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XXXIII. Justinian
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289 The king was much taken aback by this, but he wanted to be true to his royal words, since he had spoken them to the assembled princes earlier. “I will do what I have promised to do,” he said, “although it is the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life, for love of you.” “My heart hurts me the same way,” the lady said to him. “Portio mea sit in terra viventium [Let my portion be in the land of the living].” God’s grace is not concerned with earthly possessions. And so he permitted her to enter a nunnery; and she likewise permitted him to become a monk. The woman became a saint, and—while the man had renounced his throne—as a reward God gave him a place in the Heavenly Kingdom, which has no end. Now let us raise up our hands and ask them not to forget us since they possess the Kingdom of Heaven. He judged the Empire, to be exact, eight years and four and a half months, then angels summoned his soul. XXXIII Justinian Justinian I, “the Great” (r. as Eastern emperor 527–565), is easily the most famous of all Byzantine emperors. He restored much of what had been lost from the Roman Empire and, for a time, united its eastern and western parts. He is best remembered for having sponsored the collection and editing of Roman laws. The resulting Justinian Code became the basic source for the study of Roman Law in Western as in Eastern Europe. Nearly all his military campaigns were successful, partly because he appointed and relied on good generals, particularly Narses and Belisarius. Justinian was also responsible for rebuilding the Church of the Holy Wisdom, “Hagia Sophia,” in Constantinople, the Eastern 290 Chapter Thirty-three Roman capital. Begun by Constantine, completed and enhanced by several successors, it had been destroyed by riots severe enough to give Justinian the idea of fleeing the city. Justinian employed 100,000 workers to rebuild it as a huge and lavishly furnished cathedral with a massive dome. It remains an architectural wonder even later as a Turkish mosque, when Constantinople became Istanbul after the Islamic conquest of the Byzantine Empire. As an actress and prostitute, Justinian’s wife, Theodora, had a dubious background for an empress. Unlike that of Tharsilla, below, Theodora’s personal life as the imperial spouse was shockingly dissolute. Yet it is true that she was one of Justinian’s most reliable advisors, persuading him to stay in Constantinople and ride out the savage riots mentioned above—which he did successfully —rather than flee. Our author pays little attention to the facts of the historical Justinian’s reign, preferring to dwell on him as a model of bad, then good, then bad again rulership. His wife, Tharsilla, gives him good advice, but she is much more a model of godly queenship than Theodora ever thought of being. In constructing the character of Tharsilla, our author may have been influenced by the figure of Plakilla, wife of Theodosius I, whom early Christian historians, such as Cassiodorus and Theodoret, presented as a model of wifely and queenly virtue. the Book tells us that Justinian then held the Empire. Even though he rendered good judgments as a ruler, he was too proud and arrogant . The princes thought him too aloof, wanting all the honors that should belong to all of them only for himself. The princes began to desert him. He judged too severely in a way that made everyone afraid, until the princes became hostile towards him, and no one wanted to stay around him. He had a wife named Tharsilla, who was a very capable woman and saved his life many times. She had many good ideas—how well she got him out of difficulties through gifts and just the right words! She used her good sense and imagination to keep even the most powerful lord from [18.205.114.205] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 07:30 GMT) Justinian 291 ever killing the king because of what he had done. Still, the nobles starting complaining among themselves about Justinian. The king could not escape the terrible lack of moderation he felt when anger overtook him. The whole Senate shied away from him because no one dared to give real answers to his words. It did not take much time before the king was the prisoner of hatred and jealousy, which he took out on his...