Message about Justinian 1 summary. Justinian I. Foreign policy and wars

Justinian I (Latin Iustinianus I, Greek Ιουστινιανός A, known as Justinian the Great; 482 or 483, Tauresius (Upper Macedonia) - November 14, 565, Constantinople), emperor of Byzantium (Eastern Roman Empire) from 527 to 565. Under him, the famous codification of Roman law was carried out and Italy was conquered from the Ostrogoths.

His native language was Latin. Justinian was born into the family of a poor Illyrian peasant from Macedonia. Even in his childhood, his uncle-commander, having adopted Justinian and adding the name Justinian, which went down in history, to the boy’s real name Peter Savvaty, brought him to Constantinople and gave him a good education. Subsequently, his uncle became Emperor Justin I, making Justinian co-ruler, and after his death, Justinian inherited the throne in 527 and became the ruler of a huge empire. On the one hand, he was distinguished by his generosity, simplicity, and wisdom as a politician. the talent of a skilled diplomat, on the other - cruelty, deceit, duplicity. Justinian I was obsessed with the idea of ​​the greatness of his imperial person.

Having become emperor, Justinian I immediately began to implement a general program of reviving the greatness of Rome in all aspects. Like Napoleon, he slept little, was extremely energetic and attentive to detail. He was greatly influenced by his wife Theodora, a former courtesan or hetaera, whose determination played big role during the suppression of the largest Constantinople uprising "Nika" in 532. After her death, Justinian I became less decisive as the ruler of the state.

Justinian I was able to hold the eastern border with the Sassanid Empire, thanks to his military leaders Belisarius and Narses, he conquered North Africa from the Vandals and returned imperial power over the Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy. At the same time, it strengthens the government apparatus and improves taxation. These reforms were so unpopular that they led to the Nika rebellion, which nearly cost him his throne.

Using the talent of his minister Tribonian, in 528 Justinian ordered a complete revision of Roman law, aiming to make it as unsurpassed in formal legal terms as it had been three centuries earlier. The three main components of Roman law - the Digest, the Code of Justinian and the Institutes - were completed in 534. Justinian linked the welfare of the state with the welfare of the church and considered himself the bearer of the highest ecclesiastical authority, as well as secular. His policy is sometimes called “Caesaropapism” (dependence of the church on the state), although he himself did not see the difference between church and state. He legitimized church orders and orthodox doctrine, in particular the position of the Council of Chalcedon, according to which the human and the divine coexist in Christ, as opposed to the view of the Monophysites, who believed that Christ was an exclusively divine being, and the Nestorians, who argued that Christ had two different hypostases - human and divine . Having built the Temple of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople in 537, Justinian believed that he had surpassed Solomon.

In a pragmatic decision in 554, Justinian introduced the use of his laws in Italy. It was then that copies of his codification of Roman law reached Italy. Although they had no immediate impact, one manuscript copy of the Digest (found later in Pisa and then kept in Florence) was used in the late 11th century to revive the study of Roman law in Bologna.

Justinian the Great died childless. Justinian's nephew, Justin II (565-578), took the throne without objection or struggle.

Justinian I the Great

(482 or 483–565, imp. from 527)

Emperor Flavius ​​Peter Savvatius Justinian remained one of the largest, most famous and, paradoxically, mysterious figures of the entire Byzantine history. Descriptions, and even more so assessments of his character, life, and deeds are often extremely contradictory and can serve as food for the most unbridled fantasies. But, be that as it may, in terms of the scale of achievements, Byzantium did not know another emperor like him, and the nickname Great Justinian was absolutely deserved.

He was born in 482 or 483 in Illyricum (Procopius names his birthplace as Taurisium near Bedrian) and came from a peasant family. Already in the late Middle Ages, a legend arose that Justinian allegedly had Slavic origin and bore the name Upravda. When his uncle, Justin, rose to prominence under Anastasia Dikor, he brought his nephew closer to him and managed to give him a comprehensive education. Capable by nature, Justinian little by little began to acquire a certain influence at court. In 521 he was awarded the title of consul, giving magnificent spectacles to the people on this occasion.

IN recent years reign of Justin I “Justinian, not yet enthroned, ruled the state during the life of his uncle... who still reigned, but was very old and incapable of state affairs” (Prov. Kes.,). April 1 (according to other sources - April 4) 527 Justinian was declared Augustus, and after the death of Justin I remained the autocratic ruler of the Byzantine Empire.

He was short, white-faced and considered handsome, despite a certain tendency to be overweight, early bald patches on his forehead and gray hair. The images that have come down to us on coins and mosaics of the churches of Ravenna (St. Vitaly and St. Apollinaris; in addition, in Venice, in the Cathedral of St. Mark, there is a porphyry statue of him) fully correspond to this description. As for the character and actions of Justinian, historians and chroniclers have the most opposite descriptions of them, from panegyric to downright evil.

According to various testimonies, the emperor, or, as they began to write more often since the time of Justinian, the autokrator (autocrat) was “an extraordinary combination of stupidity and baseness... [was] an insidious and indecisive person... full of irony and pretense, deceitful, secretive and two-faced, able to show his anger, perfectly mastered the art of shedding tears not only under the influence of joy or sadness, but at the right moments as needed. He always lied, and not only by accident, but by making the most solemn notes and oaths when concluding treaties, and even in relation to his own subjects” (Pr. Kes.,). The same Procopius, however, writes that Justinian was “gifted with a quick and inventive mind, tireless in carrying out his intentions.” Summing up a certain result of his achievements, Procopius in his work “On the Buildings of Justinian” speaks simply enthusiastically: “In our time, the Emperor Justinian appeared, who, having assumed power over the state, shaken [by unrest] and reduced to shameful weakness, increased its size and led him into a brilliant state, expelling from him the barbarians who raped him. The emperor, with the greatest skill, managed to provide for himself entire new states. In fact, he brought a number of regions that were already foreign to the Roman power under his rule and built countless cities that had not existed before.

Finding faith in God unsteady and forced to follow the path of various faiths, having wiped out from the face of the earth all the paths that led to these fluctuations, he ensured that it now stood on one solid foundation of true confession. In addition, realizing that the laws should not be unclear due to their unnecessary multiplicity and, clearly contradicting each other, destroy each other, the emperor, clearing them of the mass of unnecessary and harmful chatter, with great firmness overcoming their mutual divergence, preserved the correct laws. He himself, of his own volition, forgave the guilt of those who were plotting against him, filling those in need of means of living to the point of satiation with wealth, and thereby overcoming the unfortunate fate that was humiliating for them, he ensured that the joy of life reigned in the empire.”

“Emperor Justinian usually forgave the mistakes of his erring superiors” (Prov. Kes.,), but: “his ear... was always open to slander” (Zonara,). He favored informers and, through their machinations, could throw his closest courtiers into disgrace. At the same time, the emperor, like no one else, understood people and knew how to acquire excellent assistants.

Justinian's character amazingly combined the most incompatible properties of human nature: a decisive ruler, he sometimes behaved like an outright coward; both greed and petty stinginess, and boundless generosity were available to him; vengeful and merciless, he could seem and be magnanimous, especially if this increased his fame; Possessing tireless energy to implement his grandiose plans, he was nevertheless capable of suddenly despairing and “giving up,” or, on the contrary, stubbornly pursuing clearly unnecessary undertakings to completion.

Justinian had phenomenal efficiency, intelligence and was a talented organizer. With all this, he often fell under the influence of others, primarily his wife, Empress Theodora, a no less remarkable person.

The Emperor was different good health(c. 543 he was able to endure such a terrible disease as the plague!) and excellent endurance. He slept little, doing all sorts of government affairs at night, for which he received the nickname “sleepless sovereign” from his contemporaries. He often took the most unpretentious food, and never indulged in excessive gluttony or drunkenness. Justinian was also very indifferent to luxury, but, fully understanding the importance of external things for the prestige of the state, he spared no expense for this: the decoration of the capital's palaces and buildings and the splendor of the receptions amazed not only the barbarian ambassadors and kings, but also the sophisticated Romans. Moreover, here the basileus knew when to stop: when in 557 many cities were destroyed by an earthquake, he immediately canceled the magnificent palace dinners and gifts given by the emperor to the capital's nobility, and sent the considerable money saved to the victims.

Justinian became famous for his ambition and enviable tenacity in exalting himself and the very title of Emperor of the Romans. Having declared the autocrat an “apostle,” that is, “equal to the apostles,” he placed him above the people, the state, and even the church, legitimizing the monarch’s inaccessibility to either human or ecclesiastical courts. The Christian emperor could not, of course, deify himself, so “apostle” turned out to be a very convenient category, the highest level accessible to man. And if before Justinian, courtiers of patrician dignity, according to Roman custom, kissed the emperor on the chest when greeting him, and others dropped to one knee, then from now on everyone, without exception, was obliged to prostrate before him, seated under a golden dome on a richly decorated throne. The descendants of the proud Romans finally adopted the slave ceremonies of the barbarian East...

By the beginning of Justinian's reign, the empire had its neighbors: in the west - the virtually independent kingdoms of the Vandals and Ostrogoths, in the east - Sasanian Iran, in the north - the Bulgarians, Slavs, Avars, Antes, and in the south - nomadic Arab tribes. During his thirty-eight years of reign, Justinian fought with them all and, without taking personal part in any of the battles or campaigns, completed these wars quite successfully.

528 (the year of Justinian's second consulate, on the occasion of which, on January 1, consular spectacles unprecedented in splendor were given) began unsuccessfully. The Byzantines, who had been at war with Persia for several years, lost a great battle at Mindona, and although the imperial commander Peter managed to improve the situation, an embassy asking for peace ended in nothing. In March of the same year, significant Arab forces invaded Syria, but they were quickly escorted back. To top off all the misfortunes, on November 29, an earthquake once again damaged Antioch-on-Orontes.

By 530, the Byzantines pushed back the Iranian troops, winning a major victory over them at Dara. A year later, a fifteen-thousand-strong Persian army that crossed the border was thrown back, and on the throne of Ctesiphon, the deceased Shah Kavad was replaced by his son Khosrov (Khozroes) I Anushirvan - not only a warlike, but also a wise ruler. In 532, an indefinite truce was concluded with the Persians (the so-called “eternal peace”), and Justinian took the first step towards the restoration of a single power from the Caucasus to the Strait of Gibraltar: using as a pretext the fact that he had seized power in Carthage back in 531, Having overthrown and killed Childeric, a friend of the Romans, the usurper Gelimer, the emperor began to prepare for war with the Vandal kingdom. “We beg the holy and glorious Virgin Mary for one thing,” said Justinian, “that through her intercession the Lord would deign me, his last slave, to reunite with the Roman Empire everything that has been torn from it and to complete [this. - S.D.] our highest duty.” And although the majority of the Senate, led by one of the closest advisers to the basileus, the praetorian prefect John the Cappadocian, remembering the unsuccessful campaign under Leo I, spoke out strongly against this idea, on June 22, 533, on six hundred ships, a fifteen thousand army under the command of Belisarius, recalled from the eastern borders (see .) entered the Mediterranean Sea. In September, the Byzantines landed on the African coast, in the autumn and winter of 533–534. under Decium and Tricamar, Gelimer was defeated, and in March 534 he surrendered to Belisarius. Losses among the troops and civilians of the Vandals were enormous. Procopius reports that “I don’t know how many people died in Africa, but I think that myriads of myriads died.” “Driving through it [Libya. - S.D.], it was difficult and surprising to meet at least one person there.” Upon his return, Belisarius celebrated a triumph, and Justinian began to solemnly be called African and Vandal.

In Italy, with the death of Theodoric the Great's infant grandson, Atalaric (534), the regency of his mother, the daughter of King Amalasunta, ended. Theodoric's nephew, Theodatus, overthrew and imprisoned the queen. The Byzantines provoked the newly-made sovereign of the Ostrogoths in every possible way and achieved their goal - Amalasunta, who enjoyed the formal patronage of Constantinople, died, and Theodatus's arrogant behavior became the reason for declaring war on the Ostrogoths.

In the summer of 535, two small but superbly trained and equipped armies invaded the Ostrogothic state: Mund captured Dalmatia, and Belisarius captured Sicily. The Franks, bribed with Byzantine gold, threatened from the west of Italy. The frightened Theodat began negotiations for peace and, not counting on success, agreed to abdicate the throne, but at the end of the year Mund died in a skirmish, and Belisarius hastily sailed to Africa to suppress the soldiers' revolt. Theodat, emboldened, took into custody the imperial ambassador Peter. However, in the winter of 536, the Byzantines improved their position in Dalmatia, and at the same time Belisarius returned to Sicily, with seven and a half thousand federates and a four-thousand-strong personal squad there.

In the fall, the Romans went on the offensive, and in mid-November they took Naples by storm. Theodat's indecision and cowardice caused the coup - the king was killed, and the Goths elected the former soldier Witigis in his place. Meanwhile, Belisarius's army, meeting no resistance, approached Rome, whose inhabitants, especially the old aristocracy, openly rejoiced at their liberation from the rule of the barbarians. On the night of December 9-10, 536, the Gothic garrison left Rome through one gate, and the Byzantines entered the other. Vitigis' attempts to recapture the city, despite more than tenfold superiority in forces, were unsuccessful. Having overcome the resistance of the Ostrogothic army, at the end of 539 Belisarius besieged Ravenna, and next spring the capital of the Ostrogothic power fell. The Goths offered Belisarius to be their king, but the commander refused. Suspicious Justinian, despite the refusal, hastily recalled him to Constantinople and, without even allowing him to celebrate a triumph, sent him to fight the Persians. The basileus himself accepted the title of Gothic. The gifted ruler and courageous warrior Totila became the king of the Ostrogoths in 541. He managed to gather the broken squads and organize skillful resistance to Justinian’s small and poorly equipped detachments. Over the next five years, the Byzantines lost almost all of their conquests in Italy. Totila successfully used a special tactic - he destroyed all the captured fortresses so that they could not serve as a support for the enemy in the future, and thereby forced the Romans to fight outside the fortifications, which they could not do due to their small numbers. The disgraced Belisarius again arrived in the Apennines in 545, but without money and troops, almost certain death. The remnants of his armies were unable to break through to the aid of besieged Rome, and on December 17, 546, Totila occupied and plundered the Eternal City. Soon the Goths themselves left there (unable, however, to destroy its powerful walls), and Rome again fell under the rule of Justinian, but not for long.

The bloodless Byzantine army, which received no reinforcements, no money, no food and fodder, began to support its existence by robbing the civilian population. This, like the restoration of harsh in relation to to the common people Roman laws on the territory of Italy led to a massive flight of slaves and colons, who continuously replenished Totila’s army. By 550, he again captured Rome and Sicily, and only four cities remained under the control of Constantinople - Ravenna, Ancona, Croton and Otrante. Justinian appointed his own Belisarius to replace him. cousin Herman, providing him with significant forces, but this decisive and no less famous commander unexpectedly died in Thessalonica, before he could take office. Then Justinian sent an army of unprecedented size (more than thirty thousand people) to Italy, led by the imperial eunuch Armenian Narses, “a man of keen intelligence and more energetic than is typical for eunuchs” (Prov. Kes.,).

In 552, Narses landed on the peninsula, and in June of this year, at the Battle of Tagines, Totila’s army was defeated, he himself fell at the hands of his own courtier, and Narses sent the king’s bloody clothes to the capital. The remnants of the Goths, together with Totila's successor, Theia, retreated to Vesuvius, where they were finally destroyed in the second battle. In 554, Narses defeated a horde of seventy thousand invading Franks and Allemans. Mostly fighting in Italy ended, and the Goths, who went to Raetia and Noricum, were conquered ten years later. In 554, Justinian issued the “Pragmatic Sanction”, which canceled all innovations of Totila - the land was returned to its former owners, as well as the slaves and colons freed by the king.

Around the same time, the patrician Liberius conquered the southeast of Spain with the cities of Corduba, Cartago Nova and Malaga from the Vandals.

Justinian's dream of reuniting the Roman Empire came true. But Italy was devastated, robbers roamed the roads of the war-torn regions, and five times (in 536, 546, 547, 550, 552) Rome, which passed from hand to hand, became depopulated, and Ravenna became the residence of the governor of Italy.

In the east, a difficult war with Khosrow was going on with varying success (from 540), then ending with truces (545, 551, 555), then flaring up again. The Persian wars finally ended only in 561–562. peace for fifty years. Under the terms of this peace, Justinian undertook to pay the Persians 400 libras of gold per year, and the same left Lazica. The Romans retained the conquered Southern Crimea and the Transcaucasian shores of the Black Sea, but during this war other Caucasian regions - Abkhazia, Svaneti, Mizimania - came under the protection of Iran. After more than thirty years of conflict, both states found themselves weakened, having received virtually no advantages.

The Slavs and Huns remained a disturbing factor. “From the time Justinian took power over the Roman Empire, the Huns, Slavs and Ants, making almost annual raids, did unbearable things to the inhabitants” (Prov. Kes.,). In 530, Mund successfully repelled the onslaught of the Bulgarians in Thrace, but three years later the army of the Slavs appeared in the same place. Magister militum Hillwood. fell in battle, and the invaders devastated a number of Byzantine territories. Around 540 nomadic Huns organized a trip to Scythia and Moesia. The emperor's nephew Justus, who was sent against them, died. Only at the cost of enormous efforts did the Romans manage to defeat the barbarians and throw them back across the Danube. Three years later, the same Huns, attacking Greece, reached the outskirts of the capital, causing unprecedented panic among its inhabitants. At the end of the 40s. the Slavs ravaged the lands of the empire from the upper reaches of the Danube to Dyrrachium.

In 550, three thousand Slavs, crossing the Danube, again invaded Illyricum. The imperial military leader Aswad failed to organize proper resistance to the aliens, he was captured and executed in the most merciless manner: he was burned alive, having previously been cut into belts from the skin of his back. The small squads of the Romans, not daring to fight, only watched as the Slavs, having divided into two detachments, began robberies and murders. The cruelty of the attackers was impressive: both detachments “killed everyone, indiscriminately, so that the entire land of Illyria and Thrace was covered with unburied bodies. They killed those who came their way not with swords or spears or any other in the usual way, but, having driven stakes firmly into the ground and made them as sharp as possible, they planted these unfortunates on them with great force, making sure that the tip of this stake entered between the buttocks, and then, under the pressure of the body, penetrated into the inside of the person. This is how they saw fit to treat us! Sometimes these barbarians, having driven four thick stakes into the ground, tied the hands and feet of prisoners to them, and then continuously beat them on the head with sticks, thus killing them like dogs or snakes, or any other wild animals. The rest, along with bulls and small livestock, which they could not drive into their father’s borders, they locked in the premises and burned without any regret” (Prov. Kes.,). In the summer of 551, the Slavs went on a campaign to Thessalonica. Only when a huge army, intended to be sent to Italy under the command of Herman, who had acquired formidable glory, received the order to take up Thracian affairs, the Slavs, frightened by this news, went home.

At the end of 559, a huge mass of Bulgarians and Slavs again poured into the empire. The invaders, who robbed everyone and everything, reached Thermopylae and Chersonese of Thracia, and most of them turned to Constantinople. From mouth to mouth, the Byzantines passed on stories about the savage atrocities of the enemy. The historian Agathius of Mirinea writes that the enemies even forced pregnant women, mocking their suffering, to give birth right on the roads, and they were not allowed to touch the babies, leaving the newborns to be devoured by birds and dogs. In the city, under the protection of whose walls, the entire population of the surrounding area fled, taking the most valuable Long wall couldn't serve reliable barrier robbers), there were practically no troops. The emperor mobilized everyone capable of wielding weapons to defend the capital, sending the city militia of circus parties (dimots), palace guards and even armed members of the Senate to the battlements. Justinian assigned Belisarius to command the defense. The need for funds turned out to be such that in order to organize cavalry detachments it was necessary to saddle the racing horses of the capital's hippodrome. With unprecedented difficulty, threatening the power of the Byzantine fleet (which could block the Danube and lock the barbarians in Thrace), the invasion was repelled, but small detachments of Slavs continued to cross the border almost unhindered and settle on the European lands of the empire, forming strong colonies.

Justinian's wars required the raising of colossal funds. By the 6th century almost the entire army consisted of mercenary barbarian formations (Goths, Huns, Gepids, even Slavs, etc.). Citizens of all classes could only bear on their own shoulders the heavy burden of taxes, which increased from year to year. The autocrat himself spoke openly about this in one of his short stories: “The first duty of subjects and the best way for them to thank the emperor is to pay public taxes in full with unconditional selflessness.” A variety of ways were sought to replenish the treasury. Everything was used, including trading positions and damaging coins by cutting them off at the edges. The peasants were ruined by “epibola” - the forcible assignment of neighboring empty plots to their lands with the requirement to use them and pay a tax for new land. Justinian did not leave rich citizens alone, robbing them in every possible way. “Justinian was an insatiable man regarding money and such a hunter of other people’s things that he gave up the entire kingdom under his control, partly to rulers, partly to tax collectors, partly to those people who, without any reason, love to plot intrigues with others. Almost all of their property was taken away from countless wealthy people under insignificant pretexts. However, Justinian did not save money...” (Evagrius, ). “Do not save” - this means that he did not strive for personal enrichment, but used them for the benefit of the state - in the way he understood this “good”.

The emperor's economic activities boiled down mainly to complete and strict control by the state over the activities of any manufacturer or merchant. The state monopoly on the production of a number of goods also brought considerable benefits. During the reign of Justinian, the empire acquired its own silk: two Nestorian missionary monks, risking their lives, took silkworm grains from China in their hollow staves.

The production of silk, having become a monopoly of the treasury, began to give it colossal income.

A huge amount of money was also consumed by extensive construction. Justinian I covered both the European, Asian and African parts of the empire with a network of renewed and newly built cities and fortified points. For example, the cities of Dara, Amida, Antioch, Theodosiopolis, and the dilapidated Greek Thermopylae and Danube Nikopol, destroyed during the wars with Khosrow, were restored. Carthage, surrounded by new walls, was renamed Justiniana II (Taurisius became the first), and the North African city of Bana, rebuilt in the same way, was renamed Theodoris. At the order of the emperor, new fortresses were built in Asia - in Phenicia, Bithynia, Cappadocia. Against Slavic raids, a powerful defensive line was built along the banks of the Danube.

The list of cities and fortresses, one way or another affected by the construction of Justinian the Great, is huge. Not a single Byzantine ruler, either before or after him, carried out such volumes of construction activity. Contemporaries and descendants were amazed not only by the scale of military structures, but also by the magnificent palaces and temples that remained from the time of Justinian everywhere - from Italy to Syrian Palmyra. And among them, of course, the Church of St. Sophia in Constantinople, which has survived to this day, stands out as a fabulous masterpiece (Istanbol Mosque Hagia Sophia, a museum since the 30s of the 20th century).

When in 532, during a city uprising, the church of St. Sophia, Justinian decided to build a temple that would surpass all known examples. For five years, several thousand workers were supervised by Anthimius of Trallus, “in the art of so-called mechanics and construction, the most famous not only among his contemporaries, but even among those who lived long before him,” and Isidore of Miletus, “ a knowledgeable person in all respects” (Pr. Kes.), under the direct supervision of August himself, who laid the first stone at the foundation of the building, a building that is still admiring to this day was erected. Suffice it to say that a larger diameter dome (at St. Sophia - 31.4 m) was built in Europe only nine centuries later. The wisdom of the architects and the carefulness of the builders allowed the gigantic building to stand in a seismically active zone for more than fourteen and a half centuries.

Not only by the boldness of technical solutions, but also by unprecedented beauty and richness interior decoration main temple empire struck everyone who saw him. After the consecration of the cathedral, Justinian walked around it and exclaimed: “Glory to God, who recognized me as worthy to perform such a miracle. I have defeated you, O Solomon! . During the course of the work, the Emperor himself gave several valuable pieces of advice from an engineering standpoint, although he had never studied architecture.

Having paid tribute to God, Justinian did the same for the monarch and the people, rebuilding the palace and hippodrome with splendor.

In implementing his extensive plans for the revival of the former greatness of Rome, Justinian could not do without putting things in order in legislative affairs. During the time that elapsed after the publication of the Code of Theodosius, a mass of new, often contradictory, imperial and praetorian edicts appeared, and in general, by the middle of the 6th century. the old Roman law, having lost its former harmony, turned into a confusing pile of fruits of legal thought, providing a skillful interpreter with the opportunity to lead trials in one direction or another, depending on the benefit. For these reasons, the basileus ordered colossal work to be carried out to streamline huge amount decrees of rulers and the entire heritage of ancient jurisprudence. In 528–529 a commission of ten jurists led by the jurists Tribonianus and Theophilus codified the decrees of the emperors from Hadrian to Justinian in twelve books of the Justinian Code, which came down to us in the revised edition of 534. Decrees not included in this code were declared invalid. Since 530, a new commission of 16 people, headed by the same Tribonian, began compiling a legal canon based on the most extensive material of all Roman jurisprudence. Thus, by 533, fifty Digest books appeared. In addition to them, “Institutions” were published - a kind of textbook for legal scholars. These works, as well as 154 imperial decrees (novels) published in the period from 534 to the death of Justinian, constitute the Corpus Juris Civilis - “Code civil law", not only the basis of all Byzantine and Western European medieval law, but also the most valuable historical source. At the end of the activities of the mentioned commissions, Justinian officially banned all legislative and critical activities of lawyers. Only translations of the “Corpus” into other languages ​​(mainly Greek) and the compilation of brief extracts from there were allowed. From now on it was impossible to comment and interpret laws, and out of all the abundance of law schools, only two remained in the Eastern Roman Empire - in Constantinople and Verite (modern Beirut).

The attitude of the Apostle Justinian himself towards law was fully consistent with his idea that there is nothing higher and holier than the imperial majesty. Justinian’s statements on this matter speak for themselves: “If any question seems doubtful, let it be reported to the emperor, so that he resolves it with his autocratic power, to which alone belongs the right to interpret the Law”; “the creators of the law themselves said that the will of the monarch has the force of law”; “God subordinated the very laws to the emperor, sending him to the people as an animated Law” (Novella 154, ).

Justinian's active policy also affected the sphere of public administration. At the time of his accession, Byzantium was divided into two prefectures - East and Illyricum, which included 51 and 13 provinces, governed in accordance with the principle of separation of military, judicial and civil powers introduced by Diocletian. During Justinian's time, some provinces were merged into larger ones, in which all services, unlike the provinces of the old type, were headed by one person - duka (dux). This was especially true in areas remote from Constantinople, such as Italy and Africa, where exarchates were formed a few decades later. In an effort to improve the power structure, Justinian repeatedly carried out “cleansing” of the apparatus, trying to combat the abuses of officials and embezzlement. But this struggle was lost every time by the emperor: the colossal sums levied in excess of taxes by the rulers ended up in their own treasuries. Bribery flourished despite harsh laws against it. Justinian reduced the influence of the Senate (especially in the first years of his reign) to almost zero, turning it into a body of obedient approval of the emperor’s orders.

In 541, Justinian abolished the consulate in Constantinople, declaring himself consul for life, and at the same time stopped expensive consular games (they cost 200 libras of government gold alone annually).

Such energetic activities of the emperor, which captured the entire population of the country and required exorbitant expenses, aroused discontent not only of the impoverished people, but also of the aristocracy, who did not want to bother themselves, for whom the humble Justinian was an upstart on the throne, and his restless ideas were too expensive. This discontent was realized in rebellions and conspiracies. In 548, a conspiracy by a certain Artavan was discovered, and in 562, the capital’s rich (“money changers”) Markell, Vita and others decided to kill the elderly basileus during an audience. But a certain Aulavius ​​betrayed his comrades, and when Marcellus entered the palace with a dagger under his clothes, the guards seized him. Marcellus managed to stab himself, but the rest of the conspirators were detained, and under torture they declared Belisarius the organizer of the assassination attempt. The slander had an effect, Belisarius fell out of favor, but Justinian did not dare to execute such a well-deserved man on unverified charges.

Things were not always calm among the soldiers either. For all their belligerence and experience in military affairs, the federates were never distinguished by discipline. United in tribal unions, they, violent and intemperate, often rebelled against the command, and managing such an army required considerable talent.

In 536, after Belisarius left for Italy, some African units, outraged by Justinian’s decision to annex all the lands of the Vandals to the fiscus (and not distribute them to the soldiers, as they had hoped), rebelled, proclaiming the commander of a simple warrior Stotsu, “a brave and enterprising man "(Feof.,). Almost the entire army supported him, and Stots besieged Carthage, where the few troops loyal to the emperor locked themselves behind decrepit walls. The military leader eunuch Solomon, together with the future historian Procopius, fled by sea to Syracuse, to Belisarius. He, having learned about what had happened, immediately boarded a ship and sailed to Carthage. Frightened by the news of the arrival of their former commander, Stotsa's warriors retreated from the city walls. But as soon as Belisarius left the African coast, the rebels resumed hostilities. Stotsa accepted into his army slaves who had fled from their owners and Gelimer’s soldiers who had survived the defeat. Germanus, assigned to Africa, suppressed the rebellion by force of gold and weapons, but Stotsa with many supporters fled to Mauritania and disturbed Justinian’s African possessions for a long time, until he was killed in battle in 545. Only by 548 was Africa finally pacified.

For almost the entire Italian campaign, the army, whose supply was poorly organized, expressed dissatisfaction and from time to time either flatly refused to fight or openly threatened to go over to the enemy’s side.

Popular movements did not subside either. With fire and sword, Orthodoxy, which was establishing itself on the territory of the state, caused religious riots on the outskirts. The Egyptian Monophysites constantly threatened to disrupt the supply of grain to the capital, and Justinian ordered the construction of a special fortress in Egypt to guard the grain collected in the state granary. The speeches of other religions - Jews (529) and Samaritans (556) - were suppressed with extreme cruelty.

Numerous battles between the rival circus parties of Constantinople, mainly the Veneti and Prasini (the largest - in 547, 549, 550, 559,562, 563) were also bloody. Although sporting disagreements were often only a manifestation of deeper factors, primarily dissatisfaction with the existing order (to Dim different colors belonged to various social groups population), base passions also played a significant role, and therefore Procopius of Caesarea speaks of these parties with undisguised contempt: “Since ancient times, the inhabitants of each city were divided into Veneti and Prasini, but more recently, for these names and for the places in which they sit during spectacles, began to waste money and subject themselves to the most severe corporal punishment and even shameful death. They start fights with their opponents, not knowing why they are putting themselves in danger, and being, on the contrary, confident that, having defeated them in these fights, they can expect nothing more than imprisonment, execution and death . Enmity towards their opponents arises among them without reason and remains forever; Neither kinship, nor property, nor ties of friendship are respected. Even siblings who stick to one of these flowers are at odds with each other. They have no need for either God's or human affairs, just to deceive their opponents. They do not care that either side turns out to be wicked before God, that laws and civil society are insulted by their own people or their opponents, for even at the very time when they need, perhaps, the most necessary things, when the fatherland is insulted in the most essential, they don’t worry about it at all, as long as they feel good. They call their accomplices a party... I can’t call it anything other than mental illness.”

It was with the battles of the warring dims that the largest “Nika” uprising in the history of Constantinople began. At the beginning of January 532, during games at the hippodrome, the Prasins began to complain about the Veneti (whose party enjoyed greater favor at the court and especially the empress) and about harassment by the imperial official Spafarius Calopodium. In response, the “blues” began to threaten the “greens” and complain to the emperor. Justinian ignored all claims, and the “greens” left the spectacle with insulting cries. The situation became tense, and clashes between warring factions occurred. The next day, the eparch of the capital, Evdemon, ordered the hanging of several convicts convicted of participating in the riot. It so happened that two - one Venet, the other Prasin - fell from the gallows twice and remained alive. When the executioner began to put the noose on them again, the crowd, who saw a miracle in the salvation of the condemned, fought them off. Three days later, on January 13, during the festivities, the people began to demand that the emperor pardon those “saved by God.” The refusal received caused a storm of indignation. People rushed off the hippodrome, destroying everything in their path. The eparch's palace was burned, guards and hated officials were killed right in the streets. The rebels, leaving aside the differences of the circus parties, united and demanded the resignation of the prasin John the Cappadocian and the Veneti Tribonian and Eudaimon. On January 14, the city became ungovernable, the rebels knocked out the palace bars, Justinian displaced John, Eudaimon and Tribonian, but the people did not calm down. People continued to chant the slogans heard the day before: “It would be better if Savvaty had not been born, if he had not given birth to a murderer son” and even “Another basileus to the Romans!” The barbarian squad of Belisarius tried to push the raging crowds away from the palace, and in the resulting chaos, the clergy of the church of St. Sophia, with sacred objects in their hands, persuading citizens to disperse. What happened caused a new attack of rage, stones were thrown from the roofs of the houses at the soldiers, and Belisarius retreated. The Senate building and the streets adjacent to the palace burst into flames. The fire raged for three days, the Senate and the Church of St. Sofia, the approaches to the Augusteon palace square and even the hospital of St. Samson along with the sick people in it. Lydius wrote: “The city was a heap of blackened hills, like on Lipari or near Vesuvius, it was filled with smoke and ash, the smell of burning that spread everywhere made it uninhabitable and its whole appearance instilled horror in the viewer, mixed with pity.” An atmosphere of violence and pogroms reigned everywhere, corpses littered the streets. Many residents in panic crossed to the other side of the Bosphorus. On January 17, the emperor’s nephew Anastasius Hypatius appeared to Justinian, assuring the basileus of his non-involvement in the conspiracy, since the rebels were already calling out Hypatius as emperor. However, Justinian did not believe him and drove him out of the palace. On the morning of the 18th, the autocrat himself came out to the hippodrome with the Gospel in his hands, persuading the residents to stop the riots and openly regretting that he did not immediately listen to the demands of the people. Some of those gathered greeted him with cries: “You are lying! You are making a false oath, you ass!” . A cry swept through the stands to make Hypatius emperor. Justinian left the hippodrome, and Hypatia, despite his desperate resistance and the tears of his wife, was dragged out of the house and dressed in captured royal clothes. Two hundred armed prasins appeared to make way for him to the palace at his first request, and a significant part of the senators joined the rebellion. The city guard guarding the hippodrome refused to obey Belisarius and let his soldiers in. Tormented by fear, Justinian gathered a council in the palace from the courtiers who remained with him. The emperor was already inclined to flee, but Theodora, unlike her husband, retained her courage, rejected this plan and forced the emperor to act. His eunuch Narses managed to bribe some influential "blues" and dissuade part of this party from further participation in the uprising. Soon, with difficulty making their way around through the burned-out part of the city, Belisarius’s detachment burst into the hippodrome from the north-west (where Hypatius was listening to hymns in his honor), and on the orders of their commander, the soldiers began to shoot arrows into the crowd and strike right and left with swords. A huge but unorganized mass of people mixed up, and then through the circus “gate of the dead” (once through which the bodies of killed gladiators were carried out of the arena) soldiers of the three-thousand-strong barbarian detachment Munda made their way into the arena. A terrible massacre began, after which about thirty thousand (!) dead bodies remained in the stands and arena. Hypatius and his brother Pompey were captured and, at the insistence of the empress, beheaded, and the senators who joined them were also punished. The Nika uprising is over. The unheard of cruelty with which it was suppressed frightened the Romans for a long time. Soon the emperor restored the courtiers dismissed in January to their former posts, without encountering any resistance.

Only in the last years of Justinian's reign did the discontent of the people again begin to manifest itself openly. In 556, at the festivities dedicated to the founding of Constantinople (May 11), residents shouted to the emperor: “Basileus, [give] abundance to the city!” (Feof.,). It happened under the Persian ambassadors, and Justinian, enraged, ordered the execution of many. In September 560, rumors spread throughout the capital about the death of the recently ill emperor. The city was gripped by anarchy, gangs of robbers and townspeople who joined them smashed and set fire to houses and bread shops. The unrest was calmed only by the ingenuity of the eparch: he immediately ordered that bulletins about the state of the basileus’ health be hung in the most prominent places and arranged a festive illumination. In 563, a crowd threw stones at the newly appointed city eparch; in 565, in the Mezentsiol quarter, the Prasins fought with soldiers and excuvites for two days, and many were killed.

Justinian continued the line begun under Justin of the dominance of Orthodoxy in all spheres public life, persecuting dissidents in every possible way. At the very beginning of his reign, approx. 529 he promulgated a decree prohibiting taking on public service“heretics” and partial defeat in the rights of adherents of the unofficial church. “It is fair,” the emperor wrote, “to deprive the one who worships God incorrectly of earthly blessings.” As for non-Christians, Justinian spoke out even more harshly in their regard: “There should be no pagans on earth!” .

In 529, the Platonic Academy in Athens was closed, and its teachers fled to Persia, seeking the favor of Prince Khosrow, known for his scholarship and love of ancient philosophy.

The only heretical trend of Christianity that was not particularly persecuted was the Monophysites - partly due to the patronage of Theodora, and the basileus himself perfectly understood the danger of persecuting such large number citizens who already kept the courtyard in constant anticipation of a riot. The V Ecumenical Council, convened in 553 in Constantinople (there were two more church councils under Justinian - local ones in 536 and 543) made some concessions to the Monophysites. This council confirmed the condemnation made in 543 of the teachings of the famous Christian theologian Origen as heretical.

Considering the church and the empire to be one, Rome as his city, and himself as the highest authority, Justinian easily recognized the primacy of the popes (whom he could appoint at his discretion) over the patriarchs of Constantinople.

The emperor himself from a young age gravitated towards theological debates, and in old age this became his main hobby. In matters of faith, he was distinguished by scrupulousness: John of Nius, for example, reports that when Justinian was offered to use a certain magician and sorcerer against Khosrow Anushirvan, the basileus rejected his services, indignantly exclaiming: “I, Justinian, the Christian emperor, will triumph with the help of demons? ! . He punished guilty clergymen mercilessly: for example, in 527, two bishops caught in sodomy, on his orders, were led around the city with their genitals cut off as a reminder to the priests of the need for piety.

Justinian throughout his life embodied the ideal on earth: one and great God, one and great church, one and great power, one and great ruler. The achievement of this unity and greatness was paid for by the incredible strain of the forces of the state, the impoverishment of the people and hundreds of thousands of victims. The Roman Empire was reborn, but this colossus stood on feet of clay. Already the first successor of Justinian the Great, Justin II, in one of his short stories lamented that he found the country in a terrifying state.

In the last years of his life, the emperor became interested in theology and turned less and less to the affairs of the state, preferring to spend time in the palace, in disputes with church hierarchs or even ignorant simple monks. According to the poet Corippus, “the old emperor no longer cared about anything; as if already numb, he was completely immersed in anticipation eternal life. His spirit was already in heaven."

In the summer of 565, Justinian sent the dogma on the incorruptibility of the body of Christ to the dioceses for discussion, but no results were forthcoming - between November 11 and 14, Justinian the Great died, “after filling the world with murmurs and unrest” (Evag.,). According to Agathius of Myrinea, he is “the first, so to speak, among all those who reigned [in Byzantium. - S.D.] showed himself not in words, but in deeds as a Roman emperor.”

Dante Alighieri placed Justinian in heaven in The Divine Comedy.