Back to Introduction 

Course A107: From Late Antiquity to Byzantium

Justinian

MAP

• 518 Justin

525 Execution of Boethius, author of the Consolation of Philosophy ,

527 Justinian

527 Persian wars

529 Benedict founds Monte Cassino

Justinian closes the schools at Athens

533-4 Codification of laws: Digest and Code (Tribonian)

532 Nika revolt

533 Peace with Persia

Belisarius recaptures North Africa from the Vandals

534 Belisarius' triumph

535 Belisarius invades Italy

540 Ravenna captured

Bulgars attack Constantinople

Persians invade; sack of Antioch

541 Plague begins

546-9 Ravenna mosaics ( San Vitale and see site 1, 2, San Apollinare in Classe see www)

548 Death of Theodora

553 Fifth Ecumenical Council

551 Attack on Spain

554 End of war in Italy; Pragmatic Sanction

558 Dome of S. Sophia collapses

559 Hun attack

561 Peace with Persia

563 Rededication of S. Sophia

Foundation of Iona by Columba

565 Death of Justinian. Justin II: see his cross

Sources

Boethius, The consolation of philosophy, trans. P.G. Walsh (Oxford, 1999)

John Malalas, Chronicle, trans. E. Jeffreys et al. (Melbourne 1986) Book 18

Procopius, History of the Wars (8 bks., 551 and 553/4) Secret History (?551) Buildings (554) (All Loeb editions, also Penguin trans. of Secret History. The famous bit about Theodora is in Secret History, ch. 9, but read on at least to ch. 12 and the passage where he says that both Justinian and Theodora were demons in human form. Robert Graves, Count Belisarius is a classic historical novel based closely on Procopius. There are at least a dozen novels about Theodora also largely based on Procopius but usually more fanciful than Count Belisarius.

Averil Cameron, Procopius and the sixth century (London 1985) and reviews

A. Kaldellis, Procopius of Caesarea: Tyranny, History and Philosophy at the end of antiquity (University of Pensylvania, 2004)

John the Lydian, De Magistratibus, Eng. trans. T. Carney, A. Bandy

and see Michael Maas, John Lydus and the Roman Past ((London, 1992)

Justinian, Novellae online with all the legal works. For translations see the Roman Law Library

Studies

Justinian

• J. W. Barker, Justinian and the Later Roman Empire (Madison 1966)
• R. Browning, Justinian and Theodora (London, 1977)
• J. Moorhead, Justinian (Longmans, Medieval World Series, 1994)
• J. A. S. Evans, The Age of Justinian. The Circumstances of Imperial Power (London-New York, Routledge, 1996)
• id. The empress Theodora partner of Justinian (Austin University of Texas Press 2002).
• Geoffrey Greatrex, 'The Nika revolt: a reappraisal', JHS 117 (1997), 60-86
• id., Rome and Persia at war, 502-532 (Leeds: Francis Cairns, 1998)
• J. A. Evans , The Emperor Justinian and the Byzantine Empire (London, 2005)
• Michael Maas ed., The Cambridge companion to the Age of Justinian (Cambridge, 2005).
• Peter Sarris, Economy and Society in the Age of Justinian (Cambridge, 2006)

Law

On the codification of the laws, Tony Honoré, Tribonian (London 1978) esp ch. 1 and the Prologue to the Digest

E. E. Metzger ed., A companion to Justinian's Institutes (London: Duckworth / Ithaca: Cornell U.P., 1998)

Arts and Sciences

• E. Kitzinger, Byzantine Art in the making (Harvard 1977)
• Martin Harrison, A Temple for Byzantium (London 1989)

Cosmas Indicopleustes

Hagia Sophia

Mark, R. and Cakmak, A., eds., The Hagia Sophia. From the Age of Justinian to the Present (CUP, 1993), and pictures at  Princeton

Sts Sergius and Bacchus

Jonathan Bardill, The Church of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus in Constantinople and the Monophysite Refugees DOP 54 (2000)

Sinai

Ravenna : pictures

Plague, bubonic, hits Constantinople, AD 542; described in detail by Procopius, History of the Wars, II.22 (= BP II.22), in language reminiscent of Thucydides' description of the Athenian plague of 430 BC. Also described by John of Ephesus and by the church historian Evagrius (HE IV. 29), who had lived through it himself in Antioch.

• Pauline Allen, 'The "Justinianic" Plague', Byzantion 49 (1981),5-20;
• P. Sarris, 'The Justiianic Plague: origins and effects', Continuity and Change 17.2 (2002)
• D. Stathakopoulos, Famine and Pestilence in the late Roman and Byzantine empire (Birmingham, 2004)
• (a popular account) W. Rosen, Justinian's Flea: Plague, Empire, and the Birth of Europe (London, 2007)

The East

Evagrius Scholasticus, The Ecclesiastical History (written 590's) translated with an introduction by Michael Whitby.Translated texts for historians v. 33 (Liverpool, 2000)
John of Ephesus, Lives of the Eastern Saints, Church History part III (written 580's, Monophysite; on the former see Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Asceticism and society in crisis. John of Ephesus' Lives of the Eastern Saints)

On Finance, see Tulane website

And see further notes

Back to Introduction

Page created 30.ix.98; last modified March 18, 2010