Texts in Context:
The Roman Empire
After Rome
By Gabriel Blanchard
"Vanity of vanities," saith the Preacher, "vanity of vanities; all is vanity ..."
Renovātiō Imperiī Rōmānōrum
One thing we are apt to forget about history, ironically, is that it is a discipline conducted entirely in retrospect. We know that the Roman Empire was never reunited after its division between the sons of Theodosius I in 395.
Romans of the sixth century did not know this. Moreover, they had little reason to anticipate it. The whole Mediterranean, from one Iberia to the other, had a cultural tradition impelling it toward unity; Rome had not only survived crises as drastic as the Second Punic War or the half-century of the Barracks Emperors, but had even recovered its power and its prestige. Accordingly, when Justinian was crowned Emperor in 527, he took up a slogan that already had centuries of tradition behind it—renovātiō imperiī Rōmānōrum, “the renewal of the Romans’ dominion”—to announce his intention to reclaim Ostrogothic Italy, Vandal Africa, and Visigothic Gaul and Spain; there seemed little reason to think he would not succeed.
The emperor did accomplish a great deal. He presided over the construction of the Cathedral of Holy Wisdom (usually known under its Greek name, Ἁγία Σοφία [Hagia Sophia]1), which was then the largest church in the world, and is still a marvel of engineering. The vast dome which surmounts it is over a hundred feet in diameter, and rises to over a hundred and eighty feet above the floor at its highest; the cathedral was decorated with brilliant mosaics made of colorful stones and pieces of gold. Some of these mosaics survive even now, though often concealed under a layer of plaster (Hagia Sophia served as a mosque during the Ottoman period, roughly the mid-fifteenth to early twentieth centuries).
Nothing Divides Like Universality
Laudable though his victories might be, Justinian inherited some extremely delicate problems, particularly when it came to managing the Empire’s relationship with the Church. The people of his realm were passionately devout, but also prone to factionalism, on the flimsiest motives—there were political and doctrinal associations attached to which chariot-racing team you supported2; the Blues and Greens were notorious for their implacable mutual hatred (and these were not just fandoms—think more along the lines of British football gangs.) Unluckily, most recent ecumenical council had not gone smoothly. To understand why, we must learn a little elementary theology.
By the late fourth century, two basic ways of explaining the divinity of Jesus had formed. There was an Alexandrian school, which stressed the unity between his Godhead and his humanity; it described him as having one divine-human nature. There was also an Antiochene school, which stressed the distinction, and spoke of two natures accordingly. It so happened that Alexandria and Antioch were also the two sees (besides Rome) which claimed a line of apostolic succession from St. Peter.3 As anyone might have predicted, the theological dispute became inflamed by hierarchical jealousies. At the Council of Ephesus in 431, the Marian title Theotokos (usually translated “Mother of God”) was declared the Church’s official belief, which was a victory for the Alexandrian side; yet just twenty years later, the Council of Chalcedon adopted a doctrinal formula that explicitly used the “two natures” language of Antioch.
Most of the Empire’s Christian inhabitants accepted Chalcedon. However, large minorities in the Levant and a majority in Egypt flatly rejected it, clinging to the Alexandrian, or Miaphysite, view.4 Emperors had tried to reconcile the schism, but had effected nothing except a dismal and dangerous quarrel between themselves and the popes in Rome, who were staunchly Chalcedonian, suddenly outside the effective reach of New Rome, and disposed to resent imperial interference in church affairs. Rome and New Rome had even been in schism quite recently; the breach had been healed only eight years before Justinian was crowned.
Justinian, along with the Popes and most of the populace (except in Egypt), was a Chalcedonian. However, in dealing with the schism, he had something up his sleeve; more precisely, on his arm.
Empress Theodora
Empress Theodora, Justinian’s wife, was a very singular woman. Procopius, a courtier of Justinian’s, paints her as a vicious femme fatale; of course, this is the same man who claimed in his Secret History that, from time to time, Justinian didn’t have a face, since he was demon-possessed, according to certain people whose names Procopius will surely remember in a moment (and you know, suddenly not having a face, classic symptom of possession). So we should take his depiction with a grain of salt.
Theodora had been an actress in her youth. Justinian’s uncle, who was then Emperor, had to modify the law to allow them to marry5; the whole business was a scandal. As shocking as her old profession was her Miaphysite faith. She was far from secretive about it, even entertaining Miaphysite clergy in the palace, while her husband wavered between attempting to impose religious conformity through force, or—following Theodora’s preference—trying to hit on a formula that would be suitably ambiguous to satisfy both sides. Some historians, like Procopius and Evagrius Scholasticus, believed that the religious conflict in the palace was all for show, trying perhaps to forestall any zealous Chalcedonians from pushing for the persecution of the Miaphysites by keeping everyone guessing.
It may sound strange to speak of Justinian “following Theodora’s preference,” given we hear so much about how misogynistic the Roman Empire was. But here’s the thing. The Roman Empire was every bit as misogynistic as you’ve heard; it’s possible Justinian and Theodora really were at odds over the religious issue and not making an elaborate double-bluff; and still, Justinian listened to Theodora. (Some of his legislation may reflect this, showing particular interest in the legal protection of women and children.) This respect of Justinian for his wife may have been thanks to her resoluteness during a crisis known as the Nika Riots, which took place only five years after his accession. Provoked by unpopular taxes (and tax-men), the Nika Riots saw even the Blues and Greens forge an alliance in the name of overthrowing Justinian. He considered fleeing the city, but, reputedly, Theodora gave a speech to this effect:
Sooner or later, every man dies; and how could an Emperor suffer himself to be a fugitive? When you reach safety, you will regret that you did not choose death instead. For my part, I stand by the saying: "The imperial purple is the finest shroud."
She had restored both her husband’s courage and his wits. The riots were put down—with some brutality, but this did not make Justinian less popular. The next year, he embarked on reconquering the West Roman Empire. It was only now that Justinian, by setting out to reconquer it, made it clear (or decided) that the West was in non-Roman hands: that it was not merely being held as a fief by Gothic lords who were still imperial subjects, but under foreign control.
It began well: Vandal Africa was restored to the Roman sphere in just a year. But the reconquest of Italy, though ultimately successful (sort of—we’ll get there), proved to be a drawn-out affair, lasting nearly twenty years. This had many causes; but the infamous ones took place in the year 536.
Fimbulwinter6
North America had not been discovered by Europeans at the time, and most modern geologists had not been born. It is therefore no surprise that no one in Europe knew about three catastrophic volcanic eruptions that occurred in North America, in 536 or late 535, in an arc stretching roughly from central California to the Aleutian Islands. What the old world did notice, even if they didn’t realize what it was, is what happened next: fine volcanic ash polluted the atmosphere of the whole planet, causing sunlight to glance off into space, in turn lowering global temperatures by several degrees. A senator named Cassiodorus wrote in a letter:
The Sun, first of stars, seems to have lost his wonted light, and appears of a bluish color. We marvel to see no shadows of our bodies at noon, to feel the mighty vigor of his heat wasted into feebleness, and the phenomena which accompany a transitory eclipse prolonged through a whole year. … We have had a winter without storms, a spring without mildness, and a summer without heat. Whence can we look for harvest, since the months which should have been maturing the corn have been chilled by the north wind? … The seasons seem to be all jumbled up together, and the fruits … cannot be looked for from the parched earth.
—Thomas Hodgkin translation (1886), The Letters of Cassiodorus XII.25
Some of the dramatic effects, like the blurring of the sun, were swifter to change back—three or four years. But crop failures were inevitable, which meant famine. And at least in Europe, the volcanic winter of 536 lasted around fifteen years.
The Enduring Chill
Cold and hunger weakened the Romans’ immune systems. Cold temperatures also affect the species Yersinia pestis, a microbe which thrives in the cool—hence, no doubt, its preference for maintaining itself chiefly in mountainous reservoirs like the Ethiopian Highlands, the Tian Shan Mountains, and the Hindu Kush. Yersinia pestis had last visited the Mediterranean sixteen hundred years before; evidently it felt like a reunion.
The Plague of Justinian broke out in Egypt in 541. By 543, every part of the Empire was affected, as were places that lay beyond Rome’s orbit, like Gaul and western Britain. According to some sources, at its worst, the Plague of Justinian was killing five thousand people per day in New Rome—a city that housed, give or take, about five hundred thousand people. Incidentally, it was literally the Plague of Justinian: the emperor contracted the disease in 542. He recovered, and reigned another twenty-three years. The plague did not fully recede until the late 540s; even after that, it continued springing up here and there (in decreasingly lethal forms) as late as the eighth century.
Despite all of this, in 554, Justinian had almost fully achieved his longed-for renovātiō imperiī Rōmānōrum. The Roman Empire was certainly the master of Italy again, and Old Rome safely within its fences. The realm was larger than it had been in centuries when Justinian died in the year 565. Of its traditional territories, only Gaul and the north of Spain were still outside Byzantine control.
Three years later, another Germanic nation, known as the Lombards, invaded Italy and wrenched it from imperial control. After that, the peninsula was never ruled from New Rome again.
1The name is normally pronounced, roughly, as hī-à sō-fē-à, along Modern Greek lines.
2Chariot racing had been a popular Roman sport for centuries. The teams were traditional. Technically there were four (the Blues, Greens, Scarlets, and Whites), but the Blues and Greens, who had a long-standing rivalry, were the ones that really counted in this period. In modern terms, it’d be as if Steelers fans were also stereotyped as being Pentecostals who wanted to restore the British monarchy in the US, and Cowboys fans were stereotyped as Catholic socialists.
3Traditionally, the see of Alexandria was founded by St. Mark, St. Peter’s protégé, and Antioch by Peter personally.
4The view is called Miaphysite from the Greek μία φύσις [mia füsis], “one nature.” This is often confused with an extreme “Alexandrian” view known as the Monophysite heresy; according to this idea, the natures of Jesus were not just united but blended, making him not quite one or the other. However, Miaphysites (known now as Oriental Orthodox) reject Monophysitism, same as Chalcedonians.
5At the time, actresses were considered nearly equivalent to prostitutes.
6In Norse mythology, Fimbulwinter or Fimbulvetr (Old Norse for “mighty winter”) immediately precedes Ragnarök, the last war of the gods and giants. The idea of Fimbulwinter may owe something to the bizarre weather of 536 and its aftermath.
Gabriel Blanchard is CLT’s editor at large. He lives in Baltimore, MD.
If you enjoyed this piece, you might enjoy the video essay “Apocalypse: The Plague of Justinian and the Bizarre Weather of 536” from The Historian’s Craft. You might also like our Brain User’s Manual, a crash course in informal logic.
Published on 4th November, 2024. Page image of a mosaic from Hagia Sophia, depicting Christ and his Mother (center) enthroned between Constantine (on the right), who is holding up Constantinople to them, and Justinian (on the left), who is holding up Hagia Sophia itself.