CHAPTER VIII JUSTINIAN AND THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE The Vandal and Ostrogothic Kingdoms in Africa and Italy were overthrown in 534 and 555 by generals and Conditions armies of the Byzantine emperor, who also before EaSt reconquered some of the Spanish coast from the Justinian Visigoths. We therefore turn in this chapter to Constantinople and to the most famous of all its rulers, Justinian. In 518 had ended the troubled reign of Anasta- sius, filled with a succession of rebellions at home and wars abroad, riots in Constantinople, revolts of the Isaurians, bar- barian raids in the European provinces, war with Persia in the East, a breach with the Papacy, and religious opposition among the emperor's own subjects because of his Mono- physitism. The Monophy sites were those who insisted that Christ had only one nature, the divine. This view was widespread in the East and the cause of many popular dis- turbances, since in the East even the lowest classes took sides in theological disputes. Anastasius, however, had left a well-filled treasury behind him. Justin, an aged soldier and orthodox Christian, — judged by papal standards, — now came to the throne. But the Justin and old man could scarcely read, had to use a stencil (S18-S27- to s *& n ms name > an d knew little of politics. 565) The real ruler during the nine years of Justin's reign and then for thirty-eight years longer in his own name was Justinian, a nephew of Justin, who had received a broad education, was trained in politics, and in 518 was already thirty-six years old. Indeed, the great historian, Gibbon, said that Justinian "was never young." He lived to be eighty- three. He was a man of somewhat cold and ascetic temperament, of simple manners and abstemious habits. "His stature," says a contemporary, "was neither
