Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

justinian’s early years (527,32) 65
consuls in 522, attempted to intervene he was tried and executed himself;
his death was followed in the next year by that of his father-in-law
Symmachus, the leader of the senate. 16 The king’s own death in 526, leaving
his young grandson Athalaric as heir under the guardianship of his mother
Amalasuintha, soon provided Justinian with an excuse for intervention in
Italy.
In the east, Justin’s government followed the traditional policy of using
diplomacy and alliances to maintain Byzantine interests, supporting an
Axumite (Ethiopian) expedition against the Jewish regime of Himyar in
south Arabia (a.d. 524–5) and adopting a long-term policy of utilizing the
Monophysite Ghassanids as federates to balance the pro-Persian
Lakhmids. 17 Christianity and Byzantine influence likewise went hand-inhand
in the Caucasus, but here the highly political baptism and marriage to
a Christian wife of Tzath, the king of Lazica, in Constantinople led to retaliatory
moves by Kavadh of Persia and to the flight of the Iberian royal
family to Constantinople. In Justin’s last year, the generals Belisarius and
Sittas raided Persarmenia; as dux Mesopotamiae, Belisarius’ base was the fortress
at Dara, and Procopius the historian now became his aide. 18
ii. justinian’s early years (527,32)
Before he died on 1 August 527, Justin had made his nephew Justinian coemperor,
and the latter now succeeded. 19 He is perhaps best known from
his depiction in the famous mosaic in the church of San Vitale, Ravenna.
The contemporary chronicle of Malalas describes him as ‘short, with a
good chest, a good nose, fair-skinned, curly-haired, round-faced, handsome,
with receding hair, a florid complexion, with his hair and beard
greying’. 20 The formula is conventional, but at least the description lacks
the sheer malice of that given by Procopius in the Secret History, where
Justinian’s appearance is slyly compared with that of the tyrant and persecutor
Domitian. 21
The importance of Justinian’s reign has been recognized by contemporaries
and modern historians alike. It is seen as a time of triumph, marking
the re-establishment of strong imperial rule, or the transmission of an ideal
of Catholic government to the western Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
Equally, it has been seen as an autocracy, marked by persecution and ending
in failure. The early successes of Justinian’s ‘reconquest’ of the western
16 See PLRE ii, s.v. Boethius 5 and Symmachus 9, and see ch. 19, p.525 below.
17 See Evans (1996) 86–90, 112–14; Fowden (1993); ch. 22c, p. 678 below; Shahîd (1995) i.1 and 2.
18 For the diplomatic aspects and the idea of a Byzantine ‘commonwealth’ see Fowden (1993); the
subsequent activities of Belisarius are known in detail from Procopius, and are given in detail in PLRE
iii, Belisarius 1. 19 Malal. 422.9–21; 424.14–425.9; Chron. Pasch. 616 Bonn.
20 Malal. 425, 1–9, trans. Jeffreys et al.; on the ‘portraits’ in Malalas, see Elizabeth and Michael Jeffreys,
in Jeffreys et al., Studies 231–44. 21 SH 8.12–21.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008