CHAPTER 14
Justinian and the end of antiquity
The limits of empire
Despite it appearing in 540 that the war in Italy was effectively over (p. 263 above), this soon proved not to be the case. There were sufficient Goths in northern Italy who were disenchanted with Vitigis’ surrender and had not yet relinquished their arms to provide the basis for ongoing resistance. The first couple of leaders they chose were ineffective, but by the autumn of 541 they had found, in the person of Totila, a highly capable commander who quickly turned the tables on Justinian’s generals. During the course of 542 he inflicted a series of defeats on Roman forces and by the end of the year had regained control of most of the Italian peninsula, leaving only Rome, Ravenna and a number of coastal towns in imperial hands. Totila’s success was due in part to his strategic skills, but also to a lack of coordination between Roman commanders, with no single individual in overall charge following Belisarius’ return to the east in 540. These problems were exacerbated by further developments outside of Italy, particularly the renewal of warfare with Persia in 540, the continuation of the unsettled conditions in north Africa already evident in the mid-530s, and the impact of a virulent pandemic which reached Constantinople in 542, all of which meant that imperial resources became severely stretched.1
By the late 530s the Persian king Khusro had consolidated power and implemented fiscal and military reforms which left him in a stronger position to pursue an aggressive foreign policy. Well aware of Justinian’s western campaigns in north Africa and Italy, Khusro saw an opportunity to take advantage of the commitment of imperial troops in regions distant from the Persian frontier and invaded Syria in the spring of 540. There were now insufficient Roman units stationed in the region to resist Khusro’s army, and Syria’s cities were either sacked and their populations enslaved – as happened to Antioch – or agreed to hand over their gold and silver in return for being spared (Procop. Wars 2.5–13). To add insult to injury, Khusro made a point of bathing in the Mediterranean at Seleucia, where he also offered sacrifices to his gods, and, in the manner of an emperor, he presided over chariot races at Apamea (2.11.1, 31–5).
Map 8 The Roman empire at the death of Justinian (565)
Justinian responded to this unwelcome turn of events by reassigning Belisarius to the Persian frontier with a view to preventing another Persian invasion of Syria in 541, but Khusro proceeded to widen the conflict by turning his attention to the Caucasian region of Lazica, which Persian forces occupied in 541, fuelling Roman fears of a Persian seaborne offensive across the Black Sea against Constantinople. After further inconclusive engagements in northern Mesopotamia during the next few years, a truce was agreed for that region in 545, and renewed in 551 and 557, but fighting continued in Lazica until 557.2 Eventually, during the winter of 561/2, a definitive peace settlement was agreed, a detailed account of which is preserved among the surviving excerpts from one of Procopius’ historical continuators, Menander (fr. 6.1–2). Most of the agreement was concerned with regulating various aspects of frontier interaction, but it included Justinian’s conceding Persian demands that they receive 30,000 solidi per annum for its duration (fifty years). Although the total amount involved was a substantial sum, it was manageable on an annual basis. More serious was the loss of prestige involved,3 but Justinian evidently considered this a necessary price to pay to avoid a recurrence of fighting simultaneous conflicts on multiple fronts.
The problems arising from renewed warfare with Persia in the 540s were not lessened by events in north Africa, where the elation of rapid victory in 533–4 had soon been replaced by frustration. Belisarius’ successor as commander in north Africa, Solomon, quickly found himself having to deal with attacks by the indigenous Moorish tribesmen, and then, in 536, with a mutiny by some of his own troops. The disaffection of these soldiers was fuelled partly by delays in the dispatch of their pay from Constantinople, partly by anger at the new administration’s measures against Arianism. Many troops (being of barbarian origin) sympathised with Arianism, while others had taken up with Vandal women, who resented being required by the imperial authorities to surrender land to the descendants of those from whom it had been expropriated in the previous century.4 Solomon only just escaped a plot to murder him and was forced to flee to Sicily, leaving Justinian to send his cousin, Germanus, a respected commander, to restore order in the army. Solomon eventually returned in 539 to take over from Germanus and resumed trying to tackle the ongoing Moorish problem. Although he gained some successes, he was eventually defeated and killed at the battle of Cillium (Kasserine) in 544, and it was only through the energetic efforts of a new general, John Troglita, between 546 and 548 that the Moorish problem was for the time being contained and a measure of peace at last achieved.5
In addition to all these military setbacks, Justinian’s ambitions had to contend with the impact of a phenomenon which could not reasonably have been anticipated – the advent of a devastating pandemic in the early 540s.6 Probably originating in central Africa, it first reached the Mediterranean through Egypt in 541, from where it diffused along routes of trade and communication, first in the eastern Mediterranean, and then on to the west; it reached Constantinople in the spring of 542 (Justinian himself is reported to have fallen ill before recovering)7 and Rome in late 543 or early 544. Identification of the disease has relied primarily on the three most detailed contemporary descriptions (those by Procopius, John of Ephesus and Evagrius), which, with their references to swellings, black pustules, fever, diarrhoea and vomiting, usually culminating in death, point to bubonic plague, and although some scholars are sceptical about this diagnosis, it remains the most plausible option.8 As for what triggered its outbreak at this particular point in time, there have been attempts to link this pandemic causally back to the effects of a mysterious dust cloud (perhaps fallout from a major volcanic eruption or other cataclysmic event) which appears to have obscured the sun for lengthy periods during the mid-530s. However, a recent careful assessment of the data and arguments has concluded that the impact of the cloud must have been extremely limited,9 although it remains possible that significant climatic dislocation played a role through extending the habitat range of disease-bearing central African rodents to the point where they came into contact with Mediterranean rodents on ships involved in trade from the Red Sea down the coast of east Africa.10
There are also those who are sceptical about the impact of the pandemic, drawing attention to Procopius’ apparent reliance on Thucydides’ description of the Athenian plague and the very limited indications of its impact in non-literary evidence (inscriptions, papyri, archaeology).11 However, while there can be no doubt about Procopius, in true classicising style, deliberately evoking Thucydides in many features of his account of the plague, there are also important divergences which reflect his eye-witness status, while the absence of epigraphic evidence is only to be expected since it is the poor, lacking the wherewithal to afford inscribed tombstones, who will have been worst affected.12 Furthermore, evidence for the impact of the plague has been identified in non-literary sources, with a decline in the weight of coinage in the years after the early 540s plausibly reflecting the effects of demographic decline on the govern-ment’s tax revenues, and an increase in security of tenure for peasants’ leases of farm land, attested in legal and papyrological documents, likewise consistent with a fall in population strengthening the bargaining position of survivors.13 The periodic recurrence of the plague every ten to fifteen years over the next two centuries is another way in which its impact was felt. At the same time, however, it does not look as though military manpower was adversely affected in the longer term, perhaps reflecting the greater impact of the pandemic in major population centres, with rural areas, from where the bulk of soldiers were recruited, less severely affected.14
This is not, however, to deny the immediate short-term disruption which the pandemic caused in the context of the empire’s military campaigns of the 540s. Certainly in Italy it took another decade to defeat Totila as successive imperial commanders (including a second stint by Belisarius from 544 to 548) struggled to contain him against a background of shortages of troops and pay, as well as unco-operative local communities disaffected by the renewed impositions of imperial tax collectors. Meanwhile, numerous cities and towns underwent siege by one or other side in the conflict, including Rome itself on two further occasions, while some regions of the peninsula experienced significant economic hardship. Totila was eventually defeated in 552 at the battle of Taginae in central Italy by Narses, a general with tactical skill, but perhaps more importantly, with a fresh infusion of manpower from the east, and after a further two years of campaigning against remaining pockets of Gothic resistance, Italy was once more under imperial control, albeit considerably the worse for wear.15
The reassertion of imperial authority in Italy during the 540s was hampered not only by the renewed conflict with Persia and ongoing problems with the Moors in north Africa, but also by the intensification of raiding across the lower Danube by various tribal groups referred to in the sources by names such as Bulgars, Antes, Gepids, Heruls and Sclavenes (Slavs). Justinian’s primary response was to strengthen and extend frontier fortifications in the northern Balkans and Thrace – a strategy which appears to have achieved considerable success by the early 550s, in so far as references to raids decline significantly thereafter.16 There was nonetheless one major scare in the winter of 558/9 when a tribal group referred to as Cutrigur Huns crossed a frozen Danube and penetrated almost to the walls of Constantinople itself, where they were induced to turn back only through the wily tactics of the now elderly Belisarius working with very limited numbers of troops (Agathias 5.11). More significant and ominous for the future, however, was the first appearance on the Danube at around this time of the powerful nomadic confederation of the Avars. For the time being, nonetheless, Justinian was able to neutralise any threat they might have posed through financial incentives; his successors would have to deal with the full ramifications of this new development.
One might have thought that the difficulties which the Italian campaign had presented would discourage Justinian from any more foreign ventures. However, at about the same time that Narses defeated Totila, the emperor initiated further imperial intervention in the western Mediterranean by dispatching a force to Spain, where civil war between the Gothic ruler, Agila, and a member of the aristocracy, Athanagild, presented an opportunity to promote Constantinople’s interests. Responding to an appeal for help from Athanagild, an imperial army (size unknown, but presumably modest) assisted him to gain the upper hand against Agila while also consolidating an imperial presence in south-eastern Spain (no doubt with the security of the northern African provinces partly in mind). Agila’s eventual murder by his own supporters in 555 ensured that Athanagild could assume the rulership of Gothic Spain without the need for further fighting, but, unsurprisingly, he found his erstwhile imperial allies unwilling to evacuate the region they occupied, which included the major centre at Cartagena. If, however, Justinian hoped that this enclave would provide the base for the future conquest of the whole of the Iberian peninsula at some point in the near future, he was to be disappointed.17
Procopius’ detailed narrative of imperial history concluded in the early 550s, with his continuator Agathias providing coverage only until the late 550s. Since the history of Agathias’ continuator, Menander, has survived only in the form of excerpts preserved by later writers, the final half decade or so of Justinian’s reign is known in much less detail. As the emperor moved into his late seventies and early eighties, briefer chronicle entries indicate a series of unfortunate events, including food shortages and protests in Constantinople, the apprehension of suspected plotters against the emperor, and a succession of earthquakes, some of which resulted in major damage to the dome of Hagia Sophia in the late 550s. The dome was repaired and the church rededicated at the end of 562 – the occasion for much ceremonial fanfare in the capital – but that same year also saw the improbable implication of the elderly Belisarius in one of the plots, as a result of which his property was confiscated.18
The sense of an aged emperor increasingly out of touch is reinforced by the marked decline in the number of laws he issued19 and by the final twist in the theological saga of his reign. During his last year, Justinian appears, surprisingly, to have abandoned his lifelong adherence to Chalcedonian doctrines in favour of a minority strand of anti-Chalcedonian theology known as Aphthartodocetism which emphasised the incorruptible nature of Christ’s earthly body. The consequences of this puzzling shift of stance for the empire’s ecclesiastical politics were limited by Justinian’s death in November 565 and the position’s reversal by his successor, but it did play a part in determining who that successor would be. For in early 565 Justinian deposed Eutychius, bishop of Constantinople, when he refused to endorse the emperor’s new theological position, and his replacement, John Scholasticus, an Antiochene lawyer and clergyman, was to play an influential role in the accession of Justinian’s successor.
Justinian and Theodora had had no son, and Justinian had apparently refrained from designating a successor in his final years, perhaps so as not to weaken his own position prematurely.20 He did, however, have two male relatives with potential claims, both named Justin. One of these, the son of Justinian’s cousin Germanus, was, like his father, a capable military commander but for that reason was absent from Constantinople at the time of Justinian’s death. The other Justin, the son of Justinian’s sister, was a middle-ranking palace bureaucrat, but by virtue of being on hand at the crucial juncture was able to seize the initiative as soon as news of Justinian’s death became known. John Scholasticus had previously encouraged Justin to think in these terms by reporting that an eminent Syrian holy man had foretold his succession to the throne, while as bishop of Constantinople John was in a position speedily to formalise Justin’s accession before news of Justinian’s death was widely known in the capital, let alone had reached the other Justin on the lower Danube frontier. The inhabitants of Constantinople and the empire were therefore presented with a smoothly orchestrated fait accompli, as well as a further interesting insight into the dynamics of political power in late antiquity (cf. pp. 101–9, 159–61, 174–5 above).
Justinian’s legacy
Justinian presented himself as a tireless and energetic ruler through public pronouncements such as the following: ‘Long hours of work and careful planning have, with God’s help, given us success in both these fields [namely law- and war-making]’ (Institutes preface [533]), and ‘It is our habit constantly to spend our days and nights in wakefulness and thought so that we may provide for our subjects that which is useful and pleasing to God’ (Nov. 8 preface [535]). Although it was conventional to present emperors in this way, this is a theme echoed by a number of contemporary authors, not only those broadly supportive of the regime (‘the most sleepless of all emperors’: Lydus, Mag. 3.55), but also those who were critical (‘he had little need of sleep as a rule’: Procop. Anecdota 13.28),21 and is consistent with the sheer array of projects he initiated from early in his reign. He certainly cannot be faulted with regard to his work ethic or willingness to be proactive. The crucial question, however, is whether his initiatives and efforts ultimately benefited the empire or not.
Since the first decade or so of his reign was mostly characterised by remarkable successes, whereas the years from 540 onwards saw a preponderance of setbacks, it is understandable that some contemporaries might have become disillusioned with his rule and seen it in negative terms overall. This seems to have been the case with Procopius. According to his unpublished Secret History (Anecdota), quite different in tone (and genre) from the Wars, Justinian devoted his waking hours to formulating policies which ruined the empire – a view which, with due adjustments, continues to find modern exponents.22 With the benefit of hindsight, it is difficult to dispute the long-term significance of his legal projects for the development of European law, or the influence of the Hagia Sophia and its dome on the architecture of a number of different cultures. These, however, were outcomes which Justinian can hardly have anticipated and which had no real bearing on the immediate condition of the empire, and it is primarily his foreign policy and its ramifications which have been the focus of contention.
Justinian certainly achieved far more in terms of extending a Roman presence back into the western Mediterranean than could have been predicted at the start of his reign. While he was happy to claim much of the credit for this and capitalise on the kudos it brought, he was undoubtedly aided by circumstances beyond his control – the change of ruler in Persia which facilitated the peace settlement of 532 and the release of troops from the eastern frontier, the various internal problems of the Vandal kingdom in the early 530s, and the succession of ineffective Gothic rulers in Italy after the death of Theoderic in 526. At the same time, further circumstances also beyond his control – Khusro’s decision to violate the peace, the emergence of Totila in Italy, and the impact of the pandemic – meant that early successes were soon offset by reverses and failures. The situations in Italy, north Africa and the east were eventually stabilised, so that he could with some justification be described towards the end of his reign as ‘Emperor of the Romans in fact as well as in name’ (Agathias 5.14.1). Nonetheless, the question remains whether Justinian was too ambitious and thereby did long-term damage to the empire. In particular, did his reliance on monetary payments to ensure peace on some fronts and his commitment of imperial forces to multiple theatres of war impose burdens on the empire’s resources which handicapped it in the longer term?
The 11,000 lbs of gold which were paid to Persia in 532 was undoubtedly a vast sum of money, equivalent to nearly 800,000 solidi – the largest individual payment of its kind on record from late antiquity by some distance. It could, however, easily be covered out of the 320,000 lbs of gold which Anastasius had bequeathed to Justin and Justinian, while the Vandal expedition which its payment made possible could be expected to recoup much more in the event of success. Subsequent payments to Persia in the 540s and 550s were more modest; as already noted, the annual payments of 30,000 solidi agreed in 562 would gradually have mounted up if they had been paid for the full fifty years of the agreement, but were not a heavy burden on an annual basis and were terminated within ten years anyway. The cost of diplomatic subsidies is therefore unlikely to have proved a long-term handicap.23
As for Justinian’s military campaigns, it is evident from complaints in the sources about delays in the payment of troops and troop shortages, particularly in Italy, that the problem of multiple theatres of war created severe difficulties in the 540s. This in turn contributed to the failure to bring the war in Italy to a speedy conclusion, with resulting damage to the economy of the peninsula and to its fiscal contribution to the empire after the end of the war. An argument can certainly be made that Justinian’s policies had a negative impact on Italy, compounded soon after his death by the Lombard invasion of the peninsula (568). However, Italy was only one small part of the empire. Although there were, as previously noted, also difficulties in north Africa, it did eventually contribute to the empire’s finances,24 while the continuing economic prosperity of the eastern Mediterranean (pp. 229–31 above) was obviously beneficial for imperial revenues.
The long-term consequences of Justinian’s policies can also be assessed against developments over the following half century or so. Early in his reign, Justin II (565–78) certainly complained about having inherited an exhausted treasury, but this can only have been a short-term problem, since by the end of his reign, a substantial surplus appears to have accumulated, despite renewed warfare with Persia and on the lower Danube. That warfare included some significant setbacks, notably the loss of the frontier fortress of Dara to the Persians in 573 and of Sirmium to the Avars in 582, but under his successors, Tiberius II (578–82) and Maurice (582–602), the empire’s eastern and northern frontiers were gradually stabilised and strengthened, aided by civil war in Persia in 590, which forced the new king Khusro II to flee to Roman territory. The Emperor Maurice intervened to restore Khusro to the throne in 591, thereby gaining various territorial concessions, including the restoration of Dara, and peace in the east. This unexpected development freed forces to focus on the lower Danube frontier during the 590s. Although Italy remained a problematic region, as reflected in the correspondence of the energetic bishop of Rome, Gregory I (590– 604), the empire was otherwise in a strong position at the end of the sixth century. Justinian may not have succeeded in restoring the empire to all its former glory, but it is difficult to see him as having left the empire a toxic inheritance.25
It was events in the decades after 600 which altered the empire’s position dramatically and irrevocably for the worse. In 602 military units on the lower Danube mutinied, marched on Constantinople and proclaimed one of their officers, Phocas, as emperor in place of Maurice, who was executed along with most of his family. This in turn prompted Persia to invade imperial territory, taking advantage of the internal turmoil to make major inroads. Phocas was overthrown in 610 by Heraclius, son of the imperial governor of north Africa, who eventually proved himself a capable general – but not before Persian forces exploited this further upheaval to extend their control into Egypt and across Anatolia. By 626 Constantinople itself was threatened by a combination of Persian and Avar forces, but managed to hold out while the absent Heraclius finally initiated a successful drive from the Caucasus into the Persian heartlands, which resulted in the overthrow of Khusro in 628 and the end of the ‘last great war of antiquity’.26 This success was, however, to be short-lived, for less than a decade later, Heraclius found himself facing the unexpected phenomenon of Arab forces from the south, energized by Islam, advancing into Syria and inflicting a major defeat on imperial forces at the River Yarmuk (636). This signalled the permanent loss of the most economically productive regions of the empire – above all, Egypt – and a fundamental reconfiguration of the empire’s strategic priorities and organisation.27 It was these developments, which had little if anything to do with Justinian’s actions and policies, which have the strongest claim to signal the end of antiquity.
From Rome to Byzantium
As a result of Justinian’s actions, the city of Rome was once again a part of the empire, after more than half a century under barbarian rule. Even before that phase of its history, however, it had, of course, long ceased to play the central role in the political life of the empire to which it had been accustomed for many centuries in the more distant past, and its return to imperial control in the sixth century did not alter that. Constantinople – ancient Byzantium – was now firmly established as the centre of power in the empire, while Italy had effectively become what has, in a striking inversion, been described as ‘a frontier province’.28 Moreover, despite Justinian’s efforts, the political unity of the Mediterranean world which had been one of Rome’s singular achievements had fractured irreversibly by the sixth century, even if elements of its associated economic unity persisted into the seventh century.
The clearest thread of continuity with Rome’s past during the sixth century remained the traditional senatorial aristocracy, but although Theoderic had sought to uphold their status for most of his reign, the material basis of their position had contracted during the fifth century as they lost their extra-Italian land-holdings amidst the turmoil created by barbarian incomers, while the viability of their estates in Italy suffered further blows during the Gothic war and then with the establishment of the Lombard presence in the peninsula soon after.29 The senate as a body in Rome persisted into the early seventh century, but not for much longer, since soon after 625 the senate house was turned into a church. While the emperor’s vicarious presence in the city should not be underestimated even at this stage,30 the bishop of Rome was becoming the pre-eminent figure in the life of the city, as epitomized in the description of Gregory I on his epitaph as ‘God’s consul’ (Bede, Hist. eccl. 2.1), and it was the bishop of Rome who maintained elements of imperial traditions and practices into the medieval period of the city’s history, above all through the papal chancery.31
As for the eastern Mediterranean, now the empire’s heartland, the inhabitants continued to refer to themselves as Romans – ‘Byzantines’ is an invention of early modern scholarship. The continued use of the term ‘Roman’ in a world where it could encompass individuals of Greek, Thracian, Isaurian, Armenian or even Gothic origin might be regarded as analogous to late Republican and early imperial traditions of extending citizenship to encompass non-Romans, which had played such an important role in the growth of Roman power. Of course, citizenship itself had long ceased to have the caché which it had carried in the distant past,32 and ‘Romanity’ was now defined with reference to other criteria, above all loyalty to the emperor, but also allegiance to Christianity, especially orthodox Christianity.33 And it is this latter criterion which is one of the strongest indicators that, despite the continuity of ‘Roman’ terminology, there had nonetheless been a fundamental shift in the character of the empire. For it was now a strongly Christianised society, as well as being a society in which another archetypal feature of the Roman past – the centrality of the Latin language – was disappearing. To be sure, Latin maintained its position in Italy and north Africa, but Justinian was probably the last emperor for whom Latin was his first language, and it has already been noted how there was a shift away from Latin as the language of administration during his reign (p. 256 above). Greek was the prevalent means of communication for a majority of inhabitants. This did not prevent them from describing themselves as ‘Romans’, but they did so in Greek, as Romaioi, rather than Romani. The predominance of Greek language and of Christianity, together with the centrality of Constantinople, are the features most closely associated with medieval Byzantium, and their growing prominence during the sixth century is symptomatic of the transformation of the Roman empire into an entity which, while the recognisable descendant of ancient Rome, was nonetheless increasingly different in fundamental ways.34
1. Justinian also suffered the personal loss of Theodora (probably to cancer) in 548.
2. Further detail (with sources) in G. Greatrex and S. Lieu, The Roman Eastern Frontier and the Persian Wars, AD 363–630, London: Routledge, 2002, 102–34.
3. Cf. H. Börm, ‘Anlässe und Funktion der persischen Geldforderungen an die Römer (3. bis 6. Jh.)’, Historia 57 (2008), 327–46.
4. Further discussion in W. E. Kaegi, Byzantine Military Unrest, 471–843, Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1981, 41–63.
5. The main sources for these events in Africa are Procop. Wars 4.10–28 and Corippus’ panegyrical epic poem in honour of John Troglita, the Iohannis, with discussion and further references in J. A. S. Evans, The Age of Justinian, London: Routledge, 1996, 133–6, 151–3, 169–71; Y. Modéran, Les Maures et l’Afrique romaine, Rome: École française de Rome, 2003.
6. The best discussion of the pandemic is P. Hordern, ‘Mediterranean plague in the age of Justinian’ in M. Maas (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, 134–60; see also L. K. Little (ed.), Plague and the End of Antiquity: The Pandemic of 541–750, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
7. A recent study has suggested that coinage from these years reflects this through its depiction of Justinian’s face as deformed, while also advertising his identification with his people in their hardship: H. Pottier, ‘L’empereur Justinien survivant à la peste bubonique (542)’, Mélanges Cécile Morrisson = T&M 16 (2010), 685–92.
8. R. Sallares, ‘Ecology, evolution, and epidemiology of plague’ in Little, Plague, 231–89.
9. A. Arjava, ‘The mystery cloud of 536 CE in the Mediterranean sources’, DOP 59 (2005), 73–94, taking particular issue with D. Keys, Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of the Modern World, London: BCA, 1999. For the apocalyptic discourse in contemporary literature to which the dust cloud, pandemic and other natural disasters such as earthquakes gave rise, see M. Meier, Das andere Zeitalter Justinians: Kontingenzerfahrung und Kontingenzbewältigung im 6 Jahrhundert n. Chr., Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003, 45–100.
10. Hordern, ‘Mediterranean plague’, 153.
11. J. Durliat, ‘La peste du VIe siècle: pour un nouvel examen des sources byzantines’ in V. Kravari et al. (eds), Hommes et richesses dans l’Empire byzantin, Paris: Lethielleux, 1989–91, 1.107–19, endorsed by C. Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 400–800, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, 548. The only explicit epigraphic reference to the plague in 542 appears to be an inscription recording the building of a church at Zora in southern Syria in 542 when the local bishop Uaros (Varus) died from ‘swellings in the groin and armpits’: J. Koder, ‘Ein inschriftlicher Beleg zur “justinianischen” Pest in Zora (Azra‘a)’, Byzantinoslavica 56 (1995), 13–18.
12. Cf. M. Meier, ‘Beobachtungen zu den sogennanten Pestschilderungen bei Thukydides II 47–54 und bei Prokop, Bell. Pers. II 22–23’, Tyche 14 (1999), 177–205; W. Brandes, ‘Byzantine cities in the seventh and eighth centuries: different sources, different histories?’ in G. P. Brogiolo and B. Ward-Perkins (eds), The Idea and Ideal of the Town between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, Leiden: Brill, 1999, 25–58, at 32–6.
13. P. Sarris, ‘The Justinianic plague: origins and effects’, Continuity and Change 17 (2002), 169–82 (reprinted in Little, Plague, 119–32). For cautionary comments about the limitations of the lease evidence, however, see Arjava, ‘Mystery cloud’, 89–90.
14. M. Whitby, ‘Recruitment in Roman armies from Justinian to Heraclius (ca. 565– 615)’ in Averil Cameron (ed.), The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East III: States, Resources and Armies, Princeton: Darwin Press, 1995, 61–124, at 93–9. Note also the Life of Nicholas of Sion 52, which refers to farmers avoiding towns in order to escape the disease.
15. For further detail on the events of the war in Italy from 540 to 554, see Evans, Justinian, 171–81, and J. Moorhead, ‘The Byzantines in the west in the sixth century’ in CMH 1.118–39, at 127–9. For a good discussion of the decisive battle and the effectiveness of the army, see P. Rance, ‘Narses and the battle of Taginae (Busta Gallorum) 552: Procopius and sixth-century warfare’, Historia 54 (2005), 424–772.
16. F. Curta, The Making of the Slavs: History and Archaeology of the Lower Danube Region, c. 500–700, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001, 75–89; A. Sarantis, ‘War and diplomacy in Pannonia and the north-west Balkans during the reign of Justinian’, DOP 63 (2009), 15–40.
17. For imperial involvement in Gothic Spain, see E. A. Thompson, The Goths in Spain, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969, 320–34. Imperial forces eventually had to withdraw from Spain during the 620s, when Constantinople itself was under dire threat from Persians and Avars.
18. Details and references in Evans, Justinian, 253–7.
19. Noted by J. Moorhead, Justinian, London: Longman, 1994, 172 (36 surviving laws from the 540s, 13 from the 550s, 3 from 560–5).
20. The suggestion of Moorhead, Justinian, 174.
21. Cf. Margaret Thatcher’s reputation for being able to manage on only four hours of sleep a night.
22. Most recently, J. J. O’Donnell, The Ruin of the Roman Empire, London: Profile, 2009.
23. Details and discussion in A. D. Lee, War in Late Antiquity: A Social History, Oxford: Blackwell, 2007, 120–2.
24. Wickham, Framing, 124.
25. For further detail, discussion and references, see M. Whitby, ‘The successors of Justinian’, CAH2 14.86–111; M. Whittow, The Making of Orthodox Byzantium, 600– 1025, London: Macmillan, 1996, 38–53.
26. J. Howard-Johnston, ‘Heraclius’ Persian campaigns and the revival of the east Roman empire, 622–630’, War in History 6 (1999), 1–44 (whose phrase this is); W. E. Kaegi, Heraclius, Emperor of Byzantium, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
27. Whittow, Making, 69–89; J. Howard-Johnston, Witnesses to a World Crisis: Historians and Histories of the Middle East in the Seventh Century, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010, chs 14–16.
28. M. Humphries, ‘Italy, AD 425–605’ in CAH2 14.525–51, at 542.
29. T. S. Brown, Gentlemen and Officers: Imperial Administration and Aristocratic Power in Byzantine Italy, AD 554–800, Rome: British School at Rome, 1984, ch. 2.
30. As emphasised by M. Humphries, ‘From emperor to pope? Ceremonial, space and authority at Rome from Constantine to Gregory the Great’ in K. Cooper and J. Hillner (eds), Religion, Dynasty and Patronage in Early Christian Rome, 300–900, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, 21–58.
31. See T. F. X. Noble, ‘Morbidity and vitality in the history of the early medieval papacy’, Catholic Historical Review 81 (1995), 505–40, esp. 514–17.
32. For citizenship in late antiquity, see R. W. Mathisen, ‘Peregrini, barbari and cives Romani: concepts of citizenship and the legal identity of barbarians in the later Roman empire’, American Historical Review 111 (2006), 1011–40.
33. G. Greatrex, ‘Roman identity in the sixth century’ in S. Mitchell and G. Greatrex (eds), Ethnicity and Culture in Late Antiquity, London: Duckworth, 2000, 267–92.
34. For Byzantine identity and culture, see Averil Cameron, The Byzantines, Oxford: Blackwell, 2006.