For example, in an action for assault and battery, the defendant may prove in justification that the prosecutor assaulted or beat him first, and that he acted merely in self-defence. The word is employed particularly in actions for defamation, and has in this connexion a somewhat special meaning. When a libel consists of a specific charge a plea of justification is a plea that the words are true in substance and in fact (see Libel and Slander).
JUSTIN I. (450–527), East Roman emperor (518–527), was born
in 450 as a peasant in Asia, but enlisting under Leo I. he rose to be
commander of the imperial guards of Anastasius. On the latter’s
death in 518 Justin used for his own election to the throne
money that he had received for the support of another candidate.
Being ignorant even of the rudiments of letters, Justin entrusted
the administration of state to his wise and faithful quaestor
Proclus and to his nephew Justinian, though his own experience
dictated several improvements in military affairs. An orthodox
churchman himself, he effected in 519 a reconciliation of the
Eastern and Western Churches, after a schism of thirty-five
years (see Hormisdas). In 522 he entered upon a desultory war
with Persia, in which he co-operated with the Arabs. In 522 also
Justin ceded to Theodoric, the Gothic king of Italy, the right of
naming the consuls. On the 1st of April 527 Justin, enfeebled
by an incurable wound, yielded to the request of the senate and
assumed Justinian at his colleague; on the 1st of August he died.
Justin bestowed much care on the repairing of public buildings
throughout his empire, and contributed large sums to repair the
damage caused by a destructive earthquake at Antioch.
See E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (ed. Bury, 1896), iv. 206–209.
JUSTIN II. (d. 578), East Roman emperor (565–578), was the
nephew and successor of Justinian I. He availed himself of his
influence as master of the palace, and as husband of Sophia, the
niece of the late empress Theodora, to secure a peaceful election.
The first few days of his reign—when he paid his uncle’s debts,
administered justice in person, and proclaimed universal religious
toleration—gave bright promise, but in the face of the lawless
aristocracy and defiant governors of provinces he effected few
subsequent reforms. The most important event of his reign
was the invasion of Italy by the Lombards (q.v.), who, entering
in 568, under Alboin, in a few years made themselves masters of
nearly the entire country. Justin’s attention was distracted
from Italy towards the N. and E. frontiers. After refusing to
pay the Avars tribute, he fought several unsuccessful campaigns
against them. In 572 his overtures to the Turks led to a war
with Persia. After two disastrous campaigns, in which his
enemies overran Syria, Justin bought a precarious peace by payment
of a yearly tribute. The temporary fits of insanity into
which he fell warned him to name a colleague. Passing over his
own relatives, he raised, on the advice of Sophia, the general
Tiberius (q.v.) to be Caesar in December 574 and withdrew for his
remaining years into retirement.
See E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (ed. Bury, 1896), v. 2–17; G. Finlay, History of Greece (ed. 1877), i. 291–297; J. Bury, The Later Roman Empire (1889), ii. 67–79. (M. O. B. C.)
JUSTIN (Junianus Justinus), Roman historian, probably
lived during the age of the Antonines. Of his personal history
nothing is known. He is the author of Historiarum Philippicarum
libri XLIV., a work described by himself in his preface
as a collection of the most important and interesting passages
from the voluminous Historiae philippicae et totius mundi
origines et terrae situs, written in the time of Augustus by Pompeius Trogus
(q.v.). The work of Trogus is lost; but the prologi or
arguments of the text are preserved by Pliny and other writers.
Although the main theme of Trogus was the rise and history of
the Macedonian monarchy, Justin yet permitted himself considerable
freedom of digression, and thus produced a capricious
anthology instead of a regular epitome of the work. As it stands,
however, the history contains much valuable information. The
style, though far from perfect, is clear and occasionally elegant.
The book was much used in the middle ages, when the author
was sometimes confounded with Justin Martyr.
Ed. princeps (1470); J. G. Graevius (1668); J. F. Gronovius (1719); C. H. Frotscher (1827–1830); J. Jeep (1859); F. Rühl (1886, with prologues); see also J. F. Fischer, De elocutione Justini (1868); F. Rühl, Die Verbreitung des J. im Mittelalter (1871); O. Eichert, Wörterbuch zu J. (1881); Köhler and Rühl in Neue Jahrbücher für Philologie, xci., ci., cxxxiii. There are translations in the chief European languages; in English by A. Goldyng (1564); R. Codrington (1682); Brown-Dykes (1712); G. Turnbull (1746); J. Clarke (1790); J. S. Watson (1853).
JUSTINIAN I. (483–565). Flavius Anicius Justinianus, surnamed
the Great, the most famous of all the emperors of the
Eastern Roman Empire, was by birth a barbarian, native of a
place called Tauresium in the district of Dardania, a region of
Illyricum,[1] and was born, most probably, on the 11th of May 483.
His family has been variously conjectured, on the strength of
the proper names which its members are stated to have borne,
to have been Teutonic or Slavonic. The latter seems the more
probable view. His own name was originally Uprauda.[2] Justinianus
was a Roman name which he took from his uncle Justin I.,
who adopted him, and to whom his advancement in life was due.
Of his early life we know nothing except that he went to Constantinople
while still a young man, and received there an excellent
education. Doubtless he knew Latin before Greek; it is alleged
that he always spoke Greek with a barbarian accent. When
Justin ascended the throne in 518, Justinian became at once a
person of the first consequence, guiding, especially in church
matters, the policy of his aged, childless and ignorant uncle,
receiving high rank and office at his hands, and soon coming to
be regarded as his destined successor. On Justin’s death in 527,
having been a few months earlier associated with him as co-emperor,
Justinian succeeded without opposition to the throne.
About 523 he had married the famous Theodora (q.v.), who, as
empress regnant, was closely associated in all his actions till her
death in 547.
Justinian’s reign was filled with great events, both at home and abroad, both in peace and in war. They may be classed under four heads: (1) his legal reforms; (2) his administration of the empire; (3) his ecclesiastical policy; and (4) his wars and foreign policy generally.
1. It is as a legislator and codifier of the law that Justinian’s name is most familiar to the modern world; and it is therefore this department of his action that requires to be most fully dealt with here. He found the law of the Roman empire in a state of great confusion. It consisted of two masses, which were usually distinguished as old law (jus vetus) and new law (jus novum). The first of these comprised: (i.) all such of the statutes (leges) passed under the republic and early empire as had not become obsolete; (ii.) the decrees of the senate (senatus consulta) passed at the end of the republic and during the first two centuries of the empire; (iii.) the writings of the jurists of the later republic and of the empire, and more particularly of those jurists to whom the right of declaring the law with authority (jus respondendi) had been committed by the emperors. As these jurists had in their commentaries upon the leges, senatus consulta and edicts of the magistrates practically incorporated all that was of importance in those documents, the books of the jurists may substantially be taken as including (i.) and (ii.). These writings were of course very numerous, and formed a vast mass of literature. Many of them had become exceedingly scarce—many had been altogether lost. Some were of doubtful authenticity. They were so costly that no person of moderate means could hope to possess any large number; even the public libraries had nothing approaching to a complete collection. Moreover, as they proceeded from a large number of independent authors, who wrote expressing their own opinions, they contained many discrepancies and contradictions, the dicta of one writer being controverted by another, while yet both writers might enjoy the same formal authority. A remedy had been attempted to be applied to this evil by a law of the
- ↑ It is commonly identified with the modern Küstendil, but Usküb (the ancient Skupi) has also been suggested. See Tozer, Highlands of European Turkey, ii. 370.
- ↑ The name Uprauda is said to be derived from the word prauda, which in Old Slavic means jus, justitia, the prefix being simply a breathing frequently attached to Slavonic names.
