Justinian

AUTHOR’S NOTE

By far the most valuable source of information for Justinian and his times is The Wars of Justinian by Procopius of Caesarea — a lawyer who became official war correspondent for Justinian’s great general, Belisarius. Procopius accompanied the latter on his African campaign against the Vandals, and for much of the long Gothic War in Italy, many of the incidents he describes being written from first-hand experience. Admirably detailed and objective, it is very much in the classical vein of Greek and Roman historians such as Thucydides, Polybius, Tacitus and Ammianus. In glaring contrast to The Wars (which on the whole paints a favourable picture of Justinian) is Procopius’ Secret History — a savage attack on the emperor and his wife Theodora, portraying them in the most scurrilous of terms. Too biased to be helpful in describing the imperial pair, in other respects it is a useful supplement to The Wars. Some other useful contemporary sources are the ecclesiastical histories of Evagrius and John of Ephesus, and the chronicles of John Malalas, John of Antioch, and Count Marcellinus.

Regarding modern sources, Gibbon, to my mind, stands supreme when it comes to giving us a sweeping overview of the Justinianic era. His ability to fashion from a complex, often tangled, sometimes obscure mass of facts a clear, colourful, and coherent narrative, is surely unrivalled. His only fault — if such it can be called — lies in his impatient dismissal (which I’ve touched on in the Notes) of the Christological controversies which occupied so much of Justinian’s time and energy. Also essential as background reading is the magisterial The Later Roman Empire by my old lecturer, the great A.H.M. Jones. I am enormously indebted to my publisher, Hugh Andrew, for lending me many of his books. Especially useful were the following: The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian, edited by Michael Maas, a veritable quarry of information regarding all main topics for the period; Robert Browning’s masterly Justinian and Theodora, which provides penetrating insight into what motivated Justinian and the people he was involved with; and Theodora, a marvellous little book by Antony Bridge, which paints a warmly sympathetic picture (and, one feels, a true one) of the bear-keeper’s daughter who became a Roman empress.

For the sake of drama and clarity, I have (as mentioned in the relevant sections in the Notes) gone in for some abridging and telescoping of events in places, without, hopefully, distorting essential historical truth. Anyone who has ever wrestled with the Christological subtleties of the Three Chapters controversy, or tried to form a coherent overview of the Gothic War from the endless (and frankly, often tedious) catalogue of sieges, counter-sieges, marches, counter-marches, blockades, sorties, ambuscades, ruses de guerre, et cetera of Belisarius’ and Narses’ campaigns in Italy, will understand my reasons for doing so.

The Dramatis Personae are, for the most part, real people. The majority needed little fleshing-out on my part, the records being sufficiently detailed for clear individual profiles to emerge, regarding, for example: Belisarius, Narses, John the Cappadocian, Theodora, and, of course, Justinian himself. A richly complex character, the great emperor comes over as a well-intentioned but ultimately tragic figure; someone who, by his own lights tried to do good things, but whose efforts resulted in the impoverishment of the Empire, the ruin of Italy, and a final parting of the ways between the Churches of the East and West.

In telling the story I have, wherever possible (and allowing for a modicum of artistic licence), stuck to the known facts, only giving rein to my imagination where lacunae in the records permitted me to do so. For example, we don’t know if Justinian was personally involved in the Dhu-Nuwas campaign, but — as (theoretical) commander of the eastern army — he was certainly in a position to be so. Again, my making Procopius an agent provocateur dedicated to destabilizing Belisarius, although fictitious, is entirely consistent with his views about the general, plus his location alongside Belisarius in various places during the campaigns in Africa and Italy, as well as in Constantinople when he was prefect of that city.