The Oxford History of Byzantium

by Cyril Mango

  This determined effort to reposition the emperor at the heart of the religious life of his subjects proceeded alongside an attempt to reassert imperial control over the secular structures of government. Between 528 and 534 Justinian’s advisers reformed and codified the civil law of the empire. The inherited legal framework was remodelled to serve contemporary needs, and the emperor was established, for the first time in Roman tradition, as the one and only legitimate source of law. The person of the emperor was, Justinian decreed, ‘the law animate’.

  Facing: Interior of St Sophia, Constantinople, built 532–7. Apart from the removal of the stepped seating in the apse, chancel screen, and pulpit, the interior is remarkably well preserved in spite of the many vicissitudes the building has undergone.

  As the new legal framework of the empire took shape, so in 535 Justinian attempted to render recourse to the law more practicable for his subjects. Between 535 and 539 he legislated on the administrative and governmental structure of no fewer than seventeen provinces, in an attempt to make governors less prone to the corrupting blandishments offered by the patronage of aristocratic landowners, and to secure the collection of vital tax revenues. As Justinian declared in 539 in his edict on Egypt, tax evasion on the part of city councillors, landowners, and imperial officials threatened ‘the very cohesion of our state itself’.

  Marble head of an empress, often identified as Theodora. Another candidate is Licinia Eudoxia, daughter of Theodosius II, wife of the western emperor Valentinian III (437–55).

  Such a concerted series of reforms was bound to elicit internal opposition, not least on the part of those aristocratic interests to whom active imperial rule was by no means an attractive option. The first and most dramatic expression of discontent erupted in the year 532, in what is known as the ‘Nika’ insurrection in Constantinople. Members of the senate took advantage of the discontent of the Constantinopolitan mob to seek to dismiss Justinian’s chief advisers and, ultimately, to attempt to replace the emperor himself. Justinian is reported to have considered taking flight, but was dissuaded by his wife, the indomitable empress Theodora, a former actress reviled in one contemporary account as a meddlesome whore. The revolt was crushed amidst a horrific bloodbath in the city’s hippodrome. In the wake of the Nika riots, much of the monumental heart of Constantinople had to be rebuilt.

  Facing: A pendant to the Justinian panel in the church of San Vitale, Ravenna, the Theodora panel shows the empress presenting to the church a jewelled gold chalice. The theme of offering is echoed by the representation of the Three Magi embroidered on the hem of her purple silk mantle.

  Justinian and his entourage did, nevertheless, attempt to appeal to conservative sentiment. However innovatory the reality of the emperor’s legal project was, legal and provincial reforms were presented in antiquarian and conservative terms. The law was to be restored to its pristine glory. Changes in the administration of the provinces were justified in terms of ancient precedents. Moreover, Justinian took an aggressive stance towards the empire’s rivals to the east, the north, and the west. In relation to Persia, he followed in the footsteps of his predecessors, Justin and Anastasius, in investing in the empire’s defensive infrastructure along its Persian frontier. At the same time, he extended and entrenched the empire’s position in the strategically vital region of the Transcaucasus, and fostered the Roman client chieftaincy of the Ghassan along the empire’s Arabian flank.

  Likewise, in the Balkans, the early years of Justinian’s reign witnessed a major consolidation of the empire’s position. Justinian engaged in a canny tribal policy amongst the barbarians beyond the Danube, setting one group against another. Within Roman territory, he provided the Balkan hinterland with a series of fortifications, walls, and rural redoubts, aimed at limiting the damage that barbarian raiders could inflict.

  Militarily, the eastern and northern frontiers were Justinian’s chief concerns. At almost no stage were their needs neglected. Nevertheless, in the 530s the emperor took advantage of political instability in the Vandal kingdom of North Africa and the Ostrogothic regime in Italy to attempt to restore direct Roman rule over these territories. In many respects, these were campaigns on the cheap: only some 15,000 men were sent to North Africa, and it is unlikely that there were ever more than 30,000 troops engaged in active service during the long-drawn-out Italian campaign. These western forays were, nevertheless, successful. North Africa fell in 533–4, and Italy was reduced between 535 and 553. In the early 550s, Justinian’s armies were even able to establish a foothold in southern Spain. These victories did much to restore the empire to a position of political, ideological, and military dominance in the central and western Mediterranean.

  From the beginning of the 540s, however, the mood of ambition and confidence that had characterized the first fourteen years of Justinian’s reign, began to give way to a rather more sombre attitude. There appear to have been a number of reasons for this. Men of a conservative frame of mind such as the historian Procopius, or another contemporary author, John the Lydian, began to feel that the price for the restoration of Rome’s imperial glory, in terms of internal and fiscal reform, was a rather high one. Both authors, for example, take a distinctly negative view of the policies of Justinian’s chief internal and financial minister, John the Cappadocian. It is perhaps no surprise that John fell from favour and was exiled in 541. Furthermore, in spite of Justinian’s aggressive stance towards Persia, the Sasanians were still capable of breaching the empire’s eastern defences. In 540, the Persian shah Khusro I bypassed Roman defences in Mesopotamia and sacked the city of Antioch— an event which left a deep impression on Procopius, who wrote that he ‘became dizzy’ when he attempted to report the calamity.

  Facing: Exterior view of St Sophia, Constantinople (532–7) from the south. In the Byzantine period the view of the south facade was obstructed by the patriarchal palace, which reached up to gallery level. Today this space is occupied by the mausolea of Ottoman sultans.

  From the late 550s the imperial position in the Balkans was undermined by the arrival to the north of the Danube of yet another nomadic group fleeing the Eurasian steppe. Forced westwards by the expansion to the north of the Caucasus and the Black Sea of the western Turk empire, a people known as the Avars came to establish themselves on the Pannonian plain. Although Justinian was initially able to incorporate the Avars into his tribal policy, their arrival was ominous.

  The city-fortress of Dara (Anastasiopolis) was built on the Persian frontier close to Nisibis by the emperor Anastasius (505–7) and further strengthened by Justinian. It played thereafter a notable part in the wars between Byzantium and Persia. Portions of its walls, granaries, and cisterns still stand.

  Perhaps most crucially, Justinian’s internal, fiscal, and religious policies themselves began to falter. It was becoming increasingly evident that the dispute over Chalcedon was essentially insoluble. In 553, at the Second Council of Constantinople, Justinian’s theologians did in fact piece together a formula that ought to have addressed the concerns of all parties concerned. By this stage, however, the tradition of conflict over Chalcedon was so ingrained in the minds of the participants that few were interested in restoring peace to the Church. To do so would have been to show disrespect to the memory of the heroes of the previous generation whom each side revered.

  Facing: Interior of the church of Sts Sergius and Bacchus, Constantinople, built by Justinian and Theodora between 531 and 536 for a community of Monophysite monks. The nave is octagonal in plan, covered by a huge dome. The dedicatory inscription is still preserved on the horizontal entablature.

  Financially, the 540s saw the empire dealt a body blow by the advent of the bubonic plague, which, originating in central Africa, reached the empire for the first time via the Red Sea in the year 541. From Egypt, the plague soon spread to Constantinople, Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, the Balkans, North Africa, and Italy. Both the cities of the empire and their rural hinterlands were severely affected by the initia
l impact of the disease and its subsequent recurrences, a fact attested by a wide range of contemporary eyewitness accounts. Thus Procopius, who was present at the arrival of the plague in Constantinople, describes how, at one point, it struck down 10,000 victims in the city in a single day. John of Ephesus witnessed ‘villages whose inhabitants perished altogether’. The population of the empire may have been reduced by a third. Not only did this mean much human misery, it also dramatically diminished the number of taxpayers on whom the state could rely. The years after the advent of the plague saw the gold coinage of the empire repeatedly debased, as some attempt was made to stretch limited resources ever further.

  Electrotype of lost gold medallion of Justinian, struck in 534 to commemorate the reconquest of Africa from the Vandals. The emperor is represented on both sides, nimbed and wearing an extraordinary helmet-cumdiadem surmounted by a tuft of peacock feathers.

  The city of Zenobia, named after the third-century queen of Palmyra and situated on the Euphrates, was rebuilt by Justinian and given a permanent garrison. Its walls, which describe a triangle, are still standing. Here the military headquarters (principia) of the garrison.

  Rusafa, burial place of St Sergius in the Syrian steppe, was an important centre of pilgrimage. Its walls—of which the highly ornate north gate is shown here— are ascribed to the emperor Justinian. Important remains of three large churches are still to be seen within the walls.

  At the same time, attempts to prevent the further expansion of aristocratic estates within the provinces and to curb the illicit patronage and tax evasion of great landowners appear to have been failing, thus further denying the state vital revenues. A number of Justinian’s provincial reforms were reversed and legislative activity on the part of the emperor and his advisers diminished to a trickle.

  In 565 Justinian died. As the court poet Corippus put it, ‘the awesome death of the man showed by clear signs that he had conquered the world. He alone, amidst universal lamentations, seemed to rejoice in his pious countenance.’ The memory of Justinian was to loom large in the minds of subsequent generations of emperors, just as the physical monuments built in Constantinople during his reign were long to dominate the medieval city. Nevertheless, in spite of the grandeur of Justinian’s project, buffeted by plague, frustrated by deeply entrenched social and religious realities, a reign that had promised so much ultimately ended in disappointment. Justinian bequeathed to his successor, Justin II, an empire which, though larger, was nevertheless markedly fragile and fiscally unstable.

  This fiscal instability in particular was to do much to undermine the reigns of Justinian’s successors and limit their ability to meet ever more pressing military needs. Justin II declared upon his accession that he ‘found the treasury burdened with many debts and reduced to utter exhaustion’. The emperor was consequently unwilling, or unable, to continue the subventions by which the empire had secured the support of the Ghassanids in Arabia, as well as, more recently, of the Avars in the Balkans.

  The consolidation of Avar power to the north of the Danube rendered Justinian’s policy of ‘divide and rule’ less and less effective. Both Slavs and Lombards attempted to flee Avar domination, entering imperial territory in the Balkans and Italy respectively. Between 568 and 572 much of northern Italy fell. In the 580s, a number of cities in the Balkans from Thessalonica to Athens suffered repeated Avar and Slav attacks, the Avars concentrating on the plains to the north, the Slavs taking advantage of mountainous highlands and forest cover to strike and settle ever further south. In the 590s, the emperor Maurice directed a series of successful military campaigns along and beyond the Danube, but these forays, impressive though they were, did little to remedy the situation elsewhere in the region. Economies were the order of the day. In 588, military pay was reduced by 25 per cent, leading to a major mutiny on the empire’s eastern frontier.

  Warfare with Persia continued intermittently during the late sixth century. In spite of a weakening of the Roman position in Arabia, the empire made significant advances at the expense of the Persians in Transcaucasia, when the emperor Maurice took advantage of a coup against the reigning shah Hormizd IV. In 591, Maurice helped to place on the Sasanian throne the shah’s son, Khusro II, in return for major territorial concessions. This was a treaty that Khusro was bound to wish to reverse. Twelve years later, he was to have his chance.

  In the year 602, imperial forces were campaigning against Slav tribes beyond the Danube. Maurice ordered that the troops continue the campaign into the winter. The emperor was already unpopular in military circles due to his economizing, and the Danubian army erupted into open revolt under the leadership of an officer by the name of Phokas. The army marched on Constantinople. On 23 August 602, Phokas was proclaimed Augustus. A few days later, Maurice was executed along with at least four of his five sons.

  The fall of Maurice and the accession of Phokas saw the empire’s descent into a protracted civil war. A seventh-century Armenian history, which appears well informed on imperial affairs, describes bloodletting throughout the provinces of the Roman world. Khusro II seized this opportunity to attempt to regain what he had been obliged to cede in 591. The weakness of the Roman resistance led to a dramatic escalation of the shah’s ambitions. In the year 603, with the Roman army evidently in a state of some disarray, Khusro struck into the Roman frontier positions, seizing a series of cities and fortifications. By 609/10 the Persians had reached the Euphrates. This was followed by an extension of the campaign into Syria. In 611, the Persians advanced into Anatolia.

  These dramatic Persian victories led to further political instability within the empire. In 608, the military governor of Carthage rebelled. In 609 his nephew, Nicetas, advanced into Egypt and seized control of Alexandria. On 3 October 610, the governor’s son, Heraclius, arrived outside the imperial capital at the head of a fleet. Phokas’ supporters deserted him. Two days later, Phokas was dead and Heraclius had replaced him as emperor.

  Amongst Heraclius’ first moves appear to have been a withdrawal of Roman troops from the Balkans in an attempt to concentrate resources on driving the Persians out of Anatolia. This Heraclius may have partly achieved in a successful engagement in 612, but in 613 his army suffered a major defeat in the vicinity of Antioch. The Persians now set about the reduction of what remained of Syria and Palestine. In 613 Damascus fell, whilst in 614 a victorious Persian army entered Jerusalem, where, amidst much slaughter, the remains of the True Cross were seized and sent off to Persia.

  By 615, a cowed Constantinopolitan senate was willing to sue for peace. A high-ranking embassy was dispatched to Khusro II. The shah was addressed as ‘supreme emperor’, Heraclius was described as the shah’s ‘true son, one who is eager to perform the services of your serenity in all things’. The senate was willing to acknowledge the Persian empire as superior to that of Rome and the Roman empire as its tributary. Khusro’s response was forthright. The ambassadors were imprisoned. No mercy was to be shown. Persia was set to eliminate its ancient imperial rival.

  The Persians were now ready to initiate the conquest of Egypt. In 619, Alexandria fell, and within the year the entire province appears to have been in Persian hands. All that now remained was for the Persians to resume the advance into Anatolia and make their way to Constantinople. In 622, the Persians struck to the north-west of the Anatolian plateau, where they met stiff Roman resistance led by the emperor himself. The Roman effort in Anatolia was, however, undermined by a crisis in the Balkans that necessitated the emperor’s return to the capital. In 623 the city of Ancyra fell, whilst, that same year, the Persians launched a series of successful naval operations, seizing Rhodes and a number of other islands.

  Facing: The Monastery of St Catherine (originally of the Mother of God) on Mount Sinai was both a major centre of pilgrimage and a fortified military outpost. The still extant basilica, a somewhat rustic work, was built by the emperor Justinian between 548 and 565. The inscription over the outer entrance displaying the date 527 is a fake
of the eighteenth century.

  The Persians were applying inexorable pressure on what remained of the empire. Heraclius was faced with a stark choice: he could either wait for the Persian grip to tighten, fighting a series of rearguard actions which offered little chance of ultimate success, or he could throw caution to the wind and take battle to the enemy. He opted for the latter. Between 615 and 622 Heraclius instituted a series of crisis measures aimed at maximizing the resources at his disposal. Official salaries and military pay were halved, governmental structures overhauled. Churches were stripped of their gold ornaments and silver plate, the wealth of the cities was drained. These funds were used to attempt to buy peace with the Avars in the West, and to elicit the support of the Christian population of the Transcaucasus and the occupied territories. This effort was reinforced by a religious propaganda drive, emphasizing the horrors associated with the fall of Jerusalem, and playing upon the apocalyptic sensibilities that were a pronounced feature of the day. At the same time, the emperor set about organizing a sort of ‘New Model Army’—an intensively trained infantry force versed in the tactics of guerrilla warfare and enthused with religious fervour. A concept of Christian ‘holy war’ against the Persian infidel came to be enunciated.