Justinian and the Byzantine Empire

• Byzantine civilization reached its greatest size under the emperor Justinian, who ruled from 527 to 565.
• Justinian was determined to revive ancient Rome by retaking lands that had been overrun by invaders.
• Led by the brilliant general Belisarius, Byzantine armies reconquered North Africa, Italy, and the southern Iberian peninsula.
• However, the fighting exhausted Justinian’s treasury and weakened his defenses in the east. Moreover, the victories were only temporary. Justinian’s successors would lose the bitterly contested lands, one after the other.
• To restore Roman glory, Justinian launched a program to make Constantinople grander than ever. His great triumph was rebuilding the church of Hagia Sophia (ah yee uh suh fee uh), which means “Holy Wisdom.”
• Hagia Sophia's immense, arching dome improved on earlier Roman buildings. The interior glowed with colored marble and embroidered silk curtains. Seeing this church, the emperor recalled King Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem. “Glory to God who has judged me worthy of accomplishing such a work as this!” Justinian exclaimed. “O Solomon, I have surpassed you!”
• Justinian’s Code and Its Impact Even more important than expanding the empire and rebuilding its capital was Justinian’s reform of the law. Early in his reign, he set up a commission to collect, revise, and organize all the laws of ancient Rome.
• The result was the Corpus Juris Civilis, or “Body of Civil Law,” popularly known as Justinian’s Code. This massive collection included laws passed by Roman assemblies or decreed by Roman emperors, as well as the legal writings of Roman judges and a handbook for students.
• Justinian’s Code had a legal and political impact far beyond the Byzantine empire. By the 1100s, it had reached Western Europe. There, monarchs modeled their laws on its principles, which would slowly, over many centuries, help them to centralize their power. Later, the code also guided legal thinkers who began to put together the international law in use today.
• To Justinian, the law was a means to unite the empire. Yet he himself was an autocrat, or sole ruler with complete authority. Like earlier Roman emperors, he had a large bureaucracy to carry out his orders.
• The emperor also had power over the Church. He was deemed Christ’s co-ruler on Earth.
• As a Byzantine official wrote, “The emperor is equal to all men in the nature of his body, but in the authority of his rank he is similar to God, who rules all.” His control was aided by his wife, Theodora. A shrewd politician, she served as advisor and co-ruler to Justinian. At
• The Byzantine empire was a powerful force in the Mediterranean world for centuries.
• Arab armies overran the wealthy Byzantine provinces of Egypt and Syria in the 600s and 700s, but Constantinople held out.
• By resisting the Arab advance, the Byzantine empire gave a measure of security to the small, weak Germanic kingdoms that had divided up Western Europe after the fall of Rome.
• The fortunes of the Byzantine empire declined in the 9th and 10th centuries, and the empire eventually fell to the Ottoman Turks.

Test your knowledge about Emperor Justinian, his conquests, the significance of Hagia Sophia, and the impact of Justinian’s Code on Western Europe and international law.