Justinian I

Justinian I (Latin: Iustinianus, Ancient Greek: Ἰουστινιανός, romanized: Ioustinianós; 482 – 14 November 565), was Roman emperor from 527 to 565. His reign was marked by the ambitious but only partly realized renovatio imperii ('restoration of the Empire'). This ambition was expressed by the partial recovery of the territories of the defunct Western Roman Empire.

His general, Belisarius, swiftly conquered the Vandal Kingdom in North Africa. Subsequently, Belisarius, Narses, and other generals conquered the Ostrogothic Kingdom, restoring Dalmatia, Sicily, Italy, and Rome to the empire after more than half a century of rule by the Ostrogoths. The praetorian prefect Liberius reclaimed the south of the Iberian Peninsula, establishing the province of Spania. These campaigns re-established Roman control over the western Mediterranean, increasing the Empire's annual revenue by over a million solidi. During his reign, Justinian also subdued the Tzani, a people on the east coast of the Black Sea that had never been under Roman rule before. He engaged the Sasanian Empire in the east during Kavad I's reign, and later again during Khosrow I's reign; this second conflict was partially initiated due to his ambitions in the west.

Justinian is regarded as one of the most prominent and influential Roman emperors, with numerous accomplishments achieved during his reign. One of the most enduring aspects of his legacy was the uniform rewriting of Roman law, the Corpus Juris Civilis, which was first applied throughout the Eastern Mediterannean and is still the basis of civil law in many modern states. His reign also marked a blossoming of Byzantine culture, and his building program yielded works such as the Hagia Sophia. Conversely, Justinian's reign was troubled by religious conflicts between Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian Christians.

Life

According to his contemporary Procopius, Justinian was born in the hamlet of Tauresium in the province of Dardania, near the fortress of Bederiana, and close by the city of Justiniana Prima that he later founded. Later scholarship places his birth around 482. Tauresium is most commonly identified with the archaeological site of Gradište, by the village of Taor about 20 km (12 mi) southeast of Skopje, in what is now North Macedonia, with Bederiana placed at nearby Bader. This identification was first advanced by Arthur Evans and later confirmed by excavations directed by the archaeologist Kiro Ristov. By contrast, the prevailing identification of Justiniana Prima remains the site of Caričin Grad, which is located near Naissus (modern Niš) in Serbia, a location supported by the site's correspondence to Procopius' description and by lead seals of its archbishop. The considerable distance between the two sites, which is at odds with Procopius' statement that Justinian built the city close to his birthplace, has prompted scholarly debate about the place of his birthplace.

A native speaker of Latin (among the last Eastern Roman emperors to be one), he came from a peasant family thought to have been of either of Thraco-Roman or Illyro-Roman origin. The name Iustinianus, which he took later, is indicative of adoption by his uncle Justin. During his reign, he founded Justiniana Prima not far from his birthplace. His mother was Vigilantia, the sister of Justin. Justin, who was commander of one of the imperial guard units (the Excubitors) before he became emperor, adopted Justinian, brought him to Constantinople, and ensured the boy's education. As a result, Justinian was well educated in jurisprudence, theology, and Roman history. Justinian served as a candidatus, one of 40 men selected from the scholae palatinae to serve as the emperor's personal bodyguard. The chronicler John Malalas, who lived during the reign of Justinian, describes his appearance as short, fair-skinned, curly-haired, round-faced, and handsome, with receding hairline and greying hair and beard. Another contemporary historian, Procopius, describing him in similar terms, compares Justinian's appearance to that of Emperor Domitian, although this may be an allusion to one of the most despised men in Roman history.

When Emperor Anastasius died in 518, Justin was proclaimed the new emperor with significant help from Justinian. Justinian showed a lot of ambition, and several sources claim that he was functioning as virtual regent long before Justin made him associate emperor, although there is no conclusive evidence of this. As Justin became senile near the end of his reign, Justinian became the de facto ruler. Following the general Vitalian's assassination in 520 (orchestrated by Justinian or Justin), Justinian was appointed consul and commander of the army of the east. Justinian remained Justin's close confidant, and in 525 was granted the titles of nobilissimus and caesar (heir-apparent). He was crowned co-emperor on 1 April 527, and became sole ruler after Justin's death on 1 August 527.

As a ruler, Justinian showed great energy. He was known as "the emperor who never sleeps" for his work habits. Nevertheless, he seems to have been amiable and easy to approach. Around 525, he married his mistress, Theodora, in Constantinople. She was by profession an actress and prostitute and some twenty years his junior. In earlier times, Justinian could not have married her owing to her class, but his uncle, Emperor Justin I, had lifted restrictions on marriages with ex-actresses. Though the marriage caused a scandal, Theodora would become very influential in the politics of the Empire. It was said that Theodora matched Justinian's great energy and intelligence, thereby making their partnership an effective one. Other talented individuals included Tribonian, his legal adviser; Peter the Patrician, the diplomat and long-time head of the palace bureaucracy; Justinian's finance ministers John the Cappadocian and Peter Barsymes, who managed to collect taxes more efficiently than any before, thereby funding Justinian's wars; and finally, his generals, Belisarius and Narses, responsible for the re-conquest of North Africa and Italy.

Justinian's rule was not universally popular; early in his reign he nearly lost his throne during the Nika riots, and a conspiracy against the emperor's life by dissatisfied entrepreneurs was discovered as late as 562. Justinian was struck by the plague in the early 540s but recovered. Theodora died in 548 at a relatively young age, possibly of cancer; Justinian outlived her by nearly twenty years. Justinian, who had always had a keen interest in theological matters and actively participated in debates on Christian doctrine, became even more devoted to religion during the later years of his life. He died on 14 November 565, childless. He was succeeded by Justin II, who was the son of his sister Vigilantia and married to Sophia, the niece of Theodora. Justinian's body was entombed in a specially built mausoleum in the Church of the Holy Apostles until it was desecrated and robbed during the pillage of the city in 1204 by the Latin States of the Fourth Crusade.

Reign

Legislative activities

Justinian remains well-known for his judicial reforms, particularly through the complete revision of all Roman law, something that had not previously been attempted. The total of Justinian's legislation is known today as the Corpus juris civilis. It consists of the Codex Justinianeus, the Digesta or Pandectae, the Institutiones, and the Novellae.

Early in his reign, Justinian had appointed the quaestor Tribonian to oversee this task. The first draft of the Codex Justinianeus, a codification of imperial constitutions from the 2nd century onward, was issued on 7 April 529. (The final version appeared in 534.) It was followed by the Digesta (or Pandectae), a compilation of older legal texts, in 533, and by the Institutiones, a textbook explaining the principles of law. The Novellae, a collection of new laws issued during Justinian's reign, supplements the Corpus. As opposed to the rest of 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) 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 prudentium). Tribonian's code ensured the survival of Roman law. It formed the basis of later Byzantine law, as expressed in the Basilika of Basil I and Leo VI the Wise. The only western province where the Justinianic code was introduced was Italy (after the conquest by the so-called Pragmatic Sanction of 554), from where it was to pass to Western Europe in the 12th century and become the basis of much Continental European law code, which was eventually spread by European empires to the Americas and beyond in the Age of Discovery. It eventually passed to Eastern Europe where it appeared in Slavic editions, and it also passed on to Russia. It remains influential to this day.

His legislations restricted avenues of divorce, including divorce by mutual consent. The latter was overturned by his immediate successor, Justin II.

He passed laws to protect prostitutes from exploitation and women from being forced into prostitution. Rapists were treated severely. Further, by his policies: women charged with major crimes should be guarded by other women to prevent sexual abuse; if a woman was widowed, her dowry should be returned; and a husband could not take on a major debt without his wife giving her consent twice.

Family legislation also revealed a greater concern for the interests of children. This was particularly so with respect to children born out of wedlock. The law under Justinian also reveals a striking interest in child neglect issues. Justinian protected the rights of children whose parents remarried and produced more offspring, or who simply separated and abandoned their offspring, forcing them to beg.

Justinian also improved the rights of slaves. Slaves were given the right to plead personally for their freedom, and a master killing his slave would be classified as murder. Justinian acknowledged that slavery was an unnatural state of human existence and not a feature of natural law. The Justinian law retained the principle that a slave was an item of property, but it did not state that a slave was devoid of personhood.

He made laws against male homosexual acts, claiming they “cause earthquakes and famine” and arguing that they were a form of “atheism.” He enacted the law retrospectively, and a person could be convicted on the testimony of a single witness. Those convicted had their genitals cut off and were paraded through the streets.

Furthermore he passed legislation directed against philosophers, astrologers, heretics, pagans, Manicheans, Jews and Samaritans, forbidding them from holding public office, destroying their places of worship and restricting the ownership of property.

Justinian discontinued the regular appointment of Consuls in 541. Also, he was the first emperor to claim in a law that, by God’s authority, he was the incarnation of the law and therefore above it.

Nika riots

In January 532, partisans of the chariot racing factions in Constantinople, normally rivals, united against Justinian in a revolt that has become known as the Nika riots. They forced him to dismiss Tribonian and two of his other ministers, and then attempted to overthrow Justinian himself and replace him with the senator Hypatius, who was a nephew of the late emperor Anastasius. While the crowd was rioting in the streets, Justinian considered fleeing the capital by sea, but eventually decided to stay, apparently on the prompting of his wife Theodora, who refused to leave. In the next two days, he ordered the brutal suppression of the riots by his generals Belisarius and Mundus. Procopius relates that 30,000 unarmed civilians were killed in the Hippodrome. Justinian had Anastasius' nephews executed.

The damage caused by the riots was extensive. The rioters destroyed governmental buildings, state archives, hospices, hospitals and charitable institutions. The patients of the Hospice of Samson were all killed during the riots and the fires caused by the rioters reached as far as the Baths of Zeuxippus, which contained famous statues and monuments. The destruction that took place during the revolt provided Justinian with an opportunity to carry out his building program in Constantinople, most notably the architectural innovation of the domed Hagia Sophia.

Military activities

Justinian's reign was marked by the recovery of large stretches of land around the Western Mediterranean basin that had slipped out of imperial control in the 5th century. 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. The re-conquests were in large part carried out by his general Belisarius.

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