The Reign of Emperor Justinian, 527–565

Justinian became the most famous eastern emperor by waging war to reunite the empire as it had been in the days of Augustus, making imperial rule more autocratic, constructing costly buildings in Constantinople, and instituting legal and religious reforms. Justinian had the same aims as all his predecessors: to preserve social order based on hierarchy and maintain divine goodwill. The cost of his plans, however, forced him to raise taxes, generating civil strife.

Justinian’s unpopular taxes provoked the Nika Riot in 532, when the Blue and Green factions, gathering to watch chariot races, united against the emperor, shouting “Nika! Nika!” (“Win! Win!”). After nine days of violence had left much of Constantinople in ashes, Justinian prepared to flee in panic. But Theodora sternly rebuked him: “Once born, no one can escape dying, but for one who has held imperial power it would be unbearable to be a fugitive. May I never take off my imperial robes of purple, nor live to see the day when those who meet me will not greet me as their ruler.” Her reproach convinced her husband to send in troops, who ended the rioting by slaughtering thirty thousand rioters trapped in the racetrack.

Justinian’s most ambitious goal was to restore the empire to a unified territory, religion, and culture. Invading the former western provinces, his generals defeated the Vandals and Ostrogoths after campaigns that in some cases took decades to complete. At an enormous cost in lives and money, Justinian’s armies restored the boundaries of the Roman Empire as in the time of Augustus, with its territory stretching from the Atlantic to the western edge of Mesopotamia. His successors, however, would not be able to retain these reconquests.

Justinian’s success in reuniting the western and eastern empires had unintended consequences: severe damage to the west’s infrastructure and the east’s finances. Italy endured the most physical destruction, while the eastern empire suffered because Justinian demanded even more taxes to finance his wars and pay the Persian kingdom not to attack. The tax burden crippled the economy, leading to constant banditry in the countryside. Crowds poured into the capital from rural areas, seeking relief from poverty and robbers.

Natural disaster compounded Justinian’s problems. In the 540s, a horrific epidemic killed a third of his empire’s inhabitants; a quarter of a million, half the capital’s population, died in Constantinople alone. This was the first of many pandemics that erased millions of people in the eastern empire over the next two centuries. Serious earthquakes increased the death toll. The loss of so many people created a shortage of army recruits, requiring the emperor to hire expensive mercenaries, and left countless farms vacant, reducing tax revenues.

Justinian sought stability by emphasizing his closeness to God and increasing the autocratic power of his rule. Moreover, he proclaimed the emperor the “living law,” recalling the Hellenistic royal doctrine that the ruler’s decisions defined law.

He communicated his supremacy and piety through his building program in Constantinople, especially in Hagia Sophia (“Church of the Holy Wisdom”). Creating a new design for churches, Justinian’s architects erected a huge building on a square plan capped by a dome 107 feet across and 160 feet high. Its interior walls glowed like the sun from the light reflecting off their four acres of gold mosaics. Imported marble of every color added to the sparkling effect. When he first entered his masterpiece, dedicated in 538, Justinian exclaimed, “I have defeated you, Solomon,” claiming to have outdone the glory of the temple that the ancient king built for the Hebrews.

Justinian’s autocratic rule reduced the autonomy of cities: imperial officials governed instead of their councils. Provincial elites still had to ensure full payment of their area’s taxes, but they no longer controlled local matters or social status. Men of property from the provinces who aspired to power and prestige could satisfy their ambitions only by joining the imperial administration in the capital.

To streamline the mass of decisions that earlier emperors had made, Justinian codified the laws. His Codex appeared in 529, with a revised version completed in 534. A team of scholars also condensed millions of words of regulations to produce the Digest in 533, intended to expedite legal cases and provide a syllabus for law schools. This collection, like the Codex written in Latin and therefore readable in the western empire, influenced legal scholars for centuries. Justinian’s legal experts also compiled a textbook for students, the Institutes, which appeared in 533 and remained on law-school reading lists until modern times.

To fulfill the emperor’s sacred duty to the welfare of his people, Justinian acted to enforce religious purity. He believed his world could not flourish if its god became angered by the presence of religious offenders. As emperor, Justinian decided who the offenders were. Zealously enforcing laws against polytheists, he compelled them to be baptized or forfeit their lands and official positions. He also purged heretical Christians opposing his version of orthodoxy.

Justinian’s laws made male homosexual relations illegal for the first time in Roman history. Male same-sex unions had apparently been allowed, or at least officially ignored, until they were prohibited in 342 after Christianity became the emperors’ religion. There had never before been any civil penalties imposed on men engaging in homosexual activity, perhaps because previous rulers considered it impractical to regulate men’s sexuality, given that adult men lived their private lives free of direct oversight. All the previous emperors had, for example, simply taxed male prostitutes. The legal status of homosexual activity between women is uncertain, but homosexual activity between married women probably counted as adultery and thus as a crime.

Justinian tried to reconcile orthodox and Monophysite Christians by revising the creed of the Council of Chalcedon. But the church leaders in Rome and Constantinople could not agree. The eastern and western churches were therefore launched on diverging courses that would result in formal schism five hundred years later. Justinian’s own ecumenical council in Constantinople ended in conflict in 553 when it jailed Rome’s defiant pope Vigilius while also managing to alienate Monophysite bishops. Justinian’s efforts to impose religious unity only drove Christians further apart and undermined his vision of a restored Roman world.