A History of Rome to 565 A. D.

by Arthur E. R. Boak

Barbarian invasions of the Balkan peninsula. The strain which the policy of expansion in the West imposed upon the strength of the empire is clearly seen in the failure to defend the Danubian frontier and the ineffective conduct of the Persian wars. Time after time hordes of Bulgars and Slavs poured into the Balkans. Especially destructive were the inroads of 540 and 559. In the former the invaders penetrated as far as the Isthmus of Corinth; in the latter they threatened the capital itself, but were driven off by the aged Belisarius.

The Persian wars. In 527, the Persian king Kawad declared war upon the empire. The struggle was indecisive, and, at the death of Kawad in 532, Justinian, who wished to be free at any price to pursue his western policy, was able to conclude peace with his successor, Chosroes I, upon condition of paying an annual indemnity. But the successes of Justinian in the West aroused the jealousy and ambitions of Chosroes in 539. The Persians overran Syria and captured Antioch, carrying off its population into captivity (540). However, they failed to take Edessa (544). In Mesopotamia an armistice was concluded in 545, although war continued between the Arab dependents of both states, and in the district of Lazica (ancient Colchis), a Roman protectorate which transferred its allegiance to Persia. Finally, a fifty years’ peace was concluded in 562 A. D. The Roman suzerainty over Lazica was acknowledged by the Persians, but the Romans obligated themselves to pay the Persians a heavy annual subsidy, in return for which the Persians undertook the [pg 381]defence of the Caucasus. In this way the Persians became technically Roman foederati; however, as in the case of the Visigoths in the fourth century, this was equivalent to a confession that the Romans were unable to subdue their enemy, who looked upon the subsidy as tribute.

The empress Theodora. In 523 Justinian married Theodora, a former professional pantomime actress from the purlieus of the Hippodrome, after he had induced his uncle to cancel the law which forbade the marriage of senators and actresses. And when Justinian became emperor in 527, Theodora was crowned with him as Augusta. From that time until her death in 553 she was in a very real sense joint ruler with her husband. Whatever the character of her previous career, her private life as empress was beyond reproach. She was fond of power, jealous of the influence of others with the emperor, and unforgiving towards those who thwarted her purposes; both Belisarius and John of Cappadocia, the powerful praetorian prefect, were driven from the emperor’s service by her enmity. On the other hand, she was a woman of dauntless courage, and possessed of remarkable foresight in political affairs.

The “Nika” riot, 532 A. D. The courage of the empress was conspicuously displayed on the occasion of the great riot of the factions of the Hippodrome—the Greens and the Blues—in 532 A. D. These factions had been organized in Constantinople in imitation of the circus factions of Rome, but had acquired a different character and a greater importance in the new capital. The two factions divided between them the entire urban population, and had their regularly appointed leaders, who enjoyed a recognized place in the administrative organization of the city. These parties may be regarded as the last survival of the Hellenic popular assembly of the city-state, and owing to the extreme centralization of the administration at Constantinople, they were able to exercise considerable pressure upon the government.

The emperor and the court regularly supported one or other of the parties. Anastasius had favored the Greens, but Justinian was a partizan of the Blues. The rivalry of the factions was intense, and culminated, in the early years of Justinian’s reign, in open warfare, which gave the lower elements the opportunity for the perpetration of crimes of all sorts. The punishment of notorious criminals of both factions in 532 led to their uniting in a revolt which nearly [pg 382]cost the emperor his throne. At first the mob demanded the release of their partizans, and the dismissal of John, the praetorian prefect, whose financial policy was extremely oppressive, of Trebonian, the able but unscrupulous quaestor, and of the prefect of the city. Later, emboldened by their success, they crowned as emperor Hypatius, a nephew of Anastasius. The situation became extremely critical, for, with the exception of the palace, the whole city fell into the hands of the rebels, whose battle cry was “Nika” or “Conquer.” Justinian and his councillors had already resolved upon flight, when Theodora, by a spirited speech in which she declared that she would die before abandoning the capital, reanimated their hearts and induced them to alter their decision. By a judicious use of bribes they induced the Blues to desert the Greens, and the imperial troops exacted a bloody vengeance from the rebellious populace. For the future the population of the capital was politically a negligible quantity.

The codification of the Roman law. One of the greatest monuments to the reign of Justinian is the corpus iuris civilis, a codification of the Roman law by a commission of expert jurists, headed by Trebonian. The object of this codification was the collection in a convenient form of all the sources of law then in force, and the settlement of controversies in the interpretative juristic literature. The compilation was divided into three parts; the Code of Justinian, the Digest or Pandects, and the Institutes. The Code was a collection of all imperial constitutions of general validity; it was first published in 529, but a revised edition was issued in 534. The Digest, which was issued in 533, consisted of abstracts from the writings of the most famous Roman jurists systematically arranged so as to present the whole civil law in so far as it was not contained in the Code. The Institutes was a brief manual designed as a text-book for the use of students of the law. From the time of their promulgation these compilations constituted the sole law of the empire and alone carried validity in the courts and formed the only material for instruction in the law schools of recognized status—those at Rome, Constantinople and Berytus. Provision was made for the publication of future legislation in a fourth compilation—the Novels or New Constitutions.

St. Sophia. Justinian’s administration was characterized by great building activity. He was zealous in the construction of frontier defences, the rebuilding of ruined cities, the founding of new ones, [pg 383]and the erection of religious edifices. Among the latter the most famous was the great church of the Holy Wisdom (St. Sophia), which took the place of an older building destroyed in the Nika riot. Transformed into a Mohammedan mosque, it remains to the present day as the greatest architectural monument of the eastern Roman empire. The execution of grandiose works of this sort augmented the heavy expenditures necessitated by Justinian’s foreign policy, and required the continual wringing of fresh contributions from the already overburdened taxpayers. In raising the revenues needed to meet the demands upon the fiscus, the emperor found the prefect John an invaluable agent.

Justinian’s religious policy. Throughout the whole of his reign Justinian strove with unflagging zeal to secure a united Christian church within the empire. To this end he did not hesitate to make use of the autocratic power which he claimed in religious as well as secular affairs and which was formally admitted by the synod of 536, which declared that “Nothing whatsoever may occur in the church contrary to the wishes and orders of the emperor.” His own views Justinian set forth in extensive writings on dogmatic questions. The reconciliation with Rome in 519, so necessary for the recovery of the West, had alienated the Monophysites, who were predominant in Egypt, Syria and Mesopotamia, especially among the lower classes of society. For the rest of his reign Justinian strove indefatigably to heal this breach, a policy in which he was largely influenced by Theodora, who was personally sympathetic with the Monophysites and saw the danger to the empire in the continued hostility of the eastern peoples. An ecumenical council summoned by him at Constantinople in 553 accepted a formula of belief upon which he hoped both orthodox and monophysites could unite. The Pope Vergilius was forced to submit to Justinian’s will, but the clergy of Italy and Africa regarded the new doctrine as heretical, and some openly condemned it. Nor was the desired end attained, for the Monophysites still refused to be conciliated. A final edict, issued in 565, went still further in its recognition of the tenets of this sect, but the emperor’s death forestalled its enforcement and saved the orthodox clergy from the alternative of submission or persecution.

A far harsher treatment was meted out to the Arians, who were treated as hereticals and punished as criminals. A rebellion of the Samaritans, occasioned by their persecution, was stamped out in blood. [pg 384]A determined effort was made to eradicate the last remains of the old Hellenic faith which still claimed many adherents of note. In 529 the endowment of Plato’s Academy was confiscated and the teaching of philosophy forbidden at Athens. The persecution of heretics and unbelievers was accompanied by a vigorous missionary movement which carried the Christian gospel to the peoples of southern Russia, the Caucasus, Arabia, the Soudan and the oases of the Sahara.