home Style and fashion Byzantium during the reign of Justinian I the Great. Justinian Emperor Justinian the first

Byzantium during the reign of Justinian I the Great. Justinian Emperor Justinian the first

Emperor Justinian. Mosaic in Ravenna. VI century

The future emperor of Byzantium was born around 482 in the small Macedonian village of Taurisium into the family of a poor peasant. He came to Constantinople as a teenager at the invitation of his uncle Justin, an influential courtier. Justin did not have his own children, and he patronized his nephew: he called him to the capital and, despite the fact that he himself remained illiterate, gave him a good education, and then found a position at court. In 518 The senate, guard and residents of Constantinople proclaimed the elderly Justin emperor, and he soon made his nephew his co-ruler. Justinian was distinguished by a clear mind, a broad political outlook, determination, perseverance and exceptional efficiency. These qualities made him the de facto ruler of the empire. His young, beautiful wife Theodora also played a huge role. Her life took an unusual turn: the daughter of a poor circus performer and a circus performer herself, she, as a 20-year-old girl, went to Alexandria, where she fell under the influence of mystics and monks and was transformed, becoming sincerely religious and pious. Beautiful and charming, Theodora had an iron will and turned out to be an indispensable friend to the emperor in difficult times. Justinian and Theodora were a worthy couple, although evil tongues were haunted by their union for a long time.

In 527, after the death of his uncle, 45-year-old Justinian became autocrat - autocrat - of the Roman Empire, as the Byzantine Empire was then called.

He gained power at a difficult time: only the eastern part of the former Roman possessions remained, and barbarian kingdoms were formed on the territory of the Western Roman Empire: the Visigoths in Spain, the Ostrogoths in Italy, the Franks in Gaul and the Vandals in Africa. The Christian Church was torn by disputes about whether Christ was a “God-man”; dependent peasants (colons) fled and did not cultivate the land, the arbitrariness of the nobility ruined the common people, the cities were shaken by riots, the finances of the empire were in decline. The situation could only be saved by decisive and selfless measures, and Justinian, alien to luxury and pleasure, a sincerely believing Orthodox Christian, theologian and politician, was perfectly suited for this role.

Several stages clearly stand out in the reign of Justinian I. The beginning of the reign (527-532) was a period of widespread charity, distribution of funds to the poor, tax reduction, and assistance to cities affected by the earthquake. At this time, the position of the Christian Church in the fight against other religions strengthened: the last stronghold of paganism, the Platonic Academy, was closed in Athens; limited opportunities for openly practicing the cults of other believers - Jews, Samaritans, etc. This was a period of wars with the neighboring Iranian Sassanid power for influence in South Arabia, the goal of which was to gain a foothold in the ports of the Indian Ocean and thereby undermine Iran's monopoly on the silk trade with China. It was a time of struggle against the tyranny and abuses of the nobility.

The emperor's reforms were interrupted by the Nika popular uprising in Constantinople (532). It all started with a conflict between two parties of fans in the circus: the Veneti (“blue”) and the Prasin (“green”). These were not only sports, but partly also socio-political unions. Political grievances were added to the traditional struggle of fans: the Prasins believed that the government was oppressing them and patronizing the Veneti. In addition, the lower classes were dissatisfied with the abuses of Justinian's "Minister of Finance" - John of Cappadocia, while the nobility hoped to get rid of the upstart emperor. The Prasin leaders presented their demands to the emperor, and in a very harsh form, and when he rejected them, they called him a murderer and left the circus. Thus, an unheard-of insult was inflicted on the autocrat. The situation was complicated by the fact that when, on the same day, the instigators of the clash from both parties were arrested and sentenced to death, two of the convicts fell from the gallows (“were pardoned by God”), but the authorities refused to release them.

Then a single “green-blue” party was created with the slogan “Nika!” (circus cry “Win!”). An open riot began in the city, and arson was committed. The emperor agreed to concessions, dismissing the ministers most hated by the people, but this did not bring peace. An important role was also played by the fact that the nobility distributed gifts and weapons to the rebellious plebs, inciting rebellion. Neither attempts to suppress the uprising by force with the help of a detachment of barbarians, nor the public repentance of the emperor with the Gospel in his hands yielded anything. The rebels now demanded his abdication and proclaimed the noble senator Hypatius emperor. Meanwhile, the fires became more and more numerous. “The city was a pile of blackening ruins,” wrote a contemporary. Justinian was ready to abdicate, but at that moment Empress Theodora declared that she preferred death to flight and that “the emperor’s purple is an excellent shroud.” Her determination played a big role, and Justinian decided to fight. Troops loyal to the government made a desperate attempt to regain control over the capital: a detachment of the commander Belisarius, the conqueror of the Persians, entered the circus, where a stormy meeting of the rebels was taking place, and carried out a brutal massacre there. They said that 35 thousand people died, but Justinian’s throne survived.

The terrible catastrophe that befell Constantinople - fires and deaths - did not, however, plunge either Justinian or the townspeople into despondency. In the same year, rapid construction began using treasury funds. The pathos of restoration captured wide sections of the townspeople. In a sense, we can say that the city rose from the ashes, like the fabulous Phoenix bird, and became even more beautiful. The symbol of this rise was, of course, the construction of a miracle of miracles - the Church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. It began immediately, in 532, under the leadership of architects from the province - Anthemia of Thrall and Isidore of Miletus. Externally, the building had little to amaze the viewer, but the real miracle of transformation took place inside, when the believer found himself under a huge mosaic dome, which seemed to hang in the air without any support. A dome with a cross hovered above the worshipers, symbolizing the divine cover over the empire and its capital. Justinian had no doubt that his power had divine sanction. On holidays, he sat on the left side of the throne, and the right side was empty - Christ was invisibly present on it. The autocrat dreamed that an invisible cover would be raised over the entire Roman Mediterranean. With the idea of restoring the Christian empire - the "Roman house" - Justinian inspired the entire society.

When the dome of Constantinople Sophia was still being erected, the second stage of Justinian’s reign (532-540) began with the Great Liberation Campaign to the West.

By the end of the first third of the 6th century. The barbarian kingdoms that arose in the western part of the Roman Empire were experiencing a deep crisis. They were torn apart by religious strife: the main population professed Orthodoxy, but the barbarians, Goths and Vandals were Arians, whose teaching was declared a heresy, condemned in the 4th century. at the I and II Ecumenical Councils of the Christian Church. Within the barbarian tribes themselves, social stratification was occurring at a rapid pace, discord between the nobility and the common people was intensifying, which undermined the combat effectiveness of the armies. The elite of the kingdoms were busy with intrigues and conspiracies and did not care about the interests of their states. The indigenous population waited for the Byzantines as liberators. The reason for the outbreak of war in Africa was that the Vandal nobility overthrew the legitimate king - a friend of the empire - and placed his relative Gelizmer on the throne. In 533, Justinian sent a 16,000-strong army under the command of Belisarius to the African shores. The Byzantines managed to secretly land and freely occupy the capital of the Vandal kingdom of Carthage. The Orthodox clergy and Roman nobility solemnly greeted the imperial troops. The common people also reacted sympathetically to their appearance, since Belisarius severely punished robberies and looting. King Gelizmer tried to organize resistance, but lost the decisive battle. The Byzantines were helped by an accident: at the beginning of the battle, the king’s brother died, and Gelizmer left the troops to bury him. The Vandals decided that the king had fled, and panic gripped the army. All of Africa fell into the hands of Belisarius. Under Justinian I, grandiose construction began here - 150 new cities were built, close trade contacts with the Eastern Mediterranean were restored. The province experienced economic growth throughout the 100 years it was part of the empire.

Following the annexation of Africa, a war began for the possession of the historical core of the western part of the empire - Italy. The reason for the outbreak of the war was the overthrow and murder of the legitimate queen of the Ostrogoths, Amalasunta, by her husband Theodatus. In the summer of 535, Belisarius with a detachment of eight thousand landed on Sicily and in a short time, experiencing almost no resistance, occupied the island. The next year, his army crossed to the Apennine Peninsula and, despite the enemy’s huge numerical superiority, recaptured its southern and central parts. The Italians greeted Belisarius everywhere with flowers; only Naples offered resistance. The Christian Church played a huge role in such support of the people. In addition, chaos reigned in the Ostrogoth camp: the murder of the cowardly and treacherous Theodat, a riot in the troops. The army chose Viti-gis, a brave soldier but a weak politician, as the new king. He, too, was unable to stop the advance of Belisarius, and in December 536 the Byzantine army occupied Rome without a fight. The clergy and townspeople arranged a solemn meeting for the Byzantine soldiers. The population of Italy no longer wanted the power of the Ostrogoths, as evidenced by the following fact. When in the spring of 537 Belisarius's five-thousandth detachment was besieged in Rome by the huge army of Witigis, the battle for Rome lasted 14 months; Despite hunger and disease, the Romans remained loyal to the empire and did not allow Witigis into the city. It is also significant that the king of the Ostrogoths himself printed coins with the portrait of Justinian I - only the power of the emperor was considered legal. In the deep autumn of 539, the army of Belisarius besieged the capital of the barbarians, Ravenna, and a few months later, relying on the support of friends, the imperial troops occupied it without a fight.

It seemed that Justinian's power knew no bounds, he was at the apogee of his power, plans for the restoration of the Roman Empire were coming true. However, the main tests were still awaiting his power. The thirteenth year of the reign of Justinian I was a “black year” and began a period of difficulties that only the faith, courage and steadfastness of the Romans and their emperor could overcome. This was the third stage of his reign (540-558).

Even when Belisarius was negotiating the surrender of Ravenna, the Persians violated the “Eternal Peace” they had signed ten years ago with the empire. Shah Khosrow I invaded Syria with a huge army and besieged the capital of the province - the richest city of Antioch. The residents bravely defended themselves, but the garrison was unable to fight and fled. The Persians took Antioch, plundered the flourishing city and sold the inhabitants into slavery. The next year, the troops of Khosrow I invaded Lazika (Western Georgia), allied with the empire, and a protracted Byzantine-Persian war began. The thunderstorm from the East coincided with the Slavic invasion of the Danube. Taking advantage of the fact that the border fortifications were left almost without garrisons (there were troops in Italy and in the East), the Slavs reached the capital itself, broke through the Long Walls (three walls stretching from the Black Sea to Marmara, protecting the outskirts of the city) and began to plunder the suburbs of Constantinople. Belisarius was urgently transferred to the East, and he managed to stop the Persian invasion, but while his army was not in Italy, the Ostrogoths revived there. They chose the young, handsome, brave and intelligent Totila as king and, under his leadership, began a new war. The barbarians enlisted fugitive slaves and colonists into the army, distributed lands of the Church and the nobility to their supporters, and recruited those who had been offended by the Byzantines. Very quickly, Totila's small army occupied almost all of Italy; Only the ports remained under the control of the empire, which could not be taken without a fleet.

But, probably, the most difficult test for the power of Justinian I was the terrible plague epidemic (541-543), which killed almost half the population. It seemed that the invisible dome of Sophia over the empire had cracked and black whirlwinds of death and destruction poured into it.

Justinian understood well that his main strength in the face of a superior enemy was the faith and unity of his subjects. Therefore, simultaneously with the ongoing war with the Persians in Lazica, the difficult struggle with Totila, who created his fleet and captured Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica, the emperor’s attention was increasingly occupied by issues of theology. It seemed to some that the elderly Justinian had lost his mind, spending days and nights in such a critical situation reading the Holy Scriptures, studying the works of the Church Fathers (the traditional name for the figures of the Christian Church who created its dogma and organization) and writing his own theological treatises. However, the emperor understood well that it was in the Christian faith of the Romans that their strength lay. Then the famous idea of the “symphony of the Kingdom and Priesthood” was formulated - the union of church and state as a guarantee of peace - the Empire.

In 543, Justinian wrote a treatise condemning the teachings of the mystic, ascetic and theologian of the 3rd century. Origen, denying the eternal torment of sinners. However, the emperor paid the main attention to overcoming the schism between the Orthodox and Monophysites. This conflict has tormented the Church for more than 100 years. In 451, the IV Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon condemned the Monophysites. The theological dispute was complicated by the rivalry between the influential centers of Orthodoxy in the East - Alexandria, Antioch and Constantinople. The split between supporters of the Council of Chalcedon and its opponents (Orthodox and Monophysites) during the reign of Justinian I became especially acute, since the Monophysites created their own separate church hierarchy. In 541, the activities of the famous Monophysite Jacob Baradei began, who, dressed as a beggar, went around all the countries inhabited by Monophysites and restored the Monophysite church in the East. The religious conflict was complicated by a national one: the Greeks and Romans, who considered themselves the ruling people in the Roman Empire, were predominantly Orthodox, and the Copts and many Arabs were Monophysites. For the empire, this was all the more dangerous because the richest provinces - Egypt and Syria - contributed huge sums to the treasury and much depended on the support of the government by the trade and craft circles of these regions. While Theodora was alive, she helped mitigate the conflict by patronizing the Monophysites, despite the criticism of the Orthodox clergy, but in 548 the empress died. Justinian decided to bring the issue of reconciliation with the Monophysites to the V Ecumenical Council. The emperor's plan was to smooth out the conflict by condemning the teachings of the enemies of the Monophysites - Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Willow of Edessa and Theodore of Mopsuet (the so-called "three chapters"). The difficulty was that they all died in peace with the Church. Is it possible to condemn the dead? After much hesitation, Justinian decided that it was possible, but Pope Vigilius and the overwhelming majority of Western bishops did not agree with his decision. The Emperor took the Pope to Constantinople, kept him almost under house arrest, trying to achieve agreement under pressure. After a long struggle and hesitation, Vigilius surrendered. In 553, the V Ecumenical Council in Constantinople condemned the “three heads.” The pope did not participate in the work of the council, citing indisposition, and tried to oppose its decisions, but in the end he signed them.

In the history of this council, one should distinguish between its religious meaning, which consists in the triumph of the Orthodox dogma that divine and human nature are united in Christ, inseparably and inseparably, and the political intrigues that accompanied it. Justinian's direct goal was not achieved: reconciliation with the Monophysites did not occur, and there was almost a break with the Western bishops, dissatisfied with the decisions of the council. However, this council played a big role in the spiritual consolidation of the Orthodox Church, and this was extremely important both at that time and for subsequent eras. The reign of Justinian I was a period of religious upsurge. It was at this time that church poetry, written in simple language, began to develop, one of the most prominent representatives of which was Roman Sladkopevets. This was the heyday of Palestinian monasticism, the time of John Climacus and Isaac the Syrian.

There was also a turning point in political affairs. In 552, Justinian equipped a new army for a campaign in Italy. This time she set off by land through Dalmatia under the command of the eunuch Narses, a brave commander and cunning politician. In the decisive battle, Totila's cavalry attacked the troops of Narses, formed in a crescent, came under cross-fire from archers from the flanks, took to flight and crushed their own infantry. Totila was seriously wounded and died. Within a year, the Byzantine army restored its dominance over all of Italy, and a year later Narses stopped and destroyed the hordes of Lombards pouring into the peninsula.

Italy was saved from terrible plunder. In 554, Justinian continued his conquests in the Western Mediterranean, attempting to capture Spain. It was not possible to do this completely, but a small area in the southeast of the country and the Strait of Gibraltar came under the rule of Byzantium. The Mediterranean Sea once again became the "Roman Lake". In 555 Imperial troops defeated a huge Persian army at Lazika. Khosrow I first signed a truce for six years, and then peace. It was also possible to cope with the Slavic threat: Justinian I entered into an alliance with the nomadic Avars, who took upon themselves the protection of the Danube border of the empire and the fight against the Slavs. In 558 this treaty came into force. The long-awaited peace came for the Roman Empire.

The last years of the reign of Justinian I (559-565) passed quietly. The finances of the empire, weakened by a quarter-century of struggle and a terrible epidemic, were restored, the country healed its wounds. The 84-year-old emperor did not abandon his theological studies and hopes of ending the schism in the Church. He even wrote a treatise on the incorruptibility of the body of Christ, close in spirit to the Monophysites. For resisting the emperor's new views, the Patriarch of Constantinople and many bishops ended up in exile. Justinian I was at the same time a continuer of the traditions of early Christians and the heir of the pagan Caesars. On the one hand, he fought against the fact that only priests were active in the Church, and the laity remained only spectators, on the other hand, he constantly interfered in church affairs, removing bishops at his discretion. Justinian carried out reforms in the spirit of the Gospel commandments - he helped the poor, alleviated the situation of slaves and colonists, restored cities - and at the same time subjected the population to severe tax oppression. He tried to restore the authority of the law, but was never able to eliminate the corruption and abuse of officials. His attempts to restore peace and stability in the territory of the Byzantine Empire turned into rivers of blood. And yet, despite everything, Justinian's empire was an oasis of civilization surrounded by pagan and barbarian states and captured the imagination of his contemporaries.

The significance of the great emperor's deeds goes far beyond his time. Strengthening the position of the Church, the ideological and spiritual consolidation of Orthodoxy played a huge role in the formation of medieval society. The Code of Emperor Justinian I became the basis of European law in subsequent centuries.

JUSTINIAN I the Great(lat. Iustinianus) (c. 482 - November 14, 565, Constantinople), Byzantine emperor. Augustus and co-emperor of Justin I from April 1, 527, reigned from August 1, 527. Justinian was a native of Illyricum and nephew of Justin I; According to legend, he is of Slavic origin. He played a prominent role in the reign of his uncle and was proclaimed Augustus six months before his death. The epochal reign of Justinian was marked by the implementation of the principles of imperial universalism and the restoration of a unified Roman Empire. The entire policy of the emperor was subordinated to this, which was truly global in nature and made it possible to concentrate enormous material and human resources in his hands.

For the sake of the greatness of the empire, wars were fought in the West and East, legislation was improved, administrative reforms were carried out, and issues of church structure were resolved. He surrounded himself with a galaxy of talented advisers and commanders, remaining free from outside influences, inspired in his actions solely by faith in a single state, single laws and a single faith. “In the breadth of his political plans, clearly understood and strictly carried out, in his ability to take advantage of circumstances, and most importantly, in his art of identifying the talents of those around him and giving everyone a task appropriate to his abilities, Justinian was a rare and remarkable sovereign” (F. I. Uspensky).

Justinian's main military efforts were concentrated in the West, where colossal forces were sent. In 533-534, his best commander Belisarius defeated the state of the African Vandals, and in 535-555 the state of the Ostrogoths in Italy was destroyed. As a result, Rome itself and many of the western lands in Italy, North Africa, and Spain, which had been inhabited by Germanic tribes for a hundred years, returned to the rule of the Roman power. These territories, with the rank of provinces, were reunited with the empire, and Roman law was again extended to them.

The successful progress of affairs in the West was accompanied by a difficult situation on the Danube and eastern borders of the state, deprived of reliable protection. For many years (528-562, with interruptions), there were wars with Persia over disputed territories in Transcaucasia and influence in Mesopotamia and Arabia, which diverted huge amounts of money and did not produce any fruit. During the entire reign of Justinian, the tribes of the Slavs, Germans, and Avars ravaged the Transdanubian provinces with their invasions. The emperor sought to compensate for the lack of defensive resources through the efforts of diplomacy, concluding alliances with some nations against others and thus maintaining the necessary balance of power on the borders. However, such a policy was critically assessed by contemporaries, especially since the ever-increasing payments to the allied tribes excessively burdened the already upset state treasury.

The price of the brilliant “age of Justinian” was the difficult internal situation of the state, especially in the economy and finances, which bore the burden of colossal expenses. The lack of funds became the real scourge of his reign, and in search of money, Justinian often resorted to measures that he himself condemned: he sold positions and introduced new taxes. With rare candor, Justinian declared in one of his decrees: “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.” The severity of tax collection reached its limit and had a disastrous effect on the population. According to a contemporary, “a foreign invasion seemed less scary to taxpayers than the arrival of fiscal officials.”

For the same purpose, Justinian sought to make a profit from the empire’s trade with the East, establishing high customs duties on all goods imported to Constantinople, as well as turning entire industries into government monopolies. It was under Justinian that silk production was mastered in the empire, which provided the treasury with huge revenues.

City life under Justinian was characterized by the struggle of circus parties, the so-called. Dimov. The suppression of the Nika 532 uprising in Constantinople, provoked by the rivalry of the Dims, destroyed opposition to Justinian among the aristocracy and population of the capital, and strengthened the authoritarian nature of the imperial power. In 534, the Code of Civil Law (Corpus juris civilis or Codex Justiniani) was published, which provided a normative presentation of Roman law and formulated the foundations of imperial statehood.

Justinian's church policy was marked by a desire to establish religious unity. In 529, the Athenian Academy was closed, and the persecution of heretics and pagans began, which filled the entire reign of Justinian. The persecution of the Monophysites, right up to the opening of hostilities, devastated the eastern provinces, especially Syria and the environs of Antioch. The papacy under him completely submitted to the imperial will. In 553, on the initiative of Justinian, the V Ecumenical Council was convened in Constantinople, at which the so-called "dispute about three chapters" and, in particular, condemned Origen.

Justinian's reign was marked by the scale of construction. According to Procopius, the emperor “increased the fortifications throughout the country, so that every landholding was turned into a fortress or a military post was located near it.” The temple of St. became a masterpiece of architectural art in the capital. Sophia (built in 532-37), which played a great role in shaping the special character of Byzantine worship and did more to convert the barbarians than wars and embassies. The mosaics of the Church of San Vitale in Ravenna, which had just been reunited with the empire, have preserved to us magnificently executed portraits of the Emperor Justinian himself, the Empress Theodora and the dignitaries of the court.

For 25 years, the burden of power was shared with the emperor by his wife Theodora, who had a strong will and statesmanship. The influence of this “great ambition” and “faithful empress” was not always beneficial, but the entire reign of Justinian was marked by it. She was given official honors on a par with the emperor, and subjects henceforth took a personal oath to both royal spouses. During the uprising of Nike, Theodora saved the throne for Justinian. The words she said went down in history: “Whoever has once put on a diadem should not experience its death... As for me, I adhere to the old saying: purple is the best shroud!” Within 10 years of Justinian's death, many of his conquests were reduced to zero, and the idea of a universal empire became a rhetorical figure for a long time. However, the reign of Justinian, who is called “the last Roman and first Byzantine emperor,” became a stage in the formation of the phenomenon of the Byzantine monarchy.

M. Butyrsky

The future emperor of Byzantium was born around 482 in the small Macedonian village of Taurisium, into the family of a poor peasant. He came to Constantinople as a teenager at the invitation of his uncle Justin, an influential courtier. Justin did not have his own children, and he patronized his nephew: he called him to the capital and, despite the fact that he himself remained illiterate, gave him a good education, and then found a position at court. In 518, the senate, guard and residents of Constantinople proclaimed the elderly Justin emperor, and he soon made his nephew his co-ruler. Justinian was distinguished by a clear mind, a broad political outlook, determination, perseverance and exceptional efficiency. These qualities made him the de facto ruler of the empire. His young, beautiful wife Theodora also played a huge role. Her life took an unusual turn: the daughter of a poor circus performer and a circus performer herself, she broke with her circle as a 20-year-old girl and went to Alexandria, where she fell under the influence of mystics and monks and was transformed, becoming sincerely religious and pious. Beautiful and charming, Theodora had an iron will and turned out to be an indispensable friend to the emperor in difficult times. Justinian and Theodora were a worthy couple, although evil tongues were haunted by their union for a long time.

In 527, after the death of his uncle, 45-year-old Justinian became autocrat - autocrat - of the Roman Empire, as the Byzantine Empire was then called.

Several stages clearly stand out in the reign of Justinian I. The beginning of the reign (527-532) was a period of widespread charity, distribution of funds to the poor, tax reduction, and assistance to cities affected by the earthquake. At this time, the position of the Christian Church in the fight against other religions was strengthened: the last stronghold of paganism - Plato's Academy - was closed in Athens, and opportunities for the open practice of the cults of other believers - Jews, Samaritans, etc. - were limited. This was a period of wars with the neighboring Iranian Sassanid power for influence in Southern Arabia, the goal of which was to gain a foothold in the ports of the Indian Ocean and thereby undermine Iran's monopoly on the silk trade with China. It was a time of struggle against the tyranny and abuses of the nobility.

The main event of this stage is legal reform. In 528, Justinian established a commission of experienced jurists and statesmen. The main role in it was played by the legal specialist Trebonian. First, the commission prepared a kind of constitution - the "Code of Justinian", then sets of specific laws - "Digests", as well as a guide to the study of law - "Institutions". The legislative reform was based on the need to combine the norms of classical Roman law with the spiritual values of Christianity. This was expressed primarily in the creation of a unified system of imperial citizenship and the proclamation of the equality of citizens before the law. Justinian's reform completed the process of creating legal regulation of the institution of private property, which began in the Old Roman period. In addition, Justinian's laws no longer considered the slave as a thing - a “speaking instrument”, but as a person. Although slavery was not abolished, many opportunities opened up for a slave to free himself: if he became a bishop, entered a monastery, became a soldier; It was forbidden to kill a slave, and the murder of someone else's slave entailed cruel execution. In addition, according to the new laws, the rights of women in the family were equal to the rights of men. Justinian's laws prohibited divorce, which was condemned by the church. At the same time, the era could not help but leave its mark on the law. Executions were frequent: for commoners - crucifixion, burning, devouring to wild animals, beating with rods to death, quartering; nobles were beheaded. Insulting the emperor, even damaging his sculptural images, was punishable by death. The emperor's reforms were interrupted by the Nika popular uprising in Constantinople (532). It all started with a conflict between two parties of fans in the circus: the Veneti (“blue”) and the Prasin (“green”). These were not only sports, but partly also socio-political unions. Political grievances were added to the traditional struggle of fans: the Prasins believed that the government was oppressing them and patronizing the Veneti. In addition, the lower classes were dissatisfied with the abuses of Justinian's "Minister of Finance" - John of Cappadocia, while the nobility hoped to get rid of the upstart emperor. The Prasin leaders presented their demands to the emperor, and in a very harsh form, and when he rejected them, they called him a murderer and left the circus. Thus, the autocrat was inflicted an unheard-of insult. The situation was complicated by the fact that when, on the same day, the instigators of the clash from both parties were arrested and sentenced to death, two of the convicts fell from the gallows (“were pardoned by God”), but the authorities refused to release them. Then a single “green-blue” party was created with the slogan “Nika!” (circus cry “Win!”). An open riot and arson began in the city. The emperor agreed to concessions, dismissing the ministers most hated by the people, but this did not bring peace. An important role was also played by the fact that the nobility distributed gifts and weapons to the rebellious plebs, inciting rebellion. Neither attempts to suppress the uprising by force with the help of a detachment of barbarians, nor the public repentance of the emperor with the Gospel in his hands yielded anything. The rebels now demanded his abdication and proclaimed the noble senator Hypatius emperor. Meanwhile, the fires spread. “The city was a pile of blackening ruins,” wrote a contemporary. Justinian was ready to abdicate, but at that moment Empress Theodora declared that she preferred death to flight and that “the emperor’s purple is an excellent shroud.” Her determination played a big role, and Justinian decided to fight. Troops loyal to the government made a desperate attempt to regain control over the capital: a detachment of the conquering Persian commander Belisarius entered the circus, where a stormy meeting of the rebels was taking place, and carried out a brutal massacre there. They said that 35 thousand people died, but Justinian’s throne survived.

The terrible catastrophe that befell Constantinople - fires and deaths - did not, however, plunge either Justinian or the townspeople into despondency. In the same year, rapid construction began using treasury funds. The pathos of restoration captured wide sections of the townspeople. In a sense, we can say that the city rose from the ashes, like the fabulous Phoenix bird, and became even more beautiful. The symbol of this rise was, of course, the construction of a miracle of miracles - the Church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. It began immediately, in 532, under the leadership of architects from the province - Afmilia from Thrall and Isidore from Miletus. Externally, the building had little to amaze the viewer, but the real miracle of transformation took place inside, when the believer found himself under a huge mosaic dome, which seemed to be hanging in the air without any support. A dome with a cross hovered over the worshipers, symbolizing the divine cover over the empire and its capital. Justinian had no doubt that his power had divine sanction. On holidays, he sat on the left side of the throne, and the right side was empty - Christ was invisibly present on it. The autocrat dreamed that an invisible cover would be raised over the entire Roman Mediterranean. With the idea of restoring the Christian empire - the "Roman house" - Justinian inspired the entire society.

When the dome of Constantinople Sophia was still being erected, the second stage of Justinian’s reign (532-540) began with the Great Liberation Campaign to the West.

By the end of the first third of the 6th century. The barbarian kingdoms that arose in the western part of the Roman Empire were experiencing a deep crisis. They were torn apart by religious strife: the main population professed Orthodoxy, but the barbarians, Goths and Vandals were Arians, whose teaching was declared a heresy, condemned in the 4th century. at the I and II Ecumenical Councils of the Christian Church. Within the barbarian tribes themselves, social stratification was occurring at a rapid pace, discord between the nobility and the common people was growing, which undermined the combat effectiveness of the armies. The elite of the kingdoms were busy with intrigues and conspiracies and did not care about the interests of their states. The indigenous population waited for the Byzantines as liberators. The reason for the outbreak of war in Africa was that the Vandal nobility overthrew the legitimate king - a friend of the empire - and placed his relative Gelimer on the throne. In 533, Justinian sent a 16,000-strong army under the command of Belisarius to the African shores. The Byzantines managed to secretly land and freely occupy the capital of the Vandal kingdom - Carthage. The Orthodox clergy and Roman nobility solemnly greeted the imperial troops. The common people also reacted sympathetically to their appearance, because... Belisarius severely punished robberies and looting. King Gelimer tried to organize resistance, but lost the decisive battle. The Byzantines were helped by an accident: at the beginning of the battle, the king’s brother died, and Gelimer left the troops to bury him. The Vandals decided that the king had fled, and panic gripped the army. All of Africa fell into the hands of Belisarius. Under Justinian I, grandiose construction began here - 150 new cities were built, close trade contacts with the Eastern Mediterranean were restored. The province experienced economic growth throughout the 100 years it was part of the empire.

Following the annexation of Africa, a war began for the possession of the historical core of the western part of the empire - Italy. The reason for the outbreak of the war was the overthrow and murder of the legitimate queen of the Ostrogoths, Amalasunta, by her husband Theodite. In the summer of 535, Belisarius with an 8,000-strong detachment landed in Sicily and in a short time, experiencing almost no resistance, occupied the island. The next year, his army crossed to the Apennine Peninsula and, despite the enemy’s huge numerical superiority, recaptured its southern and central parts. The Italians greeted Belisarius everywhere with flowers; only Naples offered resistance. The Christian Church played a huge role in this support of the people. In addition, chaos reigned in the Ostrogoth camp: the murder of the cowardly and treacherous Theodite, a riot in the troops. The army chose Witigis, a brave soldier but a weak politician, as the new king. He, too, was unable to stop the advance of Belisarius, and in December 536 the Byzantine army occupied Rome without a fight. The clergy and townspeople arranged a solemn meeting for the Byzantine soldiers. The population of Italy no longer wanted the power of the Ostrogoths, as evidenced by the following fact. When in the spring of 537 the 5,000-strong detachment of Belisarius was besieged in Rome by the huge army of Witigis, the battle for Rome lasted 14 months; Despite hunger and disease, the Romans remained loyal to the empire and did not allow Witigis into the city. It is also significant that the king of the Ostrogoths himself printed coins with the portrait of Justinian I - only the power of the emperor was considered legal. In the late autumn of 539, the army of Belisarius besieged the barbarian capital of Ravenna, and a few months later, relying on the support of friends in the city, the imperial troops occupied it without a fight.

Even when Belisarius was negotiating the capitulation of Ravenna, the Persians violated the “Eternal Peace” they had signed 10 years ago with the empire. Shah Khosrow I invaded Syria with a huge army and besieged the capital of the province - the richest city of Antioch. The residents bravely defended themselves, but the garrison was unable to fight and fled. The Persians took Antioch, plundered the flourishing city and sold the inhabitants into slavery. The next year, the troops of Khosrow I invaded Lazika (Western Georgia), allied with the empire, and a protracted Byzantine-Persian war began. The thunderstorm from the East coincided with the Slavic invasion of the Danube. Taking advantage of the fact that the border fortifications were left almost without garrisons (there were troops in Italy and in the East), the Slavs reached the capital itself, broke through the Long Walls (three walls stretching from the Black Sea to Marmara, protecting the outskirts of the city) and began to plunder the suburbs of Constantinople. Belisarius was urgently transferred to the East, and he managed to stop the Persian invasion, but while his army was not in Italy, the Ostrogoths revived there. They chose the young, handsome, brave and intelligent Totila as king and, under his leadership, began a new war. The barbarians enlisted runaway slaves and colonists into the army, distributed church and noble lands to their supporters, and recruited those who had been offended by the Byzantines. Very quickly, Totila's small army occupied almost all of Italy; Only the ports remained under the control of the empire, which could not be taken without a fleet.

Justinian understood well that his main strength in the face of a superior enemy was the faith and unity of his subjects. Therefore, simultaneously with the ongoing war with the Persians in Lazica, the difficult struggle with Totila, who created his fleet and captured Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica, the emperor’s attention was increasingly occupied by issues of theology. It seemed to some that the elderly Justinian had lost his mind, spending days and nights in such a critical situation reading the Holy Scriptures, studying the works of the “Church Fathers” (the traditional name for the figures of the Christian Church who created its dogma and organization) and writing his own theological treatises. However, the emperor understood well that it was in the Christian faith of the Romans that their strength lay. Then the famous idea of the “symphony of the Kingdom and the Priesthood” was formulated - the union of church and state as a guarantee of peace: the Empire.

In 543, Justinian wrote a treatise condemning the teachings of the mystic, ascetic and theologian of the 3rd century Origen, which denied the eternal torment of sinners. However, the emperor paid the main attention to overcoming the split between the Orthodox and Monophysites. This conflict has tormented the church for more than 100 years. In 451, the IV Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon condemned the Monophysites. The theological dispute was complicated by the rivalry between the influential centers of Orthodoxy in the East - Alexandria, Antioch and Constantinople. The split between supporters of the Council of Chalcedon and its opponents (Orthodox and Monophysites) during the reign of Justinian I became particularly acute, because Monophysites created their own separate church hierarchy. In 541, the activities of the famous Monophysite Jacob Baradei began, who, dressed as a beggar, went around all the countries inhabited by Monophysites, ordained bishops and even founded the patriarchate. The religious conflict was complicated by a national one: the Greeks and Romans, who considered themselves the ruling people in the Roman Empire, were predominantly Orthodox, and the Copts and many Arabs were Monophysites. For the empire, this was all the more dangerous because the richest provinces - Egypt and Syria - contributed huge sums to the treasury, and much depended on the support of the government by the trade and craft circles of these regions. While Theodora was alive, she helped mitigate the conflict by patronizing the Monophysites, despite the criticism of the Orthodox clergy, but in 548 the empress died. Justinian decided to bring the issue of reconciliation with the Monophysites to the V Ecumenical Council. The emperor's plan was to smooth out the conflict by condemning the teachings of the enemies of the Monophysites - Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Willow of Edessa and Theodore of Mopsuet (the so-called "three chapters"). The difficulty was that they all died in peace with the church. Is it possible to condemn the dead? After much hesitation, Justinian decided that it was possible, but Pope Vigilius and the overwhelming majority of Western bishops did not agree with his decision. The Emperor took the Pope to Constantinople, kept him almost under house arrest, trying to achieve agreement under pressure. After a long struggle and hesitation, Vigilius surrendered. In 553, the V Ecumenical Council in Constantinople condemned the “three heads.” The pope did not participate in the work of the council, citing indisposition, and tried to oppose its decisions, but in the end he signed them. In the history of this council, one should distinguish between its religious meaning, which consists in the triumph of the Orthodox dogma that the divine and human nature are united in Christ inseparably and inseparably, and the political intrigues that accompanied it. Justinian's direct goal was not achieved: reconciliation with the Monophysites did not occur and there was almost a break with the Western bishops, dissatisfied with the decisions of the council. However, this cathedral played a big role in the spiritual consolidation of the Orthodox Church, and this was extremely important both at that time and for subsequent eras. The reign of Justinian I was a period of religious upsurge. It was at this time that church poetry, written in simple language, began to develop, one of the most prominent representatives of which was Roman Sladkopevets. This was the heyday of Palestinian monasticism, the time of John Climacus and Isaac the Syrian.

There was also a turning point in political affairs. In 552, Justinian equipped a new army for a campaign in Italy. This time she set off by land, through Dalmatia, under the command of the eunuch Narses, a brave commander and cunning politician. In the decisive battle, Totila's cavalry attacked the troops of Narses, formed in a crescent, came under cross-fire from archers from the flanks, took to flight and crushed their own infantry. Totila was seriously wounded and died. Within a year, the Byzantine army restored its dominance over all of Italy, and a year later Narses stopped and destroyed the hordes of Lombards pouring into the peninsula. Italy was saved from terrible plunder. In 554, Justinian continued his conquests in the Western Mediterranean, attempting to capture Spain. It was not possible to do this completely, but the south of the country with the city of Cordoba and the Strait of Gibraltar came under the rule of Byzantium. The Mediterranean Sea once again became the "Roman Lake". In 555, imperial troops defeated a huge Persian army at Lazika. Khosrow I first signed a truce for six years, and then peace. It was also possible to cope with the Slavic threat: Justinian I entered into an alliance with the nomadic Avars, who took upon themselves the protection of the Danube border of the empire and the fight against the Slavs. In 558 this treaty came into force. The long-awaited peace has come for the “Empire of the Romans”.

The last years of the reign of Justinian I (559-565) passed quietly. The finances of the empire, weakened by a quarter-century of struggle and a terrible epidemic, were restored, the country healed its wounds. The 84-year-old emperor did not abandon his theological studies and hopes of ending the schism in the church. He even wrote a treatise close in spirit to the Monophysites on the incorruptibility of the body of Jesus. For resisting the emperor's new views, the Patriarch of Constantinople and many bishops ended up in exile. Justinian I was at the same time a continuer of the traditions of early Christians and the heir of the pagan Caesars. On the one hand, he fought against the fact that only priests were active in the church, and the laity remained only spectators, and on the other hand, he constantly interfered with the state and politics in church affairs, removing bishops at his discretion. Justinian carried out reforms in the spirit of the Gospel commandments - he helped the poor, alleviated the situation of slaves and colonists, restored cities - and at the same time subjected the population to severe tax oppression. He tried to restore the authority of the law, but was never able to eliminate the corruption and abuse of officials. His attempts to restore peace and stability in the territory of the Byzantine Empire turned into rivers of blood. And yet, despite everything, Justinian's empire was an oasis of civilization surrounded by pagan and barbarian states and captured the imagination of his contemporaries.

The significance of the great emperor's deeds goes far beyond his time. Strengthening the position of the church, the ideological and spiritual consolidation of Orthodoxy, the liberation of the Western church from the power of the Arian kings played a huge role in the formation of medieval society. Justinian's Code has survived centuries and became the basis of subsequent legal norms.

After the collapse of the Roman Empire and the fall of Rome, Byzantium was able to withstand the onslaught of the barbarians and continued to exist as an independent state. It reached the peak of its power under Emperor Justinian.

Byzantine Empire under Justinian

The Byzantine emperor ascended the throne on August 1, 527. The territory of the empire at that time included the Balkans, Egypt, the coast of Tripoli, the peninsula of Asia Minor, the Middle East and all the islands of the eastern Mediterranean Sea.

Rice. 1. The territory of Byzantium at the beginning of the reign of Justinian

The role of the emperor in the state was unusually enormous. He had absolute power, but it relied on the bureaucracy.

The basileus (as Byzantine rulers were called) built the basis of his internal policy on the foundation laid by Diocletian, who worked under Theodosius I. He created a special document that listed all the civil and military government officials of Byzantium. Thus, the military sphere was divided immediately between the five largest military leaders, two of whom were at court, and the rest in Thrace, in the east of the empire and in Illyria. Lower down in the military hierarchy were the duci, who controlled the military districts entrusted to them.

In domestic politics, the basileus relied on his ministers. The most powerful was the minister who ruled the largest prefecture - the eastern one. He had the greatest influence on the writing of laws, public administration, the judicial system and the distribution of finances. Below him was the city prefect, who ruled the capital. The state also had heads of various services, treasurers, police chiefs and, finally, senators - members of the imperial council.

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An important date in the life of the empire is 529. It was then that Justinian created his famous code - a set of laws based on Roman law. It was the best legal document of its time, incorporating the laws of the empire.

Rice. 2. Fresco depicting Justinian.

The most important government reforms carried out by Justinian:

combining civilian and military positions;
a ban on officials acquiring land in their places of service;
prohibition of payments for positions and increasing salaries of officials, which was carried out as part of the fight against corruption.

Justinian's greatest achievement in the cultural sphere was the construction of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople - the greatest Christian temple of its time.

In 532, the largest revolt in its history occurred in Constantinople - the Nika uprising. More than 35 thousand people, dissatisfied with high taxes and church policies, took to the streets of the city. It was only thanks to the loyalty of the emperor’s personal guard and his wife that Justinian did not flee the capital and personally suppressed the rebellion.

His wife, Theodora, played a prominent role in the life of the emperor. She was not an aristocrat, earning money before marriage in the theaters of Constantinople. However, she turned out to be a subtle politician who knows how to play on people’s feelings and build complex intrigues.

Foreign policy under Justinian

There was no other period in the history of the young empire when it experienced such a flourishing. Considering the reign of Justinian in the Byzantine Empire, one cannot help but mention the endless wars and conquests that he waged. Justinian was the only Byzantine emperor who dreamed of reviving the Roman Empire within its former borders.

Justinian's favorite general was Belisarius. He took part in many wars both in the east with the Persians and in the west - with the Vandals in North Africa, in Spain with the Visigoths and in Italy with the Ostrogoths. Even with smaller forces, he managed to achieve victories, and the capture of Rome is considered his greatest success.

Considering this issue briefly, the following achievements of the Roman army should be noted:

endless wars in the east with the Persians did not allow the latter to occupy the Middle East;
the kingdom of the Vandals in North Africa was conquered;
southern Spain was freed from the Visigoths for 20 years;
Italy, along with Rome and Naples, was returned to Roman rule.

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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 in all of Byzantine history. Descriptions, and even more so assessments of his character, life, and actions 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 such emperor, 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 the last years of the reign of Justin I, “Justinian, not yet enthroned, ruled the state during the life of his uncle... who was still reigning, 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 distinguished by 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 barbaric 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 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,” Justinian declared, “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 Tricamarus, Gelimer was defeated, and in March 534 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 Theodat'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 the following 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 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, as well as the restoration of Roman laws that were harsh towards the common people in 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 cousin Germanus to replace Belisarius, 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 Tagine, 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. Basically, the 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 state, the Huns, Slavs and Antes, 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, the nomadic Huns organized a campaign in Scythia and Mysia. The emperor's nephew Justus, 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 in any other usual way, but, having driven stakes firmly into the ground and making them as sharp as possible, they impaled 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, it penetrated into the inside of a 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 to the protection of the walls, taking the most valuable things (the damaged Long Wall could not serve as a reliable barrier to the 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 the Second (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 (the Istanbol Mosque of 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 still admires 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 with the boldness of its technical solutions, but also with its unprecedented beauty and richness of interior decoration, the main temple of the empire amazed everyone who saw it. 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 heap of the 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 the huge number of 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 of Civil Law”, not only the basis of all Byzantine and Western European medieval law, but also a 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 Verita (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 disappeared into Mauritania and for a long time disturbed Justinian’s African possessions 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 (dimes of different colors belonged to different social groups of the 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 in each city they were divided into Veneti and Prasin, but recently, for these names and for the places in which they sit during spectacles, they 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 with the Gospel in his hands to the hippodrome, 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 quick thinking 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 of public life, persecuting dissidents in every possible way. At the very beginning of his reign, approx. In 529, he promulgated a decree prohibiting the employment of “heretics” in public service and the partial defeat of 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 direction of Christianity that was not particularly persecuted was the Monophysites - partly due to the patronage of Theodora, and the basileus himself was well aware of the danger of persecution of such a large number of citizens, who already kept the court in constant anticipation of rebellion. 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, a 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.

Throughout his life, Justinian 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 the expectation of 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.”

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The west of the Roman Empire, captured by the Germans, who divided it into barbarian kingdoms, lay in ruins. Only islands and fragments of the Hellenistic civilization, which by that time had already been transformed by the light of the Gospel, were preserved there. The German kings - Catholic, Arian, pagan - still had reverence for the Roman name, but the center of gravity for them was no longer the dilapidated, devastated and depopulated city on the Tiber, but New Rome, created by the creative act of St. Constantine on the European shore of the Bosphorus, cultural superiority which over the cities of the West was indisputably obvious.

The original Latin-speaking, as well as Latinized, inhabitants of the German kingdoms adopted the ethnonyms of their conquerors and masters - the Goths, Franks, Burgundians, while the Roman name long ago became familiar to the former Hellenes, who ceded their original ethnonym, which in the past fed their national pride, to the small ones in the east empires to the pagans. Paradoxically, subsequently in our Rus', at least in the writings of learned monks, pagans of any origin, even Samoyeds, are called “Hellenes.” People from other nations - Armenians, Syrians, Copts - also called themselves Romans, or, in Greek, Romans, if they were Christians and citizens of the empire, which was identified in their minds with the ecumene - the Universe, not, of course, because they imagined on its borders is the edge of the world, but because the world lying beyond these borders was deprived of fullness and self-worth in their consciousness and in this sense belonged to pitch darkness - meon, in need of enlightenment and sharing the benefits of Christian Roman civilization, in need of integration into the true ecumene, or, what is the same, to the Roman Empire. From then on, the newly baptized peoples, regardless of their actual political status, were, by the very fact of baptism, considered included in the imperial body, and their rulers from barbarian sovereigns became tribal archons, whose powers stemmed from the emperors in whose service they were, at least symbolically , entered, receiving ranks from the palace nomenklatura as a reward.

In Western Europe, the era from the 6th to the 9th centuries is the dark ages, and the East of the empire experienced during this period, despite crises, external threats and territorial losses, a brilliant flourishing, reflections of which were cast to the west, which is why it was not overturned as a result of the barbaric conquest into the mother's womb of prehistoric existence, as happened in its time with the Mycenaean civilization, destroyed by immigrants from Macedonia and Epirus, conventionally called Dorians, who invaded its borders. The Dorians of the Christian era - Germanic barbarians - stood no higher than the ancient conquerors of Achaia in terms of their level of cultural development, but, finding themselves within the empire and turning the conquered provinces into ruins, they fell into the field of attraction of the fabulously rich and beautiful world capital - New Rome, which withstood the blows of human elements and learned to appreciate the ties that bound their people to him.

The era ended with the assimilation of the imperial title to the Frankish king Charles, and more precisely and definitely - with the failure of attempts to settle relations between the newly proclaimed emperor and the successive emperor - St. Irene - so that the empire remained united and indivisible if it had two rulers with the same title, as has happened many times happened in the past. The failure of negotiations led to the formation of a separate empire in the West, which, from the point of view of political and legal traditions, was an act of usurpation. The unity of Christian Europe was undermined, but not completely destroyed, for the peoples of the East and West of Europe remained for another two and a half centuries in the bosom of a single Church.

The period that lasted from the 6th to the turn of the 8th–9th centuries is called Early Byzantine after the anachronistic, but still sometimes used in these centuries in relation to the capital - and never to the empire and state - ancient toponym Byzantium, reanimated by historians of modern times, for whom it began to serve as a name both the state and civilization itself. Within this period, its most brilliant segment, its acme and apogee, was the era of Justinian the Great, which began with the reign of his uncle Justin the Elder and ended in unrest that led to the overthrow of the legitimate emperor of Mauritius and the rise to power of the usurper Phocas. The emperors who reigned after Saint Justinian until the rebellion of Phocas were directly or indirectly related to the dynasty of Justin.

Reign of Justin the Elder

After the death of Anastasius, his nephews, Master of the East Hypatius and the consulars of Probus and Pompey, could claim supreme power, but the dynastic principle in itself meant nothing in the Roman Empire without support from real power and the army. The nephews, having no support from the Excuvites (Life Guards), did not seem to lay claim to power. The eunuch Amantius, who enjoyed special influence over the late emperor, the preposit of the sacred bedchamber (a kind of minister of the court), tried to install his nephew and bodyguard Theocritus as emperor, for which purpose, according to Evagrius Scholasticus, he called upon the committee of the excubites and senator Justin, “transferred to him great wealth, ordering the distribution them among people who are especially useful and capable of (helping) Theocritus to put on purple clothing. Having bribed either the people or the so-called excuvites with these riches... (Justin himself) seized power.” According to the version of John Malala, Justin conscientiously fulfilled the order of Amantius and distributed money to the Excuvites subordinate to him so that they would support the candidacy of Theocritus, and “the army and people, having taken (the money), did not want to make Theocritus king, but by the will of God they made Justin king.”

According to another and quite convincing version, which, however, does not contradict the information about the distribution of gifts in favor of Theocritus, at first the traditionally rival guards units (the technology of power in the empire provided for a system of counterweights) - the Excuvites and the Schola - had different candidates for supreme power. The Excuvites raised on their shield the tribune John, a comrade-in-arms of Justin, who soon after the acclamation of his superior by the emperor became a cleric and was made metropolitan of Heraclea, and the scholae proclaimed the master of the militum praesentalis (army stationed in the capital) Patricius emperor. The threat of civil war thus arising was averted by the decision of the Senate to install as emperor the elderly and popular military leader Justin, who, shortly before the death of Anastasius, defeated the rebellious troops of the usurper Vitalian. The Excuvites approved this choice, the Scholas agreed with it, and the people gathered at the hippodrome welcomed Justin.

On July 10, 518, Justin entered the box of the hippodrome along with Patriarch John II and the highest dignitaries. Then he stood on the shield, the campidductor Godila placed a gold chain - a hryvnia - around his neck. The shield was raised to the greetings of the soldiers and people. The banners flew up. The only innovation, according to the observation of J. Dagron, was the fact that the newly proclaimed emperor after the acclamation “did not return to the triclinium of the lodge to receive the insignia,” but the soldiers lined up “turtle-like” to hide him “from prying eyes” while “the patriarch laid a crown on his head" and "clothed him in a chlamys." Then the herald, on behalf of the emperor, announced a welcoming address to the troops and people, in which he called on Divine Providence for help in his service to the people and the state. Each warrior was promised 5 gold coins and a pound of silver as a gift.

A verbal portrait of the new emperor is available in the “Chronicle” of John Malala: “He was short, broad-chested, with gray curly hair, a beautiful nose, ruddy, handsome.” To the description of the emperor’s appearance, the historian adds: “experienced in military affairs, ambitious, but illiterate.”

At that time, Justin was already approaching 70 years of age - at that time it was the age of extreme old age. He was born around 450 into a peasant family in the village of Bederiane (located near the modern Serbian city of Leskovac). In this case, he, and therefore his more famous nephew Justinian the Great, comes from the same Inner Dacia as St. Constantine, who was born in Naissa. Some historians find Justin's homeland in the south of the modern Macedonian state - near Bitola. Both ancient and modern authors designate the ethnic origin of the dynasty differently: Procopius calls Justin an Illyrian, and Evagrius and John Malalas a Thracian. The version of the Thracian origin of the new dynasty seems less convincing. Despite the name of the province where Justin was born, Inner Dacia was not true Dacia. After the evacuation of the Roman legions from real Dacia, its name was transferred to the province adjacent to it, where at one time the legions were redeployed, leaving Dacia conquered by Trajan, and in its population it was not the Thracian, but the Illyrian element that predominated. Moreover, within the Roman Empire, by the middle of the 1st millennium, the process of Romanization and Hellenization of the Thracians had already been completed or was being completed, while one of the Illyrian peoples - the Albanians - has safely survived to this day. A. Vasiliev definitely considers Justin an Illyrian; to one degree or another he was, of course, a Romanized Illyrian. Despite the fact that his native language was the language of his ancestors, he, like his fellow villagers and all residents of Inner Dacia in general, as well as neighboring Dardania, at least knew Latin. In any case, Justin had to master it in military service.

For a long time, the version of the Slavic origin of Justin and Justinian was seriously considered. At the beginning of the 17th century, the Vatican librarian Alemmann published a biography of Justinian, attributed to a certain Abbot Theophilus, who was named as his mentor. And in this biography, Justinian was given the name “Upravda”. In this name one can easily guess the Slavic translation of the Latin name of the emperor. The infiltration of Slavs across the imperial border into the central part of the Balkans took place in the 5th century, although at that time it was not of a massive nature and did not yet pose a serious danger. Therefore, the version of the Slavic origin of the dynasty was not rejected out of hand. But, as A.A. writes Vasiliev, “the manuscript that Alemann used was found and examined at the end of the 19th century (1883) by the English scientist Bryce, who showed that this manuscript, being compiled at the beginning of the 17th century, is of a legendary nature and has no historical value.”

During the reign of Emperor Leo, Justin, together with his fellow villagers Zimarchus and Ditivist, went into military service to get rid of poverty. “They reached Byzantium on foot, carrying goat’s sheepskin coats on their shoulders, in which upon arrival in the city they had nothing but biscuits taken from the house. Included in the lists of soldiers, they were selected by the basileus to serve as court guards, because they were distinguished by their excellent physique.” The imperial career of a poor peasant, fantastically unthinkable in medieval Western Europe, was an ordinary phenomenon and even typical of the late Roman and Roman Empire, just as similar metamorphoses were repeated more than once in the history of China.

While serving in the guard, Justin acquired a concubine, whom he later took as his wife - Lupicina, a former slave whom he bought from her master and partner. Having become empress, Lupicina changed her common name to an aristocratic one. According to Procopius’s caustic remark, “she did not appear in the palace under her own name (it was too funny), but began to be called Euphemia.”

Possessing courage, common sense, and diligence, Justin made a successful military career, rising to the rank of officer and then general. In his career, he also had breakdowns. One of them was preserved in the annals, because after the rise of Justin it received a providential interpretation among the people. The story of this episode is included by Procopius in his Secret History. During the suppression of the Isaurian rebellion during the reign of Anastasius, Justin was in the active army, commanded by John, nicknamed Kirt - “Humpbacked”. And so, for an unknown offense, John arrested Justin in order to “put him to death the next day, but he was prevented from doing this by... a vision... In a dream, someone of enormous stature appeared to him... And this vision ordered him to free his husband, whom he... threw into prison ". John at first did not attach any significance to the dream, but the dream vision was repeated the next night and then a third time; the husband who appeared in the vision threatened Kirt “to prepare a terrible fate for him if he does not carry out what was ordered, and added that subsequently... he will extremely need this man and his relatives. This is how Justin happened to survive then,” Procopius sums up his anecdote, possibly based on the story of Kirtus himself.

Anonymous Valesia tells another story, which, according to popular rumor, foreshadowed Justin, when he was already one of the dignitaries close to Anastasius, supreme power. Having reached a ripe old age, Anastasius was thinking about which of his nephews should become his successor. And then one day, in order to guess the will of God, he invited all three to his chambers and after dinner left them to spend the night in the palace. “He ordered to put the royal (sign) at the head of one bed, and by which one of them chooses this bed for rest, he will be able to determine to whom to give power later. One of them lay down on one bed, while the other two, out of brotherly love, lay down together on the second bed. And... the bed where the royal sign was hidden turned out to be unoccupied. When he saw this, on reflection, he decided that none of them would rule, and began to pray to God to send him a revelation... And one night he saw in a dream a man who told him: “The first one about whom you will be informed tomorrow in your chambers, and he will take power after you.” It so happened that Justin... as soon as he arrived, was sent to the emperor, and he was the first to be reported... by the preposit." Anastasius, according to Anonymous, “gave gratitude to God for showing him a worthy heir,” and yet, humanly, Anastasius was upset by what had happened: “Once during the royal exit, Justin, hastening to express respect, wanted to walk around the emperor on the side and involuntarily stepped on on his robe. To this the emperor only said to him: “Where are you hurrying?”

In climbing the career ladder, Justin was not hindered by his illiteracy, and, according to Procopius’s probably exaggerated assessment, illiteracy. The author of the “Secret History” wrote that, having become emperor, Justin found it difficult to sign the edicts and constitutions issued, and so that he could still do this, a “small smooth tablet” was made, on which “the outline of four letters” was cut, meaning in Latin “Read” (Legi. - Prot. V.Ts.); Having dipped the pen in the colored ink with which basileus usually write, they handed it to this basileus. Then, placing the said tablet on the document and taking the basileus’s hand, they traced the outline of these four letters with a pen.” Given the high degree of barbarization of the army, illiterate military leaders were often placed at its head. This does not mean at all that they were mediocre generals, on the contrary - in other cases, illiterate and illiterate generals turned out to be outstanding commanders. Turning to other times and peoples, we can point out that Charlemagne, although he loved to read and highly valued classical education, did not know how to write. Justin, who became famous under Anastasia for his successful participation in the war with Iran and then, shortly before his ascension to the pinnacle of power, for suppressing the rebellion of Vitalian in the decisive naval battle near the walls of the capital, was, at the very least, a capable military leader and a prudent administrator and politician, as eloquently says popular rumor: Anastasius thanked God when it was revealed to him that he would become his successor, and therefore Justin does not deserve Procopius’ contemptuous characteristics: “He was completely simple (hardly so, probably only in appearance, in manners. - Prot. V.Ts.), could not speak well and was generally very masculine”; and even: “He was extremely weak-minded and truly like a pack donkey, capable only of following the one who pulls his bridle, and every now and then shaking his ears.” The meaning of this abusive philippic is that Justin was not an independent ruler, that he was manipulated. In Procopius’s view, such a sinister manipulator, a kind of “gray eminence,” turned out to be the emperor’s nephew Justinian.

He truly surpassed his uncle in abilities, and even more so in education, and willingly helped him in the affairs of government, enjoying complete trust on his part. Another assistant to the emperor was the outstanding lawyer Proclus, who from 522 to 526 served as quaestor of the sacred court and headed the imperial office.

The first days of Justin's reign were stormy. The prepositor of the sacred bedchamber, Amantius, and his nephew Theocritus, whom he predicted to be the heir of Anastasius, not accepting the unfortunate defeat, the failure of their intrigue, “planned,” according to Theophan the Confessor, “to cause outrage, but paid with their lives.” The circumstances of the conspiracy are unknown. Procopius presented the execution of the conspirators in a different form, unfavorable for Justin and especially Justinian, whom he considers the main culprit of what happened: “Not even ten days passed after he achieved power (meaning the proclamation of Justin as emperor. - Prot. V.Ts), how he killed, along with some others, the head of the court eunuchs, Amantius, without any reason, except because he said a rash word to the bishop of the city, John.” The mention of Patriarch John II of Constantinople sheds light on the possible spring of the conspiracy. The fact is that Justin and his nephew Justinian, unlike Anastasius, were adherents, and they were burdened by the severance of Eucharistic communion with Rome. They considered overcoming the schism and restoring the church unity of the West and the East to be the main goal of their policy, especially since Justinian the Great saw the prospect of restoring the Roman Empire in its former fullness behind the achievement of this goal. Their like-minded person was the newly installed primate of the capital’s Church, John. It seems that in his desperate attempt to replay the already played game by eliminating Justin, the preposite of the sacred bedchamber wanted to rely on those dignitaries who, like the late emperor, gravitated toward Monophysitism and who were little concerned about the break in canonical communication with the Roman see. According to the monophysite John of Nikius, who refers to the emperor only as Justin the Cruel, after coming to power, he “put to death all the eunuchs, regardless of the degree of their guilt, since they did not approve of his accession to the throne.” Obviously, other eunuchs in the palace were Monophysites, in addition to the preposite of the sacred bedchamber who was in charge over them.

Anastasius Vitalian tried to rely on adherents of Orthodoxy in his rebellion against him. And now, in a new situation, despite the fact that he himself played a decisive role in the defeat of the rebel, Justin now, perhaps on the advice of his nephew, decided to bring Vitalian closer to himself. Vitalian was appointed to the highest military position of commander of the army stationed in the capital and its environs - magister militum praesentalis - and was even awarded the title of consul for 520, which in that era was usually held by the emperor, members of the imperial house with the titles of Augustus or Caesar, and only the most high-ranking dignitaries from persons who are not close relatives of the autocrat.

But already in January 520, Vitalian was killed in the palace. At the same time, he was inflicted 16 dagger wounds. Among Byzantine authors we find three main versions regarding the organizers of his murder. According to one of them, he was killed by order of the emperor, since he learned that he “planned to rebel against him.” This is the version of John Nikius, in whose eyes Vitalian was especially odious because, close to the emperor, he insisted that the Monophysite Patriarch of Antioch Sevirus have his tongue cut for his “sermons full of wisdom and accusations against the Emperor Leo and his vicious faith.” , in other words, against the Orthodox diaphysite dogma. Procopius of Caesarea in the “Secret History,” written with the fury of one obsessed with hatred of Saint Justinian, names him as the culprit of Vitalian’s death: having ruled autocratically in the name of his uncle, Justinian at first “hurriedly sent for the usurper Vitalian, having previously given him a guarantee of his safety,” but “ soon, suspecting him of having insulted him, he killed him for no reason in the palace along with his relatives, not at all considering the terrible oaths he had previously made as an obstacle to this.” However, the version presented much later, but probably based on no surviving documentary sources, deserves more confidence. Thus, according to Theophan the Confessor, a writer at the turn of the 8th–9th centuries, Vitalian was “killed in an insidious manner by those of the Byzantines who were angry with him for the extermination of so many of their compatriots during his rebellion against Anastasius.” A reason to suspect Justinian of a conspiracy against Vitalian could be given by the fact that after his murder he took the post of master of the army, which became vacant, although in reality the emperor’s nephew undoubtedly had more direct and irreproachable paths to the highest posts in the state, so this is a serious argument this circumstance cannot serve.

But what act of the emperor his nephew was really involved in was the restoration of the Eucharistic communion with the Roman Church, which was broken during the reign of Zeno in connection with the publication of the notorious “Enotikon”, the initiative of which belonged to Patriarch Acacius, so that this break itself, which continued during 35 years old, in Rome received the name “Acacian schism.” On Easter 519, after extremely difficult negotiations conducted by the papal legates in Constantinople, a divine service was held in the capital's Church of Hagia Sophia with the participation of Patriarch John and the papal legates. Justinian was prompted to take this step not only by his shared commitment to the Chalcedonian oros, but also by his concern to remove obstacles (among which one of the most difficult was the church schism) for the implementation of the grandiose plan he had already outlined for restoring the integrity of the Roman Empire.

The government was distracted from the execution of this plan by various circumstances, and among them was the renewed war on the eastern border. This war was preceded by a rare occurrence in the history of relations between Iran and Rome, not only a peaceful, but also a directly friendly phase, established in the first years of Justin's reign. Since the end of the 5th century, Iran has been shaken by the confrontation caused by the teachings of Mazdak, who preached utopian social ideas similar to chiliasm, which grew on Christian soil: about universal equality and the abolition of private property, including the introduction of a community of wives; he received massive support from the common people and that part of the military aristocracy, which was burdened by the religious monopoly of the Zoroastrian magicians. Among the enthusiasts of Mazdakism were people who belonged to the Shah dynasty. Mazdak's preaching captivated Shah Kavad himself, but later he became disillusioned with this utopia, seeing in it a direct threat to the state, turned away from Mazdak and began to persecute both him and his supporters. Being already old, the Shah made sure that after his death the throne would go to his youngest son Khosrov Anushirvan, who was closely associated with the circles of zealous adherents of traditional Zoroastrianism, bypassing his eldest son Kaos, whose upbringing Kavad, at the time of his passion for Mazdakism, entrusted to the zealots of this teaching, and he , unlike his father, who changed his views, remained a Mazdakite in his convictions.

In order to acquire an additional guarantee of the transfer of power to Khosrow, Kavad decided to enlist support in case of critical developments from Rome and sent a message to Justin, which was retold by Procopius of Caesarea (not in his “Secret History”, but in the more trustworthy book “The War with the Persians” ) looks like this: “You yourself know that we suffered injustice from the Romans, but I decided to completely forget all the grievances against you... However, for all this I ask you for one favor, which... would be able to give us in all the blessings of the world abound. I suggest you make my Khosrow, who will be the successor to my power, your adopted son.” This was an idea that mirrored the situation a century ago, when, at the request of Emperor Arcadius, Shah Yazdegerd took under his wing the infant successor of Arcadius Theodosius II.

Kavad's message delighted both Justin and Justinian, who did not see a catch in it, but the quaestor of the sacred court, Proclus (whose praise Procopius does not skimp on in both the history of wars and in the "Secret History", where he contrasts him with another outstanding lawyer Tribonian and Justinian himself as a supporter of existing laws and an opponent of legislative reforms) saw in the Shah’s proposal a danger to the Roman state. Addressing Justin, he said: “I am not accustomed to put my hand to anything that smacks of innovation... knowing full well that the desire for innovation is always fraught with danger... In my opinion, we are now talking about nothing more than under a plausible pretext to transfer the state of the Romans to the Persians... For... this embassy from the very beginning has the goal of making this Khosrow, whoever he may be, the heir of the Roman basileus... By natural law, the property of fathers belongs to their children.” Proclus managed to convince Justin and his nephew of the danger of Kavad's proposal, but, on his own advice, it was decided not to refuse him his request directly, but to send envoys to him to negotiate a peace - until then only a truce was in effect, and the question of borders were not settled. As for the adoption of Khosrow by Justin, the ambassadors will have to declare that it will be accomplished “as it happens among the barbarians,” and “the barbarians carry out adoption not with the help of letters, but by handing over weapons and armor.” The experienced and overly cautious politician Proclus and, as can be seen, the cunning Levantine Procopius, who fully sympathized with his distrust, were hardly right in their suspicion, and the first reaction to the Shah’s proposal on the part of the rulers of Rome, originally from the Illyrian rural hinterland, could have been more adequate , but they changed their minds and followed the advice of Proclus.

The nephew of the late emperor, Anastasia Hypatius, and the patrician Rufin, who had friendly relations with the Shah, were sent for negotiations. From the Iranian side, high-ranking dignitaries Seos, or Siyavush, and Mevod (Mahbod) took part in the negotiations. Negotiations took place on the border of the two states. When discussing the terms of the peace treaty, the stumbling block turned out to be the Laz country, which in ancient times was called Colchis. Since the time of Emperor Leo, it was lost to Rome and was in the sphere of influence of Iran. But shortly before these negotiations, after the death of the Laz king Damnaz, his son Tsaf did not want to turn to the Shah with a request to grant him the royal title; instead, he went to Constantinople in 523, was baptized there, and became a vassal of the Roman state. During the negotiations, Iranian envoys demanded the return of Lazika to the supreme authority of the Shah, but this demand was rejected as insulting. In turn, the Iranian side considered the proposal to adopt Khosrow by Justin according to the rite of barbarian peoples an “unbearable insult.” The negotiations reached a dead end and it was not possible to agree on anything.

The response to the breakdown of negotiations on the part of Kavad was repression against the Ivers, closely related to the Laz, who, according to Procopius, “are Christians and better than all the peoples known to us, they keep the charters of this faith, but from ancient times ... have been subordinate to the Persian king. Kavad decided to forcibly convert them to his faith. He demanded from their king Gurgen that he perform all the rituals that the Persians adhere to, and, among other things, under no circumstances bury the dead, but throw them all to be devoured by birds and dogs.” King Gurgen, or, in another way, Bakur, turned to Justin for help, and he sent the nephew of Emperor Anastasius, patrician Provos, to the Cimmerian Bosporus, so that the ruler of this state, for a monetary reward, would send his troops against the Persians to help Gurgen. But Prov's mission did not bring results. The ruler of Bosporus refused help, and the Persian army occupied Georgia. Gurgen, along with his family and Georgian nobility, fled to Lazika, where they continued to resist the Persians who had now invaded Lazika.

Rome went to war with Iran. In the country of the Laz, in the powerful fortress of Petra, located near the modern village of Tsikhisdziri, between Batum and Kobuleti, a Roman garrison was stationed, but the main theater of military operations became the region familiar to the wars of the Romans with the Persians - Armenia and Mesopotamia. The Roman army entered Perso-Armenia under the command of the young commanders Sitta and Belisarius, who had the rank of Justinian’s spearmen, and troops led by the master of the army of the East Livelarius moved against the Mesopotamian city of Nisibis. Sitta and Belisarius acted successfully, they ravaged the country into which their armies entered, and, “capturing many Armenians, they retired to their own borders.” But the second invasion of the Romans into Perso-Armenia under the command of the same military leaders was unsuccessful: they were defeated by the Armenians, whose leaders were two brothers from the noble family of Kamsarakans - Narses and Aratiy. True, soon after this victory both brothers betrayed the Shah and went over to the side of Rome. Meanwhile, Livelarius's army during the campaign suffered the main losses not from the enemy, but due to the sweltering heat, and in the end was forced to retreat.

In 527, Justin dismissed the unlucky military leader, appointing Anastasius Hypatius's nephew as Master of the Army of the East, and Belisarius as Dux of Mesopotamia, who was entrusted with command of the troops that retreated from Nisibis and were stationed in Dara. Talking about these movements, the historian of the war with the Persians did not fail to note: “At the same time, Procopius was appointed to him as an adviser” - that is, he himself.

During the reign of Justin, Rome provided armed support to the distant Ethiopian kingdom with its capital in Axum. The Christian king of Ethiopia, Caleb, waged war with the king of Yemen, who patronized the local Jews. And with the help of Rome, the Ethiopians managed to defeat Yemen, restoring the dominance of the Christian religion in this country, located on the other side of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. A.A. Vasiliev notes in this regard: “At the first moment we are surprised to see how the Orthodox Justin, who ... launched an offensive against the Monophysites in his own empire, supports the Monophysite Ethiopian king. However, beyond the official boundaries of the empire, the Byzantine emperor supported Christianity as a whole... From a foreign policy point of view, the Byzantine emperors viewed every conquest for Christianity as an important political and perhaps economic conquest." In connection with these events in Ethiopia, a legend subsequently developed that acquired official status, included in the book “Kebra Negast” (“Glory of Kings”), according to which two kings - Justin and Caleb - met in Jerusalem and there they divided the entire land between themselves, but in this case, the worst part of it went to Rome, and the best part to the king of Aksum, because he has a more noble origin - from Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, and his people are therefore God's chosen New Israel - one of many examples of naive messianic megalomania.

In the 520s, the Roman Empire suffered from several earthquakes that destroyed large cities in different parts of the state, including Dyrrachium (Durres), Corinth, Anazarb in Cilicia, but the most disastrous in its consequences was the earthquake that struck the metropolis of Antioch with about 1 million inhabitants . As Theophan the Confessor writes, on May 20, 526, “at 7 o’clock in the afternoon, during the consulate in Rome, Olivria, the great Antioch of Syria, through the wrath of God, suffered an unspeakable disaster... Almost the entire city collapsed and became a grave for the inhabitants. Some, while under the ruins, became alive victims of fire coming out of the ground; another fire fell from the air in the form of sparks and, like lightning, burned whomever it met; at the same time, the earth shook for a whole year.” Up to 250 thousand Antiochians, led by their patriarch Euphrasius, fell victim to the natural disaster. The restoration of Antioch required enormous expenses and lasted for decades.

From the very beginning of his reign, Justin relied on the help of his nephew. On April 4, 527, the very old and seriously ill emperor appointed Justinian as his co-emperor with the title of Augustus. Emperor Justin died on August 1, 527. Before his death, he experienced excruciating pain from an old wound in his leg, which was pierced by an enemy arrow in one of the battles. Some historians retroactively give him a different diagnosis - cancer. In his best years, Justin, although illiterate, was distinguished by considerable abilities - otherwise he would not have made a career as a military leader, much less would have become an emperor. “In Justina,” according to F.I. Uspensky, “one should see a man fully prepared for political activity, who brought to the administration certain experience and a well-thought-out plan... The main fact of Justin’s activity is the end of a long church dispute with the West,” which in other words can be described as the restoration of Orthodoxy in the east of the empire after the long dominance of Monophysitism.

Justinian and Theodora

After the death of Justin, his nephew and co-emperor Justinian, who at that time already bore the title of Augustus, remained the only emperor. The beginning of his sole and, in this sense, monarchical rule did not cause confusion either in the palace, or in the capital, or in the empire.

Before the rise of his uncle, the future emperor was called Peter Savvaty. He named himself Justinian in honor of his uncle Justin, and then, having already become emperor, as his predecessors did, the family name of the first Christian autocrat Constantine was Flavius, so that in the consular diptych of 521 his name reads Flavius Peter Sabbatius Justinian. He was born in 482 or 483 in the village of Taurisia near Bederiana, the native village of his maternal uncle Justin, into a poor peasant family of Sabbatius and Vigilance, of Illyrian, according to Procopius, or, less likely, Thracian origin. But even in the rural outback of Illyricum at that time they used, in addition to the local language, Latin, and Justinian knew it from childhood. And then, finding himself in the capital, under the patronage of his uncle, who made a brilliant career as a general during the reign of Anastasius, Justinian, who had extraordinary abilities, inexhaustible curiosity and exceptional diligence, mastered the Greek language and received a thorough and comprehensive, but predominantly, as can be concluded from The range of his later activities and interests included legal and theological education, although he was also versed in mathematics, rhetoric, philosophy and history. One of his teachers in the capital was the outstanding theologian Leontius of Byzantium.

Having no inclination for military affairs, in which Justin excelled remarkably, he developed as an armchair and bookish man, equally well prepared for both academic and government activities. However, Justinian began his career under Emperor Anastasia with an officer position in the palace schola of the Excubites under his uncle. He enriched his experience by staying for several years at the court of the Ostrogothic king Theodoric the Great as a diplomatic agent of the Roman government. There he got to know the Latin West, Italy and the Arian barbarians better.

During the reign of Justin, becoming his closest assistant and then co-ruler, Justinian was awarded the honorary titles and titles of senator, comite and patrician. In 520 he was appointed consul for the following year. The festivities that took place on this occasion were accompanied by “the most expensive games and performances on the hippodrome that Constantinople has ever known. At least 20 lions, 30 panthers and an unknown number of other exotic animals were killed in a large circus." At one time, Justinian served as master of the army of the East; in April 527, shortly before the death of Justin, he was proclaimed Augustus, becoming not only de facto, but now also de jure co-ruler of his uncle, who was already dying. This ceremony took place modestly, in Justin’s personal chambers, “from which his serious illness no longer allowed him to leave,” “in the presence of Patriarch Epiphanius and other high dignitaries.”

We find a verbal portrait of Justinian in Procopius: “He was not big and not too small, but of average height, not thin, but slightly plump; His face was round and not without beauty, for even after two days of fasting there was a blush on him. To give an idea of his appearance in a few words, I will say that he was very similar to Domitian, the son of Vespasian,” whose statues have survived. This description can be trusted, especially since it corresponds not only to the miniature relief portraits on coins, but also to the mosaic images of Justinian in the Ravenna churches of St. Apollinaris and St. Vitalius and the porphyry statue in the Venetian temple of St. Mark.

But it is hardly worth trusting the same Procopius when he is in the “Secret History” (otherwise called “Anekdote”, which means “Unpublished”, so this conventional title of the book, due to its peculiar content, subsequently came into use as a designation of the corresponding genre - biting and caustic, but not necessarily reliable stories) characterizes the character and moral rules of Justinian. At the very least, his evil and biased assessments, so contrasting with other statements, already of a panegyric tone, with which he abundantly equipped his history of wars and especially the treatise “On Buildings,” should be taken critically. But, given the extreme degree of irritable hostility with which Procopius writes about the personality of the emperor in the Secret History, there is no reason to doubt the validity of the characteristics placed in it, representing Justinian from the best side, regardless of whether - positive, negative or dubious - in the world they were seen by the author himself with his special hierarchy of ethical values. “For Justinian,” he writes, “everything went easy... because he... did without sleep and was the most accessible person in the world. People, even humble and completely unknown, had every opportunity not only to come to the tyrant, but also to have a secret conversation with him”; “in the Christian faith he... was firm”; “He, one might say, had almost no need for sleep and never ate or drank to his fullest, but it was enough for him to barely touch food with his fingertips to stop eating. As if this seemed to him a secondary matter, imposed by nature, for he often remained without food for two days, especially when the time came on the eve of the celebration of the so-called Easter. Then often... he remained without food for two days, content with a small amount of water and wild plants, and, having slept, God willing, for an hour, spent the rest of the time in constant pacing.”

Procopius wrote in more detail about Justinian’s ascetic asceticism in his book “On Buildings”: “He constantly rose from his bed at dawn, staying awake in worries about the state, always personally directing state affairs both in deed and word, both during the morning and at noon, and often all night long. Late at night he would lie down on his bed, but very often he would immediately get up, as if angry and indignant at the soft bedding. When he began to eat, he did not touch either wine, or bread, or anything else that was edible, but ate only vegetables, and at the same time coarse ones, soaked for a long time in salt and vinegar, and served as a drink for him. pure water. But even with this he was never satiated: when dishes were served to him, he, only having tasted from those on which he was eating at that time, sent the rest back.” His exceptional devotion to duty is not hidden in the libelous “Secret History”: “What he wanted to publish in his own name, he did not entrust it to be compiled by someone who had the position of quaestor, as was customary, but considered it permissible to do it for the most part himself " Procopius sees the reason for this in the fact that in Justinian “there was nothing of royal dignity, and he did not consider it necessary to guard it, but in his language, appearance, and way of thinking he was like a barbarian.” In such conclusions, the degree of conscientiousness of the author is characteristically revealed.

But are the accessibility of Justinian, noted by this hater of the emperor, his incomparable diligence, which obviously stemmed from a sense of duty, ascetic lifestyle and Christian piety, compatible with a highly original conclusion about the demonic nature of the emperor, in support of which the historian refers to the evidence of unnamed courtiers , to whom “it seemed that instead of him they were seeing some kind of unusual devilish ghost”? In the style of a real thriller, Procopius, anticipating medieval Western fantasies about succubi and incubi, reproduces, or rather still invents, stunning gossip about “that his mother ... used to tell someone close to him that he was not born from her husband Savvaty and not from any person. Before she became pregnant with him, she was visited by a demon, invisible, but leaving her with the impression that he was with her and had intercourse with her as a man with a woman, and then disappeared, as in a dream. Or how one of the courtiers “talked how he... suddenly rose from the royal throne and began to wander back and forth (he was not used to sitting in one place for a long time), and suddenly Justinian’s head suddenly disappeared, and the rest of his body seemed , continued to make these long movements, he himself (who saw this) believed (and, it seems, quite sensibly and soberly, if all this is not pure invention. - Prot. V.Ts.) that his vision became blurred, and he stood shocked and depressed for a long time. Then, when the head returned to the body, he thought in embarrassment that the gap he had previously (in vision) had been filled.”

With such a fantastic approach to the image of the emperor, it is hardly worth taking seriously the invective contained in this passage from The Secret History: “He was both insidious and susceptible to deception, one of those who are called evil fools... His words and actions were constantly full of lies, and at the same time he easily succumbed to those who wanted to deceive him. There was in him some unusual mixture of unreasonableness and depravity of character... This basileus was full of cunning, deceit, was distinguished by insincerity, had the ability to hide his anger, was two-faced, dangerous, was an excellent actor when it was necessary to hide his thoughts, and knew how to shed tears not from joy or sorrow, but artificially causing them at the right time as needed. He lied constantly." Some of the traits listed here seem to relate to the professional qualities of politicians and statesmen. However, as we know, it is common for a person to notice his own vices in his neighbor with special vigilance, exaggerating and distorting the scale. Procopius, who wrote “The History of Wars” and the book “On Buildings”, which was more than complimentary to Justinian, with one hand, and “The Secret History” with the other, presses with particular energy on the insincerity and duplicity of the emperor.

The reasons for Procopius’s bias could be and, obviously, were different - perhaps some remaining unknown episode of his biography, but also, probably, the fact that for the famous historian the holiday of the Resurrection of Christ was the “so-called Easter”; and, perhaps, one more factor: according to Procopius, Justinian “prohibited sodomy by law, subjecting to inquiry cases that did not take place after the law was issued, but concerning those persons who were noticed in this vice long before him... Those exposed in this way were deprived of their and so they led their shameful members around the city... They were also angry with the astrologers. And... the authorities... subjected them to torture for this reason alone and, having firmly whipped them on the back, put them on camels and carried them around the city - they, already elderly people and in all respects respectable, who were charged only with the fact that they wished to become wise in the science of the stars."

Be that as it may, in view of such disastrous contradictions and inconsistencies found in the notorious “Secret History”, it should be O take greater confidence in the characteristics that the same Procopius gives to him in his published books: in the “History of Wars” and even in the book “On Buildings” written in a panegyric tone: “In our time, the Emperor Justinian appeared, who, having assumed power over the state , shaken by unrest and brought to shameful weakness, increased its size and brought it to a brilliant state... Finding faith in God in the past unsteady and forced to follow the paths of different confessions, having wiped out from the face of the earth all the paths leading to these heretical fluctuations, he achieved this , so that she now stands on one solid foundation of true confession... Himself, on my own impulse, forgave in And We, who were plotting against him, having filled 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, ensured that the joy of life reigned in the empire... Of those whom we know by rumor, they say that the best sovereign was the Persian king Cyrus ... If anyone takes a close look at the reign of our emperor Justinian ... this person will admit that Cyrus and his power were a toy in comparison with him.”

Justinian was granted remarkable physical strength and excellent health, inherited from his peasant ancestors and tempered by an unpretentious, ascetic lifestyle, which he led in the palace, first as co-ruler of his uncle, and then as sole autocrat. His amazing health was not undermined by sleepless nights, during which he, as in the daytime, indulged in the affairs of government. In old age, when he was already 60 years old, he fell ill with the plague and was successfully cured of this fatal illness, then living to a ripe old age.

A great ruler, he knew how to surround himself with assistants of outstanding ability: these were the generals Belisarius and Narses, the outstanding lawyer Tribonian, the brilliant architects Isidore of Miletus and Anthimius of Thrall, and among these luminaries his wife Theodora shone as a star of the first magnitude.

Justinian met her around 520 and became interested in her. Like Justinian, Theodora had the most humble, although not so ordinary, but rather exotic origins. She was born in Syria, and according to some less reliable information, in Cyprus at the end of the 5th century; her exact date of birth is unknown. Her father Akakios, who moved with his family to the capital of the empire, found a kind of income there: he became, according to Procopius’s version, which is repeated by other Byzantine historians, “an overseer of circus animals,” or, as he was also called, a “safecracker.” But he died early, leaving three young daughters orphans: Komito, Theodora and Anastasia, the eldest of whom was not yet seven years old. The widow of the “safecracker” married for the second time in the hope that her new husband would continue the craft of the deceased, but her hopes were not justified: in Dima Prasinov they found another replacement for him. The mother of the orphaned girls, however, according to Procopius’s story, did not lose heart, and “when ... the people gathered at the circus, she, putting wreaths on the heads of three girls and giving garlands of flowers to each in both hands, put them on their knees with a prayer for protection.” The rival circus party of the Veneti, probably for the sake of moral triumph over their rivals, took care of the orphans and took their stepfather to the position of overseer of animals in their faction. Since then, Theodora, like her husband, has become an ardent fan of the Veneti - the blue ones.

When the daughters grew up, their mother placed them on the stage. Procopius, characterizing the profession of the eldest of them, Comito, calls her not an actress, as should be the case with a calm attitude to the topic, but a heterosexual; Subsequently, during the reign of Justinian, she was married to the master of the army, Sitta. During her childhood, spent in poverty and need, Theodora, according to Procopius, “dressed in a chiton with sleeves... accompanied her, serving her in everything.” When the girl grew up, she became an actress in the mimic theater. “She was unusually graceful and witty. Because of this, everyone was delighted with her.” Procopius considers one of the reasons for the delight into which the young beauty brought the audience not only her inexhaustible ingenuity in witticisms and jokes, but also her lack of shame. His further story about Theodore is filled with shameful and dirty fantasies, bordering on sexual delirium, which says more about the author himself than about the victim of his libelous inspiration. Is there any truth to this game of fevered pornographic imagination? The famous historian Gibbon in the age of “enlightenment”, who set the tone for the Western fashion for Byzantophobia, willingly believes Procopius, finding an irresistible argument in favor of the reliability of the anecdotes he told in their very improbability: “They don’t invent such incredible things - that means they are true.” Meanwhile, the only source of information on this part of Procopius could be street gossip, so the actual lifestyle of young Theodora can only be judged based on the biographical outline, the characteristics of the artistic profession and the morals of the theatrical environment. The modern historian Norwich, touching on this topic, rejects the reliability of Procopius’s pathological insinuations, but, taking into account the rumors from which he could draw some of his anecdotes, notes that “still, as we know, there is no smoke without fire, so there is no doubt about the fact that Theodora, as our grandmothers put it, had a “past.” Whether she was worse than others - the answer to this question remains open.” The famous Byzantine scholar S. Diehl, touching on this sensitive topic, wrote: “Some psychological traits of Theodora, her concerns for poor girls who died in the capital more often from want than from depravity, the measures she took to save them and free them “from the shameful yoke slavery”... as well as the somewhat contemptuous cruelty that she always showed to men, to a certain extent confirm what is reported about her youth... But is it possible to believe because of this that Theodora’s adventures produced that terrible scandal that Procopius describes, that she really was an extraordinary courtesan? .. We must not lose sight of the fact that Procopius likes to present the depravity of the persons he depicts in almost epic proportions... I... would be very inclined to see in her... the heroine of a more banal story - a dancer who behaved the same way as people behave at all times women of her profession."

To be fair, it should be noted that unflattering characteristics addressed to Theodora also came from a different direction, however, their essence remains unclear. Sh. Diehl expresses disappointment that the Monophysite historian Bishop John of Ephesus, “who knew Theodora closely, out of respect for the great of this world, did not tell us in detail all the offensive expressions with which, in his own words, the pious monks - people famous with its brutal frankness."

When, at the beginning of the reign of Justin, the hard-to-get theatrical bread became bitter for Theodora, she changed her lifestyle and, becoming close to a native of Tyre, possibly her fellow countryman, Hekebol, who was then appointed ruler of the province of Pentapolis, located between Libya and Egypt, left with him to his place services. As S. Diehl commented on this event in the life of Theodora, “finally tired of fleeting connections, and having found a serious man who provided her with a strong position, she began to lead a decent life in marriage and piety.” But her family life did not last long, ending in a breakup. Feodora had a young daughter left with her. Abandoned by Hekebol, whose later fate is unknown, Theodora moved to Alexandria, where she settled in a hospitable house that belonged to the Monophysite community. In Alexandria, she often talked with monks, from whom she sought consolation and guidance, as well as with priests and bishops.

There she met the local Monophysite Patriarch Timothy - at that time the Orthodox throne of Alexandria remained vacant - and with the Monophysite Patriarch of Antioch, Sevier, who was in exile in this city, a respectful attitude towards whom she retained forever, which especially motivated her when she became a powerful assistant her husband, to seek reconciliation between the Diaphysites and the Monophysites. In Alexandria, she seriously took up her education, read the books of the Fathers of the Church and foreign writers and, possessing extraordinary abilities, an extremely insightful mind and a brilliant memory, over time, like Justinian, she became one of the most erudite people of her time, a competent expert in theology. Life circumstances prompted her to move from Alexandria to Constantinople. Contrary to everything that is known about Theodora’s piety and impeccable behavior from the time she left the stage, Procopius, losing his sense not only of proportion, but also of reality and plausibility, wrote that “having passed throughout the entire East, she returned to Byzantium. In every city she resorted to a craft, which, I think, a person cannot name without losing the mercy of God,” this expression is given here to show the value of the writer’s testimony: in other places in his pamphlet he, without fear of “depriving the mercy of God” , enthusiastically names the most shameful of the exercises that existed in reality and were invented by his fevered imagination, which he falsely attributes to Theodora.

In Constantinople, she settled in a small house on the outskirts. Needing funds, she, according to legend, set up a spinning workshop and in it she wove yarn herself, dividing the labor of hired women workers. There, under circumstances that remain unknown, around 520, Theodora met the emperor's nephew Justinian, who became interested in her. At that time, he was already a mature man, approaching 40 years of age. Frivolity was never characteristic of him. Apparently, he did not have much experience with women in the past. He was too serious and picky for that. Having recognized Theodora, he fell in love with her with amazing devotion and constancy, and this subsequently, during their marriage, was expressed in everything, including in his activities as a ruler, which Theodora influenced like no one else.

Possessing rare beauty, a penetrating mind and education, which Justinian knew how to value in women, brilliant wit, amazing self-control and strong character, Theodora managed to captivate the imagination of her high-ranking chosen one. Even the vindictive and vindictive Procopius, who seems to have been painfully offended by some of her caustic jokes, but who harbored a grudge and splashed it out on the pages of his “Secret History” written “on the table,” pays tribute to her external attractiveness: “Theodora was beautiful in face and she is full of grace, but short in stature, pale-faced, but not quite white, but rather yellowish-pale; her gaze from under her furrowed eyebrows was menacing.” This is a kind of lifetime verbal portrait, all the more reliable since it corresponds to the mosaic image of her, also lifetime, which was preserved in the apse of the Church of St. Vitaly in Ravenna. A successful description of this portrait of her, dating, however, not to the time of her acquaintance with Justinian, but to a later time in her life, when old age was already ahead, was made by S. Diehl: “Under the heavy imperial mantle, the waist seems higher, but less flexible; under the diadem that hides the forehead, a small, gentle face with a somewhat thinner oval and a large straight and thin nose looks solemn, almost sad. Only one thing has been preserved on this faded face: under the dark line of fused eyebrows, beautiful black eyes... still illuminate and seem to destroy the face.” The exquisite, truly Byzantine grandeur of Augusta’s appearance in this mosaic is emphasized by her regal clothes: “The long robe of violet purple that covers her below shimmers with lights in the soft folds of the embroidered gold border; on her head, surrounded by a halo, is a high diadem of gold and precious stones; her hair is intertwined with pearl threads and threads studded with precious stones, and the same decorations fall in sparkling streams onto her shoulders.”

Having met Theodora and fallen in love with her, Justinian asked his uncle to grant her the high title of patrician. The emperor's co-ruler wanted to marry her, but faced two obstacles in his intention. One of them was of a legal nature: senators, to whose class the autocrat’s nephew was naturally included, were forbidden by the law of the holy emperor Constantine to marry former actresses, and the other stemmed from resistance to the idea of such a misalliance on the part of the emperor’s wife Euphemia, who loved her nephew her husband and sincerely wished him every good, even though she herself, in the past called not by this aristocratic, but by the common people's name Lupicina, which Procopius finds funny and absurd, had the most humble origins. But such fanaticism is precisely a characteristic feature of suddenly elevated individuals, especially when they are characterized by innocence combined with common sense. Justinian did not want to go against the prejudices of his aunt, whose love he responded with grateful affection, and did not rush into marriage. But time passed, and in 523 Euphemia went to the Lord, after which Emperor Justin, who was alien to the prejudices of his late wife, abolished the law prohibiting senators from unequal marriages, and in 525, in the Church of Hagia Sophia, Patriarch Epiphanius married the senator and patrician Justinian to the patrician Theodora.

When Justinian was proclaimed Augustus and co-ruler of Justin on April 4, 527, his wife Saint Theodora was next to him and received the appropriate honors. And henceforth she shared with her husband his government labors and honors that befitted him as an emperor. Theodora received ambassadors, gave audiences to dignitaries, and statues were erected to her. The state oath included both names - Justinian and Theodora: I swear by “almighty God, His only begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, the holy glorious Mother of God and the Ever-Virgin Mary, the four Gospels, the holy archangels Michael and Gabriel, that I will serve well the most pious and holiest sovereigns Justinian and Theodora, the wife of His Imperial Majesty, and work unfeignedly for the success of their autocracy and rule.”

War with the Persian Shah Kavad

The most important foreign policy event in the first years of Justinian's reign was the renewed war with Sasanian Iran, described in detail by Procopius. Four mobile field armies of Rome were stationed in Asia, forming b O most of the armed forces of the empire and intended for the defense of its eastern borders. Another army was stationed in Egypt, two corps were in the Balkans - in Thrace and Illyricum, covering the capital from the north and west. The emperor's personal guard, consisting of seven scholas, numbered 3,500 selected soldiers and officers. There were also garrisons in strategically important cities, especially in fortresses located in the border zone. But, as can be seen from the above description of the composition and deployment of the armed forces, Sassanian Iran was considered the main enemy.

In 528, Justinian ordered the garrison commander of the border city of Dara, Belisarius, to begin construction of a new fortress in Mindon, near Nisibis. When the walls of the fortress, on the construction of which many workers worked, rose to a considerable height, the Persians became worried and demanded to stop construction, seeing in it a violation of the agreement concluded earlier, under Justin. Rome rejected the ultimatum, and the redeployment of troops to the border began on both sides.

In the battle between the Roman detachment led by Kutsa and the Persians near the walls of the fortress under construction, the Romans were defeated, the survivors, including the commander himself, were captured, and the walls, the construction of which served as the fuse of the war, were razed to the ground. In 529, Justinian appointed Belisarius to the highest military position of master, or in Greek, stratilate, of the East. And he made an additional recruitment of troops and moved the army towards Nisibis. Next to Belisarius at the headquarters was Hermogenes, sent by the emperor, who also had the rank of master - in the past he was Vitalian's closest adviser when he staged a rebellion against Anastasius. The Persian army marched towards them under the command of Mirran (commander-in-chief) Peroz. The Persian army initially numbered up to 40 thousand cavalry and infantry, and then reinforcements of 10 thousand people arrived. They were opposed by 25 thousand Roman soldiers. Thus, the Persians had a twofold superiority. On both front lines there were troops of different tribes of the two great powers.

A correspondence took place between the military leaders: Mirran Peroz, or Firuz, on the Iranian side and Belisarius and Hermogenes on the Roman side. Roman commanders offered peace, but insisted on the withdrawal of the Persian army from the border. Mirran wrote in response that the Romans could not be trusted, and therefore only war could resolve the dispute. The second letter to Peroz, sent by Belisarius and his companions, concluded with the words: “If you are so eager for war, then we will oppose you with the help of God: we are confident that He will help us in danger, condescending to the peacefulness of the Romans and angry at the boasting of the Persians, who decided to go to war against us, who offered you peace. We will march against you, attaching to the tops of our banners before the battle what we wrote to each other." Mirran’s response to Belisarius was filled with offensive arrogance and boasting: “And we go into battle not without the help of our gods, with them we will go against you, and I hope that tomorrow they will lead us into Dara. Therefore, let a bathhouse and dinner be ready for me in the city.”

The general battle took place in July 530. Peroz started it at noon with the expectation that “they will attack the hungry,” because the Romans, unlike the Persians, who are accustomed to having lunch at the end of the day, eat before noon. The battle began with a shootout with bows, so that the arrows rushing in both directions obscured the sunlight. The Persians had richer supplies of arrows, but eventually they too ran out. The Romans were favored by the wind that blew in the face of the enemy, but there were losses, and considerable ones, on both sides. When there was nothing left to shoot, the enemies entered into hand-to-hand combat with each other, using spears and swords. During the battle, more than once a superiority of forces was discovered on one side or the other in different parts of the line of combat contact. A particularly dangerous moment for the Roman army came when the Persians standing on the left flank under the command of the one-eyed Varesman, together with a detachment of “immortals”, “quickly rushed at the Romans standing against them,” and “they, unable to withstand their onslaught, fled,” but then a turning point occurred that decided the outcome of the battle. The Romans, who were on the flank, struck the rapidly advancing detachment from the side and cut it in two. The Persians, who were in front, were surrounded and turned back, and then the Romans fleeing from them stopped, turned around and struck the soldiers who had pursued them earlier. Finding themselves surrounded by the enemy, the Persians desperately resisted, but when their commander Varesman fell, thrown from his horse and killed by Sunika, they fled in panic: the Romans overtook them and beat them. Up to 5 thousand Persians died. Belisarius and Hermogenes finally ordered the pursuit to stop, fearing surprises. “On that day,” according to Procopius, “the Romans managed to defeat the Persians in battle, which had not happened for a long time.” For his failure, Mirran Peroz suffered a humiliating punishment: “the king took away from him the ornament of gold and pearls that he usually wore on his head. Among the Persians this is a sign of the highest dignity after the royal one.”

The war with the Persians did not end with the victory of the Romans at the walls of Dara. The sheikhs of the Arab Bedouins intervened in the game, wandering along the borders of the Roman and Iranian empires and plundering the border cities of one of them in agreement with the authorities of the other, but, above all, in their own interests - for their own benefit. One of these sheikhs was Alamundar, a highly experienced, inventive and resourceful robber, not without diplomatic abilities. In the past, he was considered a vassal of Rome, received the title of Roman patrician and king of his people, but then went over to the side of Iran, and, according to Procopius, “for 50 years he exhausted the strength of the Romans... From the borders of Egypt to Mesopotamia, he ravaged all areas, stole and took away everything, burned the buildings he came across, enslaved many tens of thousands of people; Most of them he killed immediately, others he sold for a lot of money.” The Roman protégé from among the Arab sheikhs, Aref, in skirmishes with Alamundar invariably suffered setbacks or, Procopius suspects, “acted treacherously, as most likely should be allowed.” Alamundar appeared at the court of Shah Kavad and advised him to move around the Osroene province with its numerous Roman garrisons through the Syrian desert to the main outpost of Rome in the Levant - to the brilliant Antioch, the population of which is particularly careless and cares only about entertainment, so that the attack will be for him a terrible surprise for which they will not be able to prepare in advance. As for the difficulties of marching through the desert, Alamundar suggested: “Don’t worry about the lack of water or anything else, for I myself will lead the army as I think best.” Alamundar's proposal was accepted by the Shah, and he put the Persian Azaret at the head of the army that was to storm Antioch, with Alamundar next to him, “showing him the way.”

Having learned about the new danger, Belisarius, who commanded the Roman troops in the East, moved an army of 20,000 to meet the enemy, and he retreated. Belisarius did not want to attack the retreating enemy, but warlike sentiments prevailed among the troops, and the commander was unable to calm his soldiers. On April 19, 531, on the day of Holy Easter, a battle took place on the banks of the river near Kallinikos, which ended in defeat for the Romans, but the victors, who forced Belisarius’s army to retreat, suffered colossal losses: when they returned home, a count of those killed and captured was made. Procopius talks about how this is done: before the campaign, the soldiers each throw one arrow into baskets placed on the parade ground, “then they are stored, sealed with the royal seal; when the army returns... then each soldier takes one arrow from these baskets.” When the troops of Azareth, returning from a campaign in which they failed to take either Antioch or any other city, although they were victorious in the case of Callinicus, marched in formation in front of Kavad, taking arrows from their baskets, then, “since in There were many arrows left in the baskets... the king considered this victory a disgrace for Azareth and subsequently kept him among the least worthy.”

Another theater of war between Rome and Iran was, as in the past, Armenia. In 528, a detachment of Persians invaded Roman Armenia from the side of Perso-Armenia, but was defeated by the troops stationed there, commanded by Sitta, after which the Shah sent there a larger army under the command of Mermeroy, the backbone of which was the Savir mercenaries numbering 3 thousand horsemen. And again the invasion was repulsed: Mermeroy was defeated by troops under the command of Sitta and Dorotheus. But, having recovered from the defeat, having made an additional recruitment, Mermeroy again invaded the Roman Empire and set up a camp near the city of Satala, located 100 kilometers from Trebizond. The Romans unexpectedly attacked the camp - a bloody, stubborn battle began, the outcome of which hung in the balance. The decisive role in it was played by the Thracian horsemen who fought under the command of Florence, who died in this battle. After the defeat, Mermeroy left the empire, and three prominent Persian military leaders, of Armenian origin: the brothers Narses, Aratius and Isaac - from the aristocratic family of Kamsarakans, who successfully fought with the Romans during the reign of Justin, went over to the side of Rome. Isaac surrendered to his new masters the fortress of Bolon, located near Feodosiopolis, on the border, the garrison of which he commanded.

On September 8, 531, Shah Kavad died from paralysis of the right side, which befell him five days before his death. He was 82 years old. His successor was, on the basis of the will he drew up, his youngest son, Khosrov Anushirvan. The highest dignitaries of the state, led by Mevod, stopped the attempt of the eldest son of Kaos to take the throne. Soon after this, negotiations began with Rome to conclude peace. From the Roman side, Rufinus, Alexander and Thomas took part in them. The negotiations were difficult, interrupted by breaks in contacts, threats from the Persians to resume the war, accompanied by the movement of troops towards the border, but in the end, in 532, a treaty on “eternal peace” was signed. In accordance with it, the border between the two powers remained largely unchanged, although Rome returned to the Persians the fortresses Farangium and Volus that had been taken from them, the Roman side also undertook to move the headquarters of the commander of the army stationed in Mesopotamia further from the border - from Dara to Constantine. During negotiations with Rome, Iran, both earlier and this time, put forward a demand for joint defense of passes and passages through the Greater Caucasus Range near the Caspian Sea to repel attacks by nomadic barbarians. But, since this condition was unacceptable for the Romans: a military unit located at a considerable distance from the Roman borders would be there in an extremely vulnerable position and completely dependent on the Persians, an alternative proposal was put forward - to pay Iran money to compensate for its costs on the defense of the Caucasian passes. This proposal was accepted, and the Roman side undertook to pay Iran 110 centinarii of gold - a centinarium was 100 libras, and the weight of a libra was approximately one-third of a kilogram. Thus, Rome, under the plausible guise of compensation for expenses for joint defense needs, undertook to pay an indemnity of about 4 tons of gold. At that time, after the increase in the treasury under Anastasia, this amount was not particularly burdensome for Rome.

The subject of negotiations was also the situation in Lazika and Iveria. Lazika remained under the protectorate of Rome, and Iveria - Iran, but those Ivers, or Georgians, who fled from the Persians from their country to neighboring Lazika, were given the right to remain in Lazika or return to their homeland at their own request.

Emperor Justinian agreed to make peace with the Persians because at that time he was developing a plan for conducting military operations in the west - in Africa and Italy - in order to restore the integrity of the Roman Empire and to protect the Orthodox Christians of the West from the discrimination to which they were subjected to the Arians who ruled over them. But he was temporarily kept from implementing this plan by the dangerous developments in the capital itself.

Nika Mutiny

In January 532, a rebellion broke out in Constantinople, the instigators of which were members of the circus factions, or dims, the Prasins (green) and Veneti (blue). Of the four circus parties by the time of Justinian, two - the Levki (white) and the Rusii (red) - disappeared, leaving no noticeable traces of their existence. “The original meaning of the names of the four parties,” according to A.A. Vasiliev, is unclear. Sources of the 6th century, that is, the era of Justinian, say that these names correspond to the four elements: earth (green), water (blue), air (white) and fire (red). Dimas similar to those in the capital, bearing the same names of the colors of the clothes of circus drivers and crews, also existed in those cities where hippodromes were preserved. But the dimas were not only communities of fans: they were endowed with municipal responsibilities and rights, and served as a form of organization of civil militia in the event of a siege of the city. Dimas had their own structure, their own treasury, their own leaders: these were, according to F.I. Uspensky, “the democrats, of which there were two - the Dimocrats of the Venets and Prasins; both of them were appointed by the king from the highest military ranks with the rank of protospatharius." In addition to them, there were also Dimarchs, who previously headed the Dima of the Levki and Rusii, who actually died out, but retained the memory of themselves in the nomenclature of ranks. Judging by the sources, the remnants of the Dima Leuci were absorbed by the Veneti, and the Rusiev by the Prasini. There is no complete clarity regarding the structure of dims and the principles of division into dims due to insufficient information in the sources. It is only known that the Dimes, led by their Dimocrats and Dimarchs, were subordinate to the prefect, or eparch, of Constantinople. The number of Dims was limited: at the end of the 6th century, during the reign of Mauritius, there were one and a half thousand Prasins and 900 Venets in the capital, but their much more numerous supporters joined the formal members of the Dims.

The division into dimas, like modern party affiliation, to a certain extent reflected the existence of different social and ethnic groups and even different theological views, which in New Rome served as the most important indicator of orientation. Among the Veneti, wealthier people predominated - landowners and officials; natural Greeks, consistent diaphysites, while the dim prasins united mainly merchants and artisans, there were many people from Syria and Egypt, and the presence of monophysites was also noticeable among the prasins.

Emperor Justinian and his wife Theodora were supporters, or, if you like, fans, of the Veneti. The characterization of Theodora as a supporter of the Prasins found in literature is based on a misunderstanding: on the one hand, on the fact that her father was once in the service of the Prasins (but after his death, the Prasins, as mentioned above, did not take care of his widow and orphans, in while the Veneti showed generosity to the orphaned family, and Theodora became a zealous “fan” of this faction), and on the other hand, on the fact that she, not being a Monophysite, provided patronage to the Monophysites at a time when the emperor himself was looking for a way to reconcile them with the Diaphysites, meanwhile, in the capital of the empire, the Monophysites concentrated around the Dima Prasins.

Not being recognized as political parties, performing, in accordance with their place in the hierarchy of capital institutions, rather a representative function, dimas still reflected the moods of various circles of urban inhabitants, including their political desires. Even during the times of the Principate and then the Dominat, the hippodrome became the center of political life. After the acclamation of the new emperor in the military camp, after the church blessing on the reign, after his approval by the Senate, the emperor appeared at the hippodrome, occupied his box there, which was called kathisma, and the people - the citizens of New Rome - with their welcoming cries performed the legally significant act of electing him emperor, or, closer to the real state of affairs, recognition of the legitimacy of a previously completed election.

From a real-political point of view, the participation of the people in the election of the emperor was exclusively formal, ceremonial in nature, but the traditions of the ancient Roman Republic, torn apart during the times of the Gracchi, Marius, Sulla, and triumvirates by the struggle of parties, made their way in the rivalry of circus factions, which went beyond the boundaries of sports excitement. As F.I. wrote Uspensky, “the hippodrome represented the only arena, in the absence of a printing press, for the loud expression of public opinion, which was sometimes binding on the government. Here public affairs were discussed, here the population of Constantinople expressed to a certain extent their participation in political affairs; While the ancient political institutions through which the people expressed their sovereign rights gradually fell into decay, unable to get along with the monarchical principles of the Roman emperors, the city hippodrome continued to remain an arena where free opinion could be expressed with impunity... The people politicized at the hippodrome , expressed reproach to both the tsar and the ministers, and sometimes mocked the unsuccessful policy.” But the hippodrome with its dimes served not only as a place where the masses could criticize the actions of the authorities with impunity, it was also used by groups or clans surrounding the emperors, bearers of government powers in their intrigues, and served as a tool for compromising rivals from hostile clans. Taken together, these circumstances turned dimas into a risky weapon, fraught with rebellion.

The danger was aggravated by the extremely daring criminal morals that reigned among the stasiots who made up the core of the dims - something like avid fans who did not miss the races and other performances of the hippodrome. About their morals, with possible exaggerations, but still not fantasizing, but relying on the real state of affairs, Procopius wrote in the “Secret History”: the stasiots of the Veneti “openly carried weapons at night, but during the day they hid small double-edged daggers at their hips. As soon as it began to get dark, they formed gangs and robbed those who (looked) decent, throughout the agora and in the narrow streets... During the robbery, they considered it necessary to kill some, so that they would not tell anyone about what happened to them . Everyone suffered from them, and among the first were those Veneti who were not stasiotes.” Their smart and elaborate attire was very colorful: they trimmed their clothes with a “beautiful border... The part of the chiton that covered the arm was pulled tightly together near the hand, and from there it expanded to incredible sizes all the way to the shoulder. Whenever they were in the theater or at the hippodrome, shouting or cheering (the charioteers) ... waving their arms, this part (of the chiton) naturally swelled, giving the fools the impression that they had such a beautiful and strong body that they had to clothe it in similar robes... Their capes, wide trousers, and especially their shoes were Hunnic both in name and in appearance.” The stasiots of the Prasins, who competed with the Veneti, either joined enemy gangs, “overwhelmed by the desire to participate in crimes with complete impunity, while others fled and took refuge in other places. Many, overtaken there too, died either at the hands of the enemy, or after being persecuted by the authorities... Many other young men began to flock to this community... They were prompted to this by the opportunity to show strength and audacity... Many, having seduced them with money, pointed out to the stasiots their own enemies , and they immediately destroyed them." The words of Procopius that “no one had the slightest hope that he would remain alive given such an unreliable existence” are, of course, only a rhetorical figure, but an atmosphere of danger, anxiety and fear was present in the city.

The thunderous tension was discharged by a riot - an attempt to overthrow Justinian. The rebels had different motives for taking risks. Adherents of the nephews of Emperor Anastasius lurked in palace and government circles, although they themselves did not seem to aspire to supreme power. These were mainly dignitaries who adhered to Monophysite theology, of which Anastasius was an adherent. Dissatisfaction with the government's tax policy had accumulated among the people; the main culprits were seen as the emperor's closest assistants, Praetorian Prefect John of Cappadocia and Quaestor Tribonianus. Rumor accused them of extortion, bribes and extortion. The Prasins resented Justinian's open preference for the Veneti, and the Stasiotes of the Veneti were dissatisfied that the government, despite what Procopius had written about condoning their banditry, still took police action against particularly obvious criminal excesses that they committed. Finally, in Constantinople there were still pagans, Jews, Samaritans, as well as heretics Arians, Macedonians, Montanists and even Manichaeans, who rightly saw a threat to the very existence of their communities in Justinian’s religious policy, aimed at supporting Orthodoxy with the full force of law and real power. So flammable material accumulated in a high degree of concentration in the capital, and the hippodrome served as the epicenter of the explosion. It is easier for people of our time, captivated by sporting passions, than it was in previous centuries, to imagine how easily the excitement of fans, charged at the same time with political predilections, can result in unrest that poses the threat of uprising and coup, especially when the crowd is skillfully manipulated.

The beginning of the rebellion was the events that took place at the hippodrome on January 11, 532. In the interval between the races, one of the prasins, apparently prepared in advance for the performance, on behalf of his god turned to the emperor who was present at the races with a complaint about the spafarius of the sacred bedchamber of Calopodium: “Many years, Justinian - Augustus, win! “We are offended, the only good one, and we are unable to bear it any longer, God is our witness!” . The emperor's representative, in response to the accusation, said: “Calopodia does not interfere in the affairs of government... You come to spectacles only to insult the government.” The dialogue became more and more tense: “Be that as it may, whoever offends us will have his part with Judas.” - “Be silent, Jews, Manichaeans, Samaritans!” – “Do you vilify us as Jews and Samaritans? Mother of God, be with us all!..” - “Not joking: if you don’t calm down, I’ll order everyone to have their heads cut off” - “Order them to kill! Perhaps punish us! Blood is already ready to flow in streams... It would be better for Savvaty not to be born than to have a son as a murderer... (This was already an openly rebellious attack.) So in the morning, outside the city, under Zeugmus, a murder took place, and you, sir, at least looked at it! There was a murder in the evening." The representative of the blue faction responded: “The killers of this entire stage are only yours... You kill and rebel; you only have stage killers.” The representative of the Greens turned directly to the emperor: “Who killed the son of Epagathus, autocrat?” - “And you killed him and blame it on the gays” - “Lord, have mercy! Truth is being violated. Therefore, it can be argued that the world is not governed by God’s Providence. Where does such evil come from? - “Blasphemers, fighters against God, when will you shut up?” - “If it pleases your power, I will inevitably remain silent, most august one; I know everything, I know everything, but I’m silent. Farewell justice! You are already speechless. I will move to another camp and become a Jew. God knows! It’s better to become a Hellenic than to live with gays.” Defying the government and the emperor, the greens left the hippodrome.

An insulting altercation with the emperor at the hippodrome served as a prelude to the rebellion. The eparch, or prefect, of the capital, Eudemon, ordered the arrest of six people suspected of murder from both dimes - green and blue. An investigation was carried out and it turned out that seven of them were indeed guilty of this crime. Eudemon pronounced a sentence: four criminals should be beheaded, and three should be crucified. But then something incredible happened. According to the story of John Malala, “when they... began to hang them, the pillars collapsed, and two (sentenced) fell; one was “blue”, the other was “green”. A crowd gathered at the place of execution, monks from the monastery of St. Conon came and took with them the broken criminals sentenced to execution. They transported them across the strait to the Asian coast and gave them refuge in the church of the martyr Lawrence, which had the right of refuge. But the prefect of the capital, Eudemon, sent a military detachment to the temple to prevent them from leaving the temple and hiding. The people were outraged by the actions of the prefect, because in the fact that the hanged men broke free and survived, they saw the miraculous action of God's Providence. A crowd of people went to the prefect's house and asked him to remove the guards from the temple of St. Lawrence, but he refused to fulfill this request. Dissatisfaction with the actions of the authorities grew in the crowd. The conspirators took advantage of the murmur and indignation of the people. The stasiots of the Veneti and Prasin agreed on a solidarity rebellion against the government. The password of the conspirators was the word “Nika!” (“Win!”) - the cry of the spectators at the hippodrome, with which they encouraged the competing drivers. The uprising went down in history under the name of this victorious cry.

On January 13, equestrian competitions dedicated to the Ides of January were again held at the capital’s hippodrome; Justinian sat on the imperial kathisma. In the intervals between races, the Veneti and Prasins unanimously asked the emperor for mercy, for the forgiveness of those sentenced to execution and miraculously freed from death. As John Malala writes, “they continued to shout until the 22nd race, but received no answer. Then the devil inspired them with a bad intention, and they began to praise each other: “Many years to the merciful Prasins and Venets!” Instead of greeting the emperor. Then, leaving the hippodrome, the conspirators, together with the crowd that joined them, rushed to the residence of the prefect of the city, demanded the release of those sentenced to death and, having not received a favorable response, set the prefecture on fire. This was followed by new arson, accompanied by the killing of soldiers and everyone who tried to counteract the rebellion. According to John Malala, “the Copper Gate to the very scholia, and the Great Church, and the public portico burned down; the people continued to riot." A more complete list of buildings destroyed by fire is given by Theophanes the Confessor: “The porticoes from Kamara itself on the square to the Halka (stairs), silver shops and all the buildings of Lavs were burned... they entered houses, robbed property, burned the palace porch... the premises of the royal bodyguards and the ninth part of Augusteum... They burned the Alexandrov baths and Sampson’s large hospice house with all his sick.” Shouts were heard from the crowd demanding that “another king” be installed.

The equestrian competitions scheduled for the next day, January 14, were not cancelled. But when at the hippodrome “the flag was raised according to custom,” the rebels Prasin and Veneti, shouting “Nika!”, began to set fire to the spectator areas. A detachment of Heruli under the command of Mundus, whom Justinian ordered to pacify the riot, could not cope with the rebels. The Emperor was ready to compromise. Having learned that the rebellious Dimas were demanding the resignation of the dignitaries John the Cappadocian, Tribonian and Eudaimon, who were especially hated by them, he complied with this demand and sent all three into retirement. But this resignation did not satisfy the rebels. Arson, murder and looting continued for several days, covering a large part of the city. The conspirators' plan definitely leaned towards the removal of Justinian and the proclamation of one of Anastasius's nephews - Hypatius, Pompey or Probus - as emperor. To speed up the development of events in this direction, the conspirators spread a false rumor among the people that Justinian and Theodora fled from the capital to Thrace. Then the crowd rushed to the house of Probus, who left it in advance and disappeared, not wanting to be involved in the riot. In anger, the rebels burned his house. They also did not find Hypatius and Pompey, because at that time they were in the imperial palace and there they assured Justinian of their devotion to him, but did not trust those to whom the instigators of the rebellion were going to entrust the supreme power, fearing that their presence in the palace might induce hesitant bodyguards to treason, Justinian demanded that both brothers leave the palace and go to their home.

On Sunday, January 17, the emperor made another attempt to quell the rebellion through reconciliation. He appeared at the hippodrome, where the crowd involved in the rebellion had gathered, with the Gospel in his hands and with an oath, he promised to release the criminals who had escaped from the hanging, and also to grant amnesty to all participants in the rebellion if they stopped the rebellion. In the crowd, some believed Justinian and welcomed him, while others - and they were obviously the majority among those gathered - insulted him with their cries and demanded that his nephew Anastasius Hypatius be installed as emperor. Justinian, surrounded by bodyguards, returned from the hippodrome to the palace, and the rebellious crowd, having learned that Hypatius was at home, rushed there to proclaim him emperor. He himself feared the fate ahead of him, but the rebels, acting assertively, took him to the forum of Constantine to perform a solemn acclamation. His wife Maria, according to Procopius, “a reasonable woman and known for her prudence, held her husband back and did not let him in, moaning loudly and crying out to all her loved ones that the Dima were leading him to death,” but she was unable to prevent the planned action. Hypatius was brought to the forum and there, in the absence of a diadem, a gold chain was placed on his head. The Senate, which met urgently, confirmed the election of Hypatius as emperor. It is not known how many senators there were who avoided participating in this meeting, and which of the senators present acted out of fear, considering Justinian’s position hopeless, but it is obvious that his conscious opponents, probably mainly from among the adherents of Monophysitism, were present in the Senate earlier, before the mutiny. Senator Origen proposed preparing for a long war with Justinian; the majority, however, spoke in favor of an immediate assault on the imperial palace. Hypatius supported this proposal, and the crowd moved towards the hippodrome, adjacent to the palace, in order to launch an attack on the palace from there.

Meanwhile, a meeting between Justinian and his closest assistants, who remained faithful to him, took place there. Among them were Belisarius, Narses, Mund. Saint Theodora was also present. The current state of affairs was characterized by both Justinian himself and his advisers in an extremely gloomy light. It was risky to rely on the loyalty of the soldiers from the capital's garrison who had not yet joined the rebels, even on the palace schola. The plan to evacuate the emperor from Constantinople was seriously discussed. And then Theodora took the floor: “In my opinion, flight, even if it ever brought salvation and, perhaps, will bring it now, is unworthy. It is impossible for one who was born not to die, but for one who once reigned, being a fugitive is unbearable. May I not lose this purple, may I not live to see the day when those I meet do not call me mistress! If you want to save yourself by flight, basileus, it is not difficult. We have a lot of money, and the sea is nearby, and there are ships. But be careful that you, who have been saved, do not have to choose death over salvation. I like the ancient saying that royal power is a beautiful shroud.” This is the most famous of the sayings of Saint Theodora, one must assume - authentically reproduced by her hater and flatterer Procopius, a man of extraordinary intellect, who was able to appreciate the irresistible energy and expressiveness of these words that characterize her herself: her mind and the amazing gift of words with which she once shone at stage, her fearlessness and self-control, her passion and pride, her steel will, tempered by everyday trials that she had endured in abundance in the past - from early youth to marriage, which lifted her to an unprecedented height, from which she did not want to fall, even if The lives of both herself and her husband, the emperor, were at stake. These words of Theodora wonderfully illustrate the role that she played in Justinian’s inner circle and the extent of her influence on public policy.

Theodora's statement marked a turning point in the rebellion. “Her words,” as Procopius noted, “inspired everyone, and, having regained their lost courage, they began to discuss how they should defend themselves... The soldiers, both those who were entrusted with guarding the palace and everyone else, did not show loyalty to the basileus , but also did not want to clearly take part in the matter, waiting to see what the outcome of events would be.” At the meeting, it was decided to immediately begin to suppress the rebellion.

A key role in restoring order was played by the detachment that Belisarius brought from the eastern border. Together with him, German mercenaries acted under the command of their commander Munda, appointed strategist of Illyricum. But before they attacked the rebels, the palace eunuch Narses entered into negotiations with the rebellious Veneti, who had previously been considered reliable, since Justinian himself and his wife Theodora were on the side of their blue god. According to John Malala, he “secretly left (the palace) and bribed some (members of) the Veneti party by distributing money to them. And some rebels from the crowd began to proclaim Justinian king in the city; people divided and went against each other." In any case, the number of rebels decreased as a result of this division, but it was still large and inspired the most alarming fears. Convinced of the unreliability of the capital's garrison, Belisarius lost heart and, returning to the palace, began to assure the emperor that “their cause was lost,” but, under the spell of the words spoken by Theodora at the council, Justinian was now determined to act in the most energetic manner. He ordered Belisarius to lead his detachment to the hippodrome, where the main forces of the rebels were concentrated. Hypatius, who was proclaimed emperor, was also there, sitting on the imperial kathisma.

Belisarius's detachment made its way to the hippodrome through the charred ruins. Having reached the portico of the Veneti, he wanted to immediately attack Hypatius and capture him, but they were separated by a locked door, which was guarded from the inside by Hypatius’s bodyguards, and Belisarius feared that “when he finds himself in a difficult position in this narrow place,” the people would attack the detachment and because of his small numbers, he will kill all his warriors. Therefore, he chose a different direction of attack. He ordered the soldiers to attack the disorganized crowd of thousands gathered at the hippodrome, taking it by surprise with this attack, and “the people... seeing warriors dressed in armor, renowned for their courage and experience in battle, striking with swords without any mercy, turned to flight.” But there was nowhere to run, because through another gate of the hippodrome, which was called the Dead (Nekra), the Germans under the command of Munda burst into the hippodrome. A massacre began, in which more than 30 thousand people fell victims. Hypatius and his brother Pompey were captured and taken to Justinian's palace. In his defense, Pompey said that “the people forced them against their own desire to accept power, and they then went to the hippodrome, having no evil intent against the basileus” - which was only a half-truth, because from a certain point they ceased to resist the will of the rebels . Ipaty did not want to justify himself to the winner. The next day they were both killed by soldiers and their bodies thrown into the sea. All the property of Hypatius and Pompey, as well as those senators who participated in the rebellion, was confiscated in favor of the fiscus. But later, for the sake of establishing peace and harmony in the state, Justinian returned the confiscated property to their former owners, without depriving even the children of Hypatius and Pompey - these unlucky nephews of Anastasius. But, on the other hand, Justinian, soon after suppressing the rebellion, which shed a lot of blood, but less than could have been shed if his opponents had succeeded, which would have plunged the empire into civil war, annulled the orders he had made as a concession to the rebels: the emperor's closest assistants Tribonian and John were returned to their former posts.

(To be continued.)

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