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1 - Justinian and His Legacy (500–600)

from Part I - The Earlier Empire c. 500–c. 700

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2010

Andrew Louth
Affiliation:
Professor of Patristic and Byzantine Studies, University of Durham
Jonathan Shepard
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
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Summary

an empire of cities

The beginning of the sixth century saw Anastasius (491–518) on the imperial throne, ruling an empire that was still thought of as essentially the Roman empire, coextensive with the world of the Mediterranean. Although Anastasius ruled from Constantinople over what we call the eastern empire, the western empire having been carved up into the ‘barbarian kingdoms’, this perspective is ours, not theirs. Through the conferring of titles in the gift of the emperor, and the purchasing of alliances with the wealth of the empire – wealth that was to dwarf the monetary resources of the west for centuries to come – the barbarian kings could be regarded as client kings, acknowledging the suzerainty of the emperor in New Rome, and indeed the barbarian kings were frequently happy to regard themselves in this light (see below, p. 198). The discontinuation of the series of emperors in the west, with the deposition of Romulus Augustulus in 476, was regarded by very few contemporaries as a significant event; the notion that east and west should each have their own emperor was barely of a century’s standing, and the reality of barbarian military power in the west, manipulated from Constantinople, continued, unaffected by the loss of an ‘emperor’ based in the west.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009

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  • Justinian and His Legacy (500–600)
    • By Andrew Louth, Professor of Patristic and Byzantine Studies, University of Durham
  • Edited by Jonathan Shepard, University of Cambridge
  • Book: The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire c.500–1492
  • Online publication: 28 March 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521832311.006
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  • Justinian and His Legacy (500–600)
    • By Andrew Louth, Professor of Patristic and Byzantine Studies, University of Durham
  • Edited by Jonathan Shepard, University of Cambridge
  • Book: The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire c.500–1492
  • Online publication: 28 March 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521832311.006
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Justinian and His Legacy (500–600)
    • By Andrew Louth, Professor of Patristic and Byzantine Studies, University of Durham
  • Edited by Jonathan Shepard, University of Cambridge
  • Book: The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire c.500–1492
  • Online publication: 28 March 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521832311.006
Available formats
×