Emperor Justinian (527–565) is one of history’s greatest and most controversial rulers. During his reign, the Eastern Roman, or Byzantine, empire reached its largest extent since the last Western Roman emperor was deposed in 476. Led by the general Belisarius, Justinian’s armies began a reconquest that brought North Africa, Italy, and parts of Spain back under imperial control. At the same time, Justinian and his wife, Theodora, oversaw a wide-ranging series of political, legal, and religious reforms, which laid the foundation for later Western law and saw the construction of the magnificent church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (now Istanbul). Yet this was also an age of conflict and tragedy. Justinian’s attempts to impose religious unity upon his empire failed, his wars caused widespread devastation, and his reign witnessed the first outbreak of bubonic plague in the Mediterranean world.
David Gwynn, associate professor in ancient and late antique history at Royal Holloway, University of London, explores contradictory assessments of Justinian, from the judgments of contemporary sources to those of modern scholars. Was Justinian an autocratic tyrant whose ambitions left his empire overstretched and vulnerable? Or did his achievements preserve the legacy of imperial Rome and allow Byzantium to survive the rise of Islam less than a century after Justinian’s death?
General Information
