Justinien Ier (JFoliveras)

JUSTINIAN I “THE GREAT”, EASTERN ROMAN EMPEROR from 527 to 565.

Justinian was born in 482, only six years after the deposition of the last Western Roman emperor, Romulus Augustulus, by the barbarian warlord Odoacer (476), the event that historians have traditionally considered as the end of the Western Roman Empire. Justinian grew up in a time when Western Europe and Northwest Africa were ruled by Germanic kingdoms. During his long reign, Justinian, with his general Flavius Belisarius, reconquered a considerable part of the former Roman West, destroying the Ostrogothic kingdom of Italy and the Vandalic kingdom of Africa, and annexing the southeast of Visigothic Hispania. Justinian, with his trusted general Belisarius, also waged war with the Sassanian Empire of Persia and repelled an invasion by the nomadic Kutrigurs of the Pontic Steppe.

Apart from his military campaigns, Justinian is also known for having built the basilica of Hagia Sophia, which became the symbol of the Byzantine capital, Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul). Another important event that took place during Justinian’s rule was the Plague of Justinian (541 - 549), which was the first great pandemic of bubonic plague in recorded history. The second great outbreak happened centuries later and is known as the Black Death (1346 - 1353). The plague was especially deadly because it happened shortly after the onset of the Late Antique Little Ice Age, which was the result of a volcanic winter. Temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere had been dropping for some time already, but the year 536 was a year without summer. The plague coupled with the volcanic winter caused famine and millions of deaths in the Eastern Mediterranean, paving the way for the Islamic expansion in the 7th century.

Justinian is also credited for having sent two monks to China as missionaries, who according to the legend, stole the secret of Chinese silk production, ending the Chinese monopoly on silk.

Justinian died in 565 at the age of 83, possibly being the last Latin-speaking Eastern Roman emperor. His wife Theodora however was Greek. Shortly after Justinian’s death, another Germanic tribe conquered Italy: The Lombards.