade in influence, Justinian's Corpus
Juris Civilis became the foundation of all European law and legal practice.
Justinian is also credited for founding
Byzantine architecture with his building
of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople.
Constantinople’s religious center was
damaged during the Nika Rebellion.
several important religious and imperial
buildings including the original Hagia
Sophia. A newer version of the church
of Divine Wisdom, its true name - was
dedicated by the Emperor Justinian in
537AD. a church like none other ever
seen before. The scale of the building
exceeded any domed building
attempted before and tested the abilities of the Emperor's architects and
emptied the state treasury. Hagia Sophia was - and is - justly celebrated for
the luxuriousness and opulence of its decoration which included rare and
costly marbles, acres of gold mosaic and rich liturgical furnishings. The Hagia
Sophia continued the Roman tradition of building domes, the architecture of
the Roman basilica, but it was carried out on a scale unheard of in earlier
centuries. It is a style that fuses both Roman mosaic realism and an
otherworldly, almost abstract use of simple forms and dramatic colors.
Justinian and
Theodora
Remake the
Roman Empire
Hagia Sophia