In the course of Justinian’s reign, the apparatus of government dealt with continuing changes in social and economic relationships throughout the empire, altered relations between the imperial court and the church, and a series of reconquests of former imperial territory that were remarkably successful but expensive in manpower and cash. In this context of rapid change at home and abroad, flaws in the machinery of government came to the fore and must have been very clear to those who gave thought to the issue. In the early years of his reign, Justinian addressed problems in the administration of justice, finance, and the armies with a series of major administrative reforms intended to strengthen imperial power over the bureaucracy and the social elite. The institutional stasis that afflicted this bureaucracy, however, nullified all but the most persistent efforts at reform. This chapter investigates the economic and administrative structures of Justinian’s empire to see how they worked and how they changed under his influence.

Economic Resources and Infrastructure

The sophisticated bureaucracy and administrative machinery that enabled the Roman state to function and to defend itself was not a monolith, but rather a constantly evolving set of institutional relationships and established social and economic structures. These changed in response to economic fluctuations and government demands as well as to tensions within late Roman society. This meant in practice that the government at Constantinople had to take account of several different levels of change: in the assessment, collection, and distribution of resources in kind, in manpower, and in cash; in the ambitions, vested interests, and economic situation of provincial and Constantinopolitan elites; in the demands for maintenance and recruitment of soldiers; and in the need to maintain a balance between the interests of those who managed the state’s many different functions in the provinces and the capital and of the producing population.