The image that you see above is the map of the Western Roman and Eastern Roman empires when they were divided into two by the Emperor Theodosius II. So begins the Eastern Roman Empire. The empire would be ruled by a series of competent emperors, being able to sustain the empire by bribing barbarians with sacks of gold and with more efficient tax system allowing for the East to prosper while the West was disintegrating. The fifth century would be time of consolidation while the sixth century would be a time of great expansion under the emperor Justinian.
Justinian has been called many things. But I would not call incompetent. He is responsible for the creation of a law code that inspires many law systems today. He managed to keep the empire stable despite the plague that would ravage his lands. The empire would also be greatly expanded by him and his great generals, like Belisarius and Narses. I would call him a very competent administrator and a great leader. But is he an overrated leader?
Honestly, there are many leaders who end up being reconsidered in centuries long after they have ruled. Justinian is heavily criticized by the famous Procopius during his own lifetime but he is only one of many people who lived during this time. Unfortunately, we do not have much information from the various peoples who probably lived during that age. We only have Procopius and a few other historians that are able to shine a light on this age.
Justinian’s ideology of reconquest of the Western Roman Empire seems like the product of megalomania in some ways. He could have decided to be content with the current territories and focused on maintaining the empire. But no, he had to aspire to great things, and that meant bring those territories under Roman control.
Notice how I use the word “Roman” in the context with Justinian. He was still ruling what I would consider to be a “Roman” empire. Unlike the later emperors, like Emperor Heraclius who ended being a transition emperor towards a more Byzantine empire, Justinian was still head of an empire that was considered to be Roman. He sought to restore the Roman empire because that idea was still a very tangible thing to his citizens.
In my opinion, he should been focusing on maintaining the territories that he already had. Instead, Justinian decided to overstretch the empire’s capabilities and resources. His generals were highly capable and successful at reconquering territories but it may have done more harm to the empire. Italy’s economic situation would enter a tailspin under after the Gothic War. He also drained the treasury which had been meticulously maintained by previous rulers of the empire. In comparison with Emperor Basil II, Justinian’s conquests also stretched out the empire’s resources. Basil II’s conquests were easier for the empire to consolidate while Justinian’s conquests were not as easy to maintain. For example, his conquests included areas of Southern Spain. A colony called Spania was established; however, this Roman dominance in the southern Iberian peninsula would not be able to be maintained as the Visigoths managed to retaken most the territory by the time of Emperor Heraclius. Italy would also see Roman setbacks as invading barbarians managed to damage Roman control of the peninsula.
Justinian’s empire, when he died in 565, was the largest that the Eastern Roman Empire would ever be during its millennium long existence. Unfortunately, his empire was unable to maintain its borders in the ensuing 7th century. While Justinian looked like he was highly successful, he in fact had managed to squander the stability that Eastern Roman Empire had. Though there ae some successes that Justinian rightly deserves credit for, his conquests, while they make good narratives when talking about emperors, put the Roman Empire into a precarious situation that it would not be able to sustain.
Byzantine-Empire.com 