Trivial Biographies: Justinian I

NAME Justinian I, born Petrus Sabbatius, later Flavius Petrus Sabbatius Justinianus. He is commonly styled "Justinian the Great," and is venerated as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church. (1),

WHAT FAMOUS FOR Justinian I was Byzantine (East Roman) emperor from 527 to 565, best remembered for his sweeping codification of Roman law, known as the Corpus Juris Civilis, which remains the basis of civil law in many modern states. He is equally famous for his ambitious military campaigns to reclaim lost western provinces of the Roman Empire, his lavish building programme — above all the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople — and his controversial marriage to the former actress Theodora. (2)

BIRTH Justinian was born Petrus Sabbatius, probably on May 11, 483, in the small town of Tauresium, in the region of Dardania, roughly 12 miles (20 kilometres) southeast of modern Skopje in North Macedonia. (3)

FAMILY BACKGROUND He came from a peasant family of Illyrian or Latin-speaking stock. His mother, Vigilantia, was the sister of Justin, a soldier of humble origin who rose through the ranks of the imperial guard to become the Byzantine emperor Justin I in 518. It was this family connection to his uncle that would transform Justinian's life. (4)

CHILDHOOD Little is recorded of Justinian's earliest years in Tauresium. What is known is that his uncle Justin, already established in Constantinople as a successful soldier, took the boy under his wing and formally adopted him, bringing him to the capital to be raised and educated away from his rural, peasant origins. (5)

EDUCATION Justinian completed his education in Constantinople, where he studied jurisprudence, theology, and Roman history under his uncle's patronage. Despite this thorough education, he reportedly never fully mastered Greek and always spoke it with a noticeable accent, since Latin remained his first language throughout his life., (6)

CAREER RECORD 518 Following Justin I's accession to the throne, Justinian was appointed candidate of the palace guard and rose rapidly to commander of the garrison, military commander (magister militum), and patrician. (

521, He served as Roman consul, organizing lavish public games to secure popular support in Constantinople.

525, Created Caesar by his uncle, becoming the official second-in-command and heir apparent to the Byzantine throne.

527, Elevated to co-emperor as Augustus on April 1, 527. Following the death of Justin I on August 1, 527, Justinian became the sole sovereign of the Byzantine Empire, reigning until his death in 565.

Throughout his reign he pursued an extensive building programme across the empire and worked, largely unsuccessfully, to reunify the eastern and western branches of the Christian Church. (7)

APPEARANCE The contemporary chronicler John Malalas, who lived during Justinian's reign, described him as short, fair-skinned, curly-haired, round-faced, and handsome. (8)

The court historian Procopius, in his hostile Secret History, similarly described him as of average height, not thin but moderately plump, with a round face and good colour even after fasting, noting a resemblance to the emperor Domitian. (9)

Detail of a mosaic of Justinian in the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna, AD 547 By Petar Milošević

FASHION As emperor, Justinian would have worn the elaborate court dress of Byzantine royalty: a purple silk chlamys (cloak) fastened with a jewelled brooch, ornate gold-threaded garments, and a diadem, as depicted in the famous mosaic of Justinian and his retinue at the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna. Purple, produced from rare and costly dye, was reserved exclusively for imperial use and symbolised his supreme authority. (10)

CHARACTER Justinian was, by most accounts, a man of extraordinary capacity for work, with a temperate, affable, and lively character, yet he could also be unscrupulous and crafty when it suited his purposes. Procopius, though a hostile source, painted a far darker picture in his Secret History, calling him deceitful and easily led, though this account is now generally regarded by historians as an exaggerated, embittered polemic. (3), (9)

SPEAKING VOICE His first language was Latin, the ancestral tongue of the Roman administration. Though fluent in Greek, the dominant language of the Byzantine population, he spoke it with a distinct and noticeable provincial accent. (2)

SENSE OF HUMOUR He maintained a genial and pleasant public exterior, though historical sources rarely recorded him indulging in levity, as he was consumed by his intense work ethic and sense of imperial duty. (2)

RELATIONSHIPS In 525, Justinian married Theodora (c. 500-548), a former actress and daughter of a bear-keeper at the Hippodrome. Since actresses were regarded as being on a social level akin to prostitutes, such a marriage would previously have been forbidden to a man of Justinian's rank; his uncle Justin had passed a law permitting intermarriage between social classes, which cleared the way for the union.

Theodora proved to be one of the most influential empresses in Byzantine history, acting as a genuine political partner to her husband, most famously urging him to stand firm during the Nika riots rather than flee the city.

She died in 548, likely of cancer, and Justinian never remarried during his remaining seventeen years. (11), (12)

Mosaic of Theodora, Justinian's wife by Petar Milošević

MONEY AND FAME As Byzantine emperor, Justinian commanded the resources of the wealthiest state in the Mediterranean world, which he poured into his legal codification, church-building, and military campaigns, at times straining imperial finances to their limits. His fame has proved extraordinarily durable: he is remembered today chiefly through the Corpus Juris Civilis, still cited as a foundation of civil law, and through the Hagia Sophia, one of the most celebrated buildings in the world. (2)

FOOD AND DRINK He was extremely temperate in his habits, eating simple foods, avoiding excessive alcohol, and observing rigorous religious fasts where he abstained from wine and meat. (2)

MUSIC AND ARTS Justinian presided over a genuine flowering of Byzantine art and architecture, commissioning magnificent mosaics, including the celebrated depictions of himself and Theodora at the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna, which remain among the most iconic images of Byzantine imperial art. (10)

LITERATURE Justinian's own great "literary" legacy is legal rather than artistic: the Corpus Juris Civilis, comprising the Codex, the Digest, the Institutes, and the Novels, systematised centuries of Roman legal writing into a coherent body of work compiled between 529 and 534 under the direction of the jurist Tribonian. (7)

NATURE Justinian took a close administrative interest in agricultural taxation and the management of landed estates across the empire. Since land taxes and produce levies underpinned the imperial treasury, he issued laws regulating provincial assessments, tax receipts, land measurement, tenant obligations, ecclesiastical estates, and the treatment of abandoned land. His concern was principally fiscal: to secure revenue, reduce evasion and corruption, and keep productive land in cultivation. (13)

HOBBIES AND SPORTS Justinian was closely associated with the Hippodrome of Constantinople and its chariot racing, since the venue was the setting of the Nika riots of 532, when supporters of the rival Blue and Green factions united against him; however, there is little evidence that Justinian himself was a devoted sportsman or took part in racing as a pastime. (14)

SCIENCE AND MATHS Justinian sponsored one of late antiquity’s most daring architectural enterprises when he commissioned Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus to design the new Hagia Sophia after its predecessor was destroyed in the Nika riots. Anthemius, a mathematician and specialist in geometry, and Isidore, a geometer, physicist and engineer, devised its immense central dome, carried on pendentives: curved triangular supports that channelled its weight down into four colossal piers. Completed in 537, the building represented an innovative large-scale application of this structural system, although its original dome later collapsed and was rebuilt on a higher profile. (15)

In 529 he ordered the closure of Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum in Athens, ending centuries of pagan philosophical teaching that had included natural philosophy and mathematics. (2)

PHILOSOPHY & THEOLOGY A deeply pious man, Justinian expelled pagan teachers and closed the schools of pagan philosophy in Athens, including Plato's Academy, viewing Christian orthodoxy as central to imperial unity. He worked strenuously, though ultimately without lasting success, to reconcile the eastern and western branches of the Christian Church, which were divided over the precise theological relationship between Christ and God the Father. (2)

Below is a 6th-century mosaic in Ravenna, showing Justinian with the bishop Maximianus, bodyguards, and courtiers.

By Roger Culos

EMPEROR In 518, Justin, Justinian’s uncle, became emperor, and his nephew wasted little time making himself useful. Justinian rose rapidly through the Byzantine court, acquiring senior military and administrative positions as his uncle’s health began to deteriorate. It was a useful arrangement: Justin had the throne, while Justinian increasingly looked like the man who knew what to do with it.

On April 1, 527, Justinian was made co-emperor. Four months later, on August 1, Justin died, leaving Justinian as sole ruler of the Byzantine Empire. He would remain emperor until his death in 565, giving him one of the longest and most consequential reigns in Byzantine history. He also acquired the rather formidable reputation of a man who was determined to reorganize practically everything within reach.

One of his most enduring achievements was the Corpus Juris Civilis, the great compilation of Roman law commissioned between 529 and 534. Prepared under the direction of the jurist Tribonian and his team, it gathered, edited and systematized centuries of Roman legal material. It was an enormous undertaking and, unlike many imperial projects, one that continued to matter long after Justinian and virtually everyone involved had become historical dust. Much of modern European civil law ultimately traces part of its ancestry back to this work.

Justinian very nearly lost his throne in 532 during the Nika riots, when a spectacularly angry crowd in Constantinople turned a dispute over chariot racing factions into a full-scale uprising. The capital descended into violence, buildings were burned and the emperor's position became alarmingly precarious. Justinian reportedly considered fleeing, but his wife, Theodora, helped stiffen his resolve. The rebellion was eventually crushed, leaving thousands dead and Justinian still on his throne, although probably with a somewhat reduced enthusiasm for public entertainment.

The destruction caused by the riots also gave Justinian an opportunity to rebuild on a grand scale. The most famous result was the Hagia Sophia, which was reconstructed and reconsecrated in 537. Its enormous dome and extravagant interior made it one of the greatest architectural achievements of the ancient world, and Justinian is said to have exclaimed that he had surpassed Solomon. This was perhaps a little difficult to verify, but the building certainly made the point rather effectively.

Justinian was not content merely to repair the empire's buildings. He wanted to repair the empire itself. Beginning in 533, his brilliant general Belisarius launched a campaign against the Vandal Kingdom in North Africa. Within a remarkably short time, the Vandals were defeated and the territory was restored to Roman control. For Justinian, it was the first major step in his grand ambition to recover the western provinces that had slipped away from the Roman Empire during the preceding century.

Italy proved considerably less cooperative. From 535 onward, Belisarius and later Narses fought a long and exhausting series of campaigns against the Ostrogoths. Rome, Sicily and Dalmatia were eventually brought back under imperial control, but the fighting devastated much of Italy and consumed enormous quantities of money and manpower. By the time the struggle was effectively over, Justinian had succeeded in recovering substantial former Roman territory, though the achievement was rather like winning back an old house after discovering that the roof, plumbing and most of the furniture had gone with it.

Throughout his reign, Justinian pursued an immense programme of construction, lawmaking and military expansion. He also spent considerable effort trying to reunite the eastern and western branches of Christianity, which had become divided by theological disputes that were apparently incapable of being settled without generating several more theological disputes. His efforts produced limited success.

By the time Justinian died in 565, he had transformed much of the Byzantine Empire. He had codified Roman law, rebuilt Constantinople, expanded imperial territory across the Mediterranean and attempted to restore the political and religious unity of the old Roman world. His achievements were immense, although the wars had left the empire exhausted and many of his western conquests would prove difficult to hold. Like many men who attempt to restore a fallen empire, Justinian discovered that rebuilding the past is considerably easier on a map than it is in real life.

POLITICS Justinian pursued a policy of centralising imperial authority, reorganising the administration of the empire and outlawing the sale of provincial governorships in an effort to curb corruption. His reliance on efficient but deeply unpopular advisers, such as the tax official John the Cappadocian, nearly cost him his throne during the Nika riots of January 532, when the normally opposed Blue and Green chariot-racing factions united in rebellion. (14)

SCANDAL Justinian's marriage to Theodora, a former actress associated with the disreputable world of the Hippodrome, scandalised the traditional Byzantine aristocracy and required a change in the law to permit it. Procopius's Secret History, written after Justinian's death, went even further, levelling scandalous and almost certainly exaggerated accusations of demonic possession and monstrous cruelty against the emperor and his wife. (9), (11)

MILITARY RECORD Justinian's reign was dominated by ambitious wars of reconquest, conducted largely through his brilliant generals Belisarius and Narses rather than by Justinian leading troops in person.

His forces conquered the Vandal Kingdom in North Africa in 533-534 and, after a long and devastating war lasting two decades, brought the whole of Italy back under imperial control by 562, while also fighting intermittent campaigns against the Persian Empire and defending the northern frontier against Bulgar, Slav, and Hun incursions. (2)

The map below shows the Byzantine Empire at its greatest extent since the fall of the Western Roman Empire, under Justinian I in 565 AD.

By NeimWiki

HEALTH AND PHYSICAL FITNESS In 542, at the height of the devastating pandemic now known as the Plague of Justinian, the emperor himself contracted the disease but survived, unlike a large proportion of the population of Constantinople, which lost perhaps two-fifths of its inhabitants to the outbreak. He lived to the age of about 82, a notably long life for the era, suggesting a generally robust constitution despite this brush with the plague. (16)

HOMES As emperor, Justinian's principal residence was the Great Palace of Constantinople, the sprawling imperial complex adjoining the Hippodrome and the Hagia Sophia, from which he governed the empire for nearly four decades. (7)

TRAVEL Unlike many Roman emperors of earlier centuries, Justinian rarely travelled far from Constantinople during his reign, instead directing his generals and officials to conduct military campaigns and administer distant provinces such as Italy, North Africa, and the eastern frontier on his behalf. (2)

DEATH Justinian died on November 14, 565, in Constantinople. Having no surviving children, he was succeeded by his nephew Justin II, the son of his sister Vigilantia, who was married to Sophia, a niece of Empress Theodora. (2)

Justinian's body was entombed in a specially built mausoleum at the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople, until the tomb was desecrated and robbed during the sack of the city by the Latin forces of the Fourth Crusade in 1204. (2)

APPEARANCES IN MEDIA Justinian appears as a major character in Dante Alighieri's Paradise in the Divine Comedy, as well as numerous historical novels including Count Belisarius by Robert Graves and various screen adaptations of late Roman history.

ACHIEVEMENTS Justinian's codification of Roman law in the Corpus Juris Civilis stands as one of the most influential legal achievements in Western history, still underpinning civil law systems across much of Europe today.

His reconquest of North Africa and Italy briefly restored much of the old Roman Empire under Byzantine rule

His building programme, crowned by the reconstruction of the Hagia Sophia in 537, left an enduring architectural legacy.