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72 3. justin i and justinian
and managed with difficulty to break into the imperial box, seizing
Hypatius and the patrician Pompeius, who were executed on the next day,
19 January. Many thousands of people were killed in the fray. 56
It is difficult to establish either the chronology of the rioting or the
reasons for it. Procopius ascribes it in the main to the irrationality of the
Blues and Greens, though admitting that the people had real grievances and
that the senators were divided. 57 The ‘revolt’ must indeed be seen in the
context of the high level of urban violence that characterized the cities of
the eastern empire in the early sixth century; 58 but its effects were far more
serious than most, and the call for the removal of unpopular ministers was
to be a recurring feature of the reign. The career and eventual fall of John
the Cappadocian, in particular, the bad effects of whose rule John Lydus
catalogues in relation to his own provincial region, 59 are treated extensively
by Procopius as a major element in the network of power and intrigue
which he sees as characteristic of Justinian’s rule. 60 Understandably,
Justinian himself claimed the suppression of the Nika revolt as a major
victory, issuing a public announcement in the course of which he promised
to make good all the damage that had been done.
iii. st sophia, the ‘reconquest’ and the middle years
(c. 532,54)
The Nika revolt not only made peace with Persia even more desirable but
also provided the need and the opportunity to rebuild St Sophia on a grander
scale than before. Described in detail by Procopius (Buildings i.1.20–77) and
again on the restoration of the dome in January 563 in a lengthy verse encomium
by the poet Paul the Silentiary, 61 Justinian’s ‘Great Church’ remains
extraordinary today for its size, its innovative design and, even though most
of its internal fittings have long since disappeared, for the interplay of its
coloured marbles and the light of its many windows (Fig. 34,p.904 below).
Work began on the new church almost at once and it was dedicated on 27
December 537. Again Justinian was well served by those he had put in charge
of the task, this time the architects Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of
Miletus. Justinian’s great building, together with the square situated between
St Sophia and the palace, and known as the Augustaion, where an equestrian
statue of Justinian himself (now lost) was erected, the huge Basilica cistern
and the Chalke entrance to the imperial palace (see above) formed an impressive
imperial centre for the city, whose impact can still be felt today.
56 35,000: Chron. Pasch. 627; 30,000: Procop. Wars i.24.54; 50,000: Joh. Lyd. De Mag. iii.70; see Whitby
and Whitby (1989) 125,n.366.
57 See Cameron, Procopius 166–7; analysis of the sources in Bury (1897), and see Greatrex (1998).
58 Cameron, Mediterranean World 171–4. 59 De Mag. iii.58, 61. 60 Cameron, Procopius 69–70.
61 H. Soph. ed. Friedländer; see Whitby, Mary (1985); Magdalino and Macrides (1988). Cf. also the
much later Narratio de S. Sophia ed. Preger, with Dagron (1984) 191–314. The church: Mainstone (1988).
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