Justinian

Justinian was a Latin-speaking Illyrian and was born of peasant stock. Justinianus was a Roman name that he took from his uncle, the emperor Justin I, to whom he owed his advancement. While still a young man, he went to Constantinople, where his uncle held high military command. He received an excellent education, though it was said that he always spoke Greek with a bad accent. When Justin became emperor in 518, Justinian was a powerful influence in guiding the policy of his elderly and childless uncle, whose favorite nephew he was. He was legally adopted by Justin and held important offices. On April 4, 527, was made co-emperor. At the same time, his wife, the former actress Theodora, who exercised considerable influence over him, was crowned Augusta. On Justin I’s death on Aug. 1, 527, Justinian succeeded him as sole emperor. Justinian was a man of large views and great ambitions, of wonderful activity of mind, tireless energy, and an unusual grasp of detail. In attempting to restore the Byzantine Empire to the territorial extent of the Old Roman Empire, Justinian’s aims were those of nearly every Byzantine emperor, even though such plans were generally doomed to failure. It should not be forgotten that Justinian renewed Byzantine rule and Hellenic influence in parts of Italy for several centuries and that, for more than a half century, sound government was given to North Africa, from which came salvation for Constantinople in the person of Heraclius in 610. Justinian’s legal work and the magnificent Great Church (as Hagia Sophia was called) have won him unending fame, and the literature, poetry, and philosophical achievements of his contemporaries bear witness to the outstanding quality of 6th-century civilization in the Eastern Roman Empire.