Sex and Gender in the Age of Justinian

Sex and gender are not the same. Sex is biologically determined: except in extremely unusual circumstances, humans are born male or female. Gender is historically determined and relies on social practices that change across time and geographical location: codes of behavior that are culturally specific teach women and men to act in ways “appropriate” to their sex. That is why it is sometimes said that a woman is “acting like a man” or that a man is “acting like a woman”: they are behaving in ways that are believed, at the time, to be more suitable to the opposite sex. Masculinity and femininity are not, however, universal qualities shared by all cultures but are understood in different ways by different groups, and this understanding changes over time. Procopius - a sixth-century historian closely associated with Justinian and his general Belisarius - provides a good example of how gender roles were understood in the Age of Justinian when, in his History of the Wars, he describes the “manly valor” of Amazon women on the battlefield. In Procopius’s mind, men rather than women were the appropriate warriors: women who fought well must, by definition, exhibit male traits and be described in masculine terms. This gender “transgression” troubled Procopius sufficiently that he took pains to explain it away, arguing that “there never was a race of women endowed with the qualities of men and … human nature did not depart from its established norm.”

“Withdrawing behind the rampart of talmudic law and religion, the Jewish people of the sixth century continued to pursue its historic career quietly, almost inarticulately.” This judgment of the foremost twentieth-century historian of the Jews writing in English, Salo Wittmayer Baron, encapsulates a commonly held view of the Jews in the Age of Justinian, yet it is a view that can be challenged in every particular. In what follows we shall endeavour to explore the foundations on which such a judgment rests, and hope to show that, insofar as one can speak of a “Jewish people” with a “historic career,” the latter was pursued anything but quietly or inarticulately. The sixth century was a time of dramatic change and strident conflict, a time of acute anxiety for Jews as for other minorities of the empire, but also a time of challenge and opportunity, a time that decisively shaped the character of Judaism in momentous ways.

The main obstacle facing anyone attempting to write the history of the Jews in the Age of Justinian is a shortage of securely datable written texts, especially texts written by Jews. Apart from a few characteristically laconic inscriptions, all the dated writings that we have were written by non-Jews, and almost all of these are inherently antagonistic to the Jews as a group. We are bound at every turn to recognise uncertainties and ambiguities in the evidence, to reconstruct the background to an obscure event, or to estimate the distance between ideology and reality. Accordingly we shall begin with an account of the available materials and an assessment of their reliability. But before doing so it is necessary to say a few words about the conventional periodisation of Jewish history during the Roman Empire, since this has an important bearing on how we assess developments in the sixth century.

The sixth century represents a particularly dynamic period in the history of Christianity in the eastern Mediterranean, not merely for its articulation of ecclesiological divisions between those claiming adherence to the Council of Chalcedon and those rejecting it, but also for its impact on the development of Christian practices. A wide variety of written sources and material evidence - including histories, saints' lives, collections of miracle accounts, festal hymns, pilgrim’s diaries and souvenirs, magical paraphernalia, images, and architecture - attests to significant changes in modes of piety, the ways Christians expressed and engaged in their religious life. The evidence presented here challenges models for understanding religion through neat distinctions between clergy and laity, between elite and popular pieties, and between religion and magic. Many innovations in liturgical practice disseminated by church leaders led to new modes of Christian self-conception for all participants. At the same time evolving forms of “popular” devotion such as pilgrimage and the seeking of miracles gained popularity with emperor and peasant alike. Although parallel developments occurred among non-Chalcedonian Christians, this essay emphasizes Constantinople and neo-Chalcedonian Christianity.

Introduction

The Age of Justinian stands at a historical milestone, marking a transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages in the Mediterranean world. The period lasted for roughly a century, from the time that the young Justinian came down to Constantinople from his Balkan village around the year 500 to the regime of Phocas that began in 602, when the empire that Justinian had done so much to shape and that had been sustained with great effort by his successors plunged into a period of political instability. Throughout Justinian’s era, recently called “the last of the Roman centuries,” the monarchy begun by Augustus Caesar half a millennium earlier remained a going concern - even though it was now ruled from Constantinople, the “New Rome,” even though most of its inhabitants spoke Greek rather than Latin, even though the old gods who had guided the empire to world rule were now pushed aside by the worshipers of Christ, and despite the uncomfortable fact that much of its territory in western Europe had been lost. Nevertheless, when the Age of Justinian came to a close on the eve of the Islamic conquests, the Roman Empire was still the strongest, best organized, and most resilient political community in Europe or the Near East. It had a sound, even prosperous, economy, and its position in world affairs was relatively solid on all frontiers and commanding in some, so much so that recovery of lost territories again seemed a genuine possibility. Yet somehow, during the century dominated by Justinian (he was sole ruler from 527 to 565, but influential from 518), the Roman Empire subtly changed internally: a new cultural entity that modern historians call Byzantium took shape.

The words in the epigraph are the testimony of hostile witnesses, attributed by Procopius of Caesarea to envoys of the Ostrogothic king of Italy who have arrived at the court of Sasanid Persia in order to enlist support against Justinian’s efforts to reconquer Italy. Procopius himself qualifies these words in an aside: “[The Gothic envoys[ were bringing as indictments against Justinian such things as would seemingly be encomiums for a worthy emperor, since he was striving to make his realm greater and much more splendid” (Wars, 2.2.14). While the historian discounts the motives of the speakers bringing the charges, his judgment as to the substance of the charges themselves is carefully nuanced. The very accomplishments that in the hands of Justinian’s enemies supply material for invective, he states, might serve as the stuff of panegyric if viewed in a sympathetic light.

Justinian was a controversial and contradictory figure, whose policies and methods of self-presentation both attracted and repulsed contemporary observers. Two charges laid at Justinian’s feet by the Gothic envoys are particularly relevant for the discussion that follows. The emperor is both an inveterate “innovator” and hostile to “what is established” – essentially two sides of the same coin.

The Empire and Its Barbarians

In the early summer of 552, the Ostrogothic king Totila faced a large Byzantine army arrayed near Busta Gallorum, in central Italy, for the battle that would decide the fate of his kingdom. He was desperately waiting for reinforcements to arrive. To win time, he rode into the empty space between the two armies, clad in gold-plated armor, with purple adornments hanging from cheek plates, helmet, and spear, and began to perform a war dance. Procopius reports, “He wheeled his horse around in a circle and then turned him again to the other side and so made him run round and round. And as he rode he hurled his javelin into the air and caught it again as it quivered above him, then passed it rapidly from hand to hand, shifting it with consummate skill, and he gloried in his practice in such matters, falling back on his shoulders, spreading his legs and leaning from side to side.” Although the reinforcements arrived, the Goths lost the battle, and Totila died in flight the following night.

Courage, splendor, skill at martial arts, and archaic barbarian customs: Procopius’s famous report reflects a familiar image of the barbarian kings who ruled the West in the time of Justinian. The glory and the fall of these barbarian kings is part of our grand narrative of Justinian’s achievements. His reconquests removed barbarian rulers from some of the former heartlands of the western empire and reestablished direct imperial rule. But by concentrating on the wars against the Vandals, the Ostrogoths, and in some measure also against the Visigoths, Justinian made the empire vulnerable to the attacks by new and more ferocious barbarians: Slavs, Avars, Lombards, Berbers, and others.

War was undoubtedly an important feature of the Age of Justinian, most famously in the campaigns of reconquest that recovered North Africa from the Vandals and Italy from the Goths, but also in relations with Persia to the east, and with various tribal peoples along the lower Danube. As this extract from the preface to Justinian’s handbook for law students makes clear, Justinian took an elevated view of the waging of war, presenting it, alongside law making, as one of his central, God-given duties.

From a western Mediterranean point of view, the reign of Justinian may seem a brief parenthesis in the history of Europe, a failed attempt to resurrect an empire already dead. Justinian’s reconquest of Italy was brought to nothing by the Lombard invasion of 568, and North Africa fell to Muslim armies within a century. From a Roman ecclesiastical perspective the balance sheet is even more negative. The sad story of the Three Chapters Controversy and the souring of relations between Constantinople and Rome contributed greatly to Justinian’s reputation for divisive autocracy in ecclesiastical affairs. This chapter does not seek either to defend the western attitude toward Justinian’s religious politics or to clear his name. Instead it explores the “parting of the ways” between West and East signaled by these differing ecclesiastical perspectives. In Justinian’s day there was still no consensus about the emperor’s place in Christian society, and the question of the relations between church authority and political power played a major role in the parting of East and West, especially in the West, where imperial power was weak. The eclipse of imperial authority in the West during the fifth century created new conditions for its churches and demanded new definitions of their relation to the emperor. Even in times of tension, Rome and Constantinople desired the unity of church and empire and the defense of Christianity, but the assumptions underlying these diverged significantly. The reunion of the western provinces with Constantinople during Justinian’s reign highlighted and even reinforced these differences. Seeing the Age of Justinian as a major phase in this process of separation gives new insights on the Roman church and the complex history of its relations with Constantinople.

Constantinople, Monday, August 11, 559. An unusual event is unfolding in the coolness of the early morning. Justinian and his vast entourage of officials, servants, packhorses, and carts are assembling outside the walls of the imperial capital, by the Gate of Charisius. They are returning from Selymbria (modern Silivri), about sixty-five kilometres to the west, along the coast by the Sea of Marmara. Justinian, now in his late seventies, has been emperor for over thirty years. In all that time he has hardly set foot outside Constantinople. For the past few months, however, the aged sovereign and his court have been residing at Selymbria for extraordinary and urgent reasons. They had been engaged in the restoration of the Thracian Long Wall, which ran for sixty kilometres across the full length of the peninsula and constituted the outer defences of the capital. The wall had been seriously damaged in an earthquake in December 557 and later overrun by a menacing band of Cotrigur Huns. Justinian’s veteran general Belisarius had been dispatched to repulse the Huns, and the ensuing peace facilitated the imperial expedition to Selymbria. The emperor’s return to Constantinople in August 559 was announced and orchestrated. This was the traditional rite of welcome to a Roman city, the adventus. On entering the city he was formally greeted by the city prefect and other dignitaries, then ritually acclaimed by the Blue and Green circus factions in their colorful billowing costumes.

Muhammad, the prophet of Islam (d. 632 CE), who was born around the time of Justinian’s death in 565, is associated with changes that heralded the arrival of a new world unimaginable when Justinian was on the throne, and which we associate with the rise of Islam itself during the seventh century. Some of these changes, of course, must be attributed to distinctive features of Muhammad’s teachings, which, in turn, were shaped in part by his own unique character and life experiences (and, believing Muslims would insist, by the revelations God vouchsafed to him). Yet in a number of ways, it makes sense to try to see the rise of Islam in the context of social and intellectual developments in the late antique world. For no matter how original or unheralded Muhammad’s ideas and message may have been, his own outlook and understanding were inevitably shaped in part by the historical situation in which he lived. Likewise, the reception of Muhammad’s message by those around him would have been shaped by the concepts they had been exposed to in their lives. In both cases, this historical context derived from the institutions and ideas that prevailed in the immediately preceding generation - the Age of Justinian.

Problems of Perception

Attaining a clear historical view of the beginnings of Islam in historical perspective, however, has never been easy. Indeed, it is fair to say that despite the many “historical” works written about Islam’s beginnings, we still do not have a very good idea of what the movement begun by Muhammad was all about, and how it fit into the historical context of the late antique Near Eastern world.

In 551 a Persian ambassador, Yazdgushnasp, travelled to Constantinople. The journey from the Roman frontier at Dara took three months; en route he was entertained and provided for by local officials and envoys of the emperor. Once in the imperial capital, he and his retinue were lodged at imperial expense. Within a few days, he was summoned to the palace to meet Justinian and his counsellors. Once the Persian had prostrated himself several times before the emperor and greeted him in the name of the Persian king, Justinian replied to him, “How fares our brother in God? We rejoice in his good health.” Gifts were then exchanged, and the audience concluded. Detailed negotiations began in earnest a few days later.

Here we see one aspect of Romano-Persian relations as they had evolved over three centuries. Diplomatic language permitted the two rulers to address one another as equals, even as brothers. Persian diplomats could claim that the two empires were the “two lamps of the world”; and “as with (two) eyes, each one should be adorned by the brightness of the other.” Later in the sixth century, the emperor Maurice even intervened during a civil war in Persia to restore Khusro II to the throne. His decision flew in the face of the advice of several of his counsellors, however: the polite phrases of diplomats must not be allowed to obscure the abiding mistrust of Persia felt by most Romans.

Justinian’s reign is distinguished by its lasting accomplishments in law and architecture. It is also unusually rich in written sources, a treasure trove of documentation that provides insight and detailed knowledge about the sixth century that is rarely matched for other periods in the ancient world or Byzantium. There is no consensus, however, in the evaluation by posterity of the literary activities under Justinian and the emperor’s role in fostering them. Scholars of an earlier generation, such as J. B. Bury and Glanville Downey, tend to credit “the favorable atmosphere of the capital” for producing “the glories of Justinian’s age”in literature. But critical voices were already heard in Byzantium. The twelfth-century chronicler John Zonaras remarks that “by making the teachers redundant,” Justinian was responsible for a new level of “boorishness” (agroikia). This refers to Justinian’s order in 529 to stop the teaching of philosophy and law in Athens - a measure that effectively shut down the Academy, a bastion of learning in the classical tradition that had been founded by Plato in the fourth century BCE where church fathers like Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nazianzus had completed their education. This order was part of Justinian’s effort to suppress any teaching by those “who are infected with the sacrilegious foolishness of the Hellenes [i.e. pagans[” in order to enforce Christian uniformity and imperial control on the institutions of higher learning in the empire.

In 533 Procopius of Caesarea, scouting for his general Belisarius, met a trader in Syracuse who was, by chance, both a “friend from childhood” and a “fellow-citizen”of Caesarea (Wars, 3.14). On two accounts, Procopius indicates, the man could be counted on for help with a dangerous mission, securing intelligence on the whereabouts of the enemy king and on Roman prospects for an invasion of Vandal Africa. The civic link between the two men, shared citizenship of Caesarea in Palestine, resembled the personal one, for both created claims of one person upon the other, and shared citizenship, like friendship, persisted despite long years abroad in trade or the imperial service. Further, in a hard spot it was apparently one’s native city that counted, what Procopius elsewhere calls “my Caesarea” (Secret History, 11.25), not just being Roman, as both men obviously were, or belonging to the same ethnicity or to one religious persuasion or another. Describing this incident, Procopius suggests, quite by accident, that a robust personal identification with one’s own native city, traditional in ancient Mediterranean culture, persisted in the reign of Justinian.

The incident invites broader investigation into the state of the Mediterranean cities in the sixth century. The agenda in this chapter is to discover whether cities like Caesarea still flourished, how faithful these cities remained to traditional urban forms, and, at least by implication, how firm a grip they still had on their inhabitants, especially on men like Procopius, members of the local elite of urban landowners. These questions are hotly debated nowadays, and clarity would be welcome on so central an issue.