Justinian. Christian Church and heretical movements

Justinian I the Great

(482 or 483–565, imp. from 527)

Emperor Flavius ​​Peter Savvatiy Justinian remained one of the largest, most famous and, paradoxically, mysterious figures of the entire Byzantine history. Descriptions, and even more so assessments of his character, life, deeds are often extremely contradictory and can serve as food for the most unbridled fantasies. But, be that as it may, Byzantium did not know the scale of the accomplishments of another such emperor, and the nickname Great Justinian absolutely deserved.

He was born in 482 or 483 in Illyricum (Procopius names the place of his birth Taurisius near Bedrian) and came from a peasant family. Already in the late Middle Ages, a legend arose that Justinian allegedly had a Slavic origin and bore the name of Upravda. When his uncle, Justin, rose under Anastasia Dikor, he brought his nephew closer to him and managed to give him a versatile education. Capable by nature, Justinian gradually began to acquire a certain influence at court. In 521, he was awarded the title of consul, giving magnificent spectacles to the people on this occasion.

In the last years of the reign of Justin I, “Justinian, not yet enthroned, ruled the state during the life of his uncle ... who still reigned, but was very old and incapable of state affairs” (Pr. Kes.,). April 1 (according to other sources - April 4), 527 Justinian was declared August, and after the death of Justin I remained the autocratic ruler of the Byzantine Empire.

He was not tall, white-faced and was considered handsome, despite some tendency to be overweight, early bald patches on his forehead and gray hair. The images that have come down to us on the coins and mosaics of the churches of Ravenna (St. Vitalius and St. Apollinaris; in addition, in Venice, in the Cathedral of St. Mark, there is a statue of him in porphyry) fully correspond to this description. As for the character and actions of Justinian, historians and chroniclers have the most opposite characteristics of them, from panegyric to frankly malicious.

According to various testimonies, the emperor, or, as they began to write more often from the time of Justinian, the autocrat (autocrat) was “an unusual combination of stupidity and baseness ... [was] a cunning and indecisive person ... full of irony and pretense, deceitful, secretive and two-faced, knew how not to to show his anger, perfectly mastered the art of shedding tears not only under the influence of joy or sadness, but at the right moments as needed. He always lied, and not only by accident, but by giving the most solemn records and oaths at the conclusion of contracts, and at the same time even in relation to his own subjects ”(Pr. Kes.,). The same Procopius, however, writes that Justinian was "gifted with a quick and inventive mind, indefatigable in the execution of his intentions." Summing up some results of his accomplishments, Procopius in his work “On the Buildings of Justinian” expresses simply enthusiastically: “In our time, the emperor Justinian appeared, who, having taken power over the state, shaken [unrest] and brought to shameful weakness, increased its size and brought him into a brilliant state, having driven out of him the barbarians who had raped him. The emperor with the greatest art managed to provide for himself whole new states. In fact, a number of areas that were already alien to the Roman state, he subjugated to his power and built countless cities that were not there before.

Finding faith in God unsteady and forced to follow the path of various confessions, having wiped out from the face of the earth all the paths that led to these hesitations, he made sure that it now stood on one solid foundation of true confession. In addition, realizing that the laws should not be obscure due to their unnecessary multiplicity and, obviously contradicting each other, destroying each other, the emperor, having cleansed them of the mass of unnecessary and harmful chatter, overcoming their mutual divergence with great firmness, preserved the correct laws. He himself, on his own impulse, having forgiven the guilt of those who plotted against him, those in need of means of subsistence, filling them with wealth to satiety and thereby overcoming the unfortunate fate that was humiliating for them, he ensured that the joy of life reigned in the empire.

“Emperor Justinian usually forgave the mistakes of his sinning superiors” (Pr. Kes.,), but: “his ear ... was always open to slander” (Zonara,). He favored informers and, by their intrigues, could plunge his closest courtiers into disgrace. At the same time, the emperor, like no one else, understood people and knew how to acquire excellent assistants.

The character of Justinian surprisingly combined the most incompatible properties of human nature: a resolute ruler, he sometimes behaved like an outright coward; both greed and petty stinginess, as well as boundless generosity, were available to him; vengeful and merciless, he could appear and be magnanimous, especially if it increased his fame; possessing tireless energy for the realization of his grandiose plans, he was nevertheless able to suddenly despair and "give up" or, on the contrary, stubbornly bring clearly unnecessary undertakings to the end.

Justinian had a phenomenal capacity for work, intelligence and was a talented organizer. With all this, he often fell under the influence of others, primarily his wife, Empress Theodora, a person no less remarkable.

The emperor was different good health(c. 543 he was able to endure such a terrible disease as the plague!) And excellent endurance. He slept little, at night doing all sorts of state affairs, for which he received from his contemporaries the nickname "sleepless sovereign." He often took the most unpretentious food, never indulged in excessive gluttony or drunkenness. Justinian was also very indifferent to luxury, but, well aware of the importance of the external state for the prestige of the state, he spared no expense for this: the decoration of the capital's palaces and buildings and the splendor of receptions amazed not only barbarian ambassadors and kings, but also sophisticated Romans. And here the basileus knew the measure: when in 557 many cities were destroyed by an earthquake, he immediately canceled the magnificent palace dinners and gifts given by the emperor to the capital's nobility, and sent the saved a lot of money to the victims.

Justinian became famous for his ambition and enviable perseverance in exalting himself and the very title of emperor of the Romans. Declaring the autocrat "isapostle", i.e. "equal to the apostles", he placed him above the people, the state and even the church, legitimizing the monarch's inaccessibility to either human or ecclesiastical court. The Christian emperor, of course, could not deify himself, so the "isapostle" turned out to be a very convenient category, the highest level available to a person. And if, before Justinian, courtiers of patrician dignity, according to Roman custom, kissed the emperor on the chest when greeting, and the rest went down on one knee, then from now on, without exception, everyone, without exception, was obliged to prostrate before him, sitting under a golden dome on a richly decorated throne. The descendants of the proud Romans finally mastered the slave ceremonies of the barbarian East...

By the beginning of the reign of Justinian, the empire had its neighbors: in the west - actually independent kingdoms of the Vandals and Ostrogoths, in the east - Sasanian Iran, in the north - Bulgarians, Slavs, Avars, Ants, and in the south - nomadic Arab tribes. During the thirty-eight years of his reign, Justinian fought with them all and, without taking personal part in any of the battles or campaigns, completed these wars quite successfully.

528 (the year of the second consulship of Justinian, on the occasion of which on January 1 consular spectacles of unprecedented splendor were given) began unsuccessfully. The Byzantines, who had been at war with Persia for several years, lost a great battle at Mindona, and although the imperial commander Peter managed to improve the situation, the embassy asking for peace ended in nothing. In March of the same year, significant Arab forces invaded Syria, but they were quickly escorted back. On top of all the misfortunes on November 29, an earthquake once again damaged Antioch-on-the-Orontes.

By 530, the Byzantines had pushed back the Iranian troops, having won a major victory over them at Dara. A year later, a fifteen thousandth Persian army that crossed the border was thrown back, and on the throne of Ctesiphon the deceased Shah Kavad was replaced by his son Khosrov (Khozroy) I Anushirvan - not only a warlike, but also a wise ruler. In 532, an indefinite truce was concluded with the Persians (the so-called “eternal peace”), and Justinian took the first step towards the restoration of a single power from the Caucasus to the Strait of Gibraltar: using as a pretext the fact that he seized power in Carthage back in 531, Having overthrown and killed the friendly Romans Childeric, the usurper Gelimer, the emperor began to prepare for war with the kingdom of the Vandals. “We implore one thing for the holy and glorious Virgin Mary,” Justinian declared, “so that, at her intercession, the Lord will honor me, his last slave, to reunite with the Roman Empire everything that has been torn away from it and bring it to the end [this. - S.D.] our highest duty. And although the majority of the Senate, headed by one of the closest advisers to Basileus, the praetorian prefect John of Cappadocia, mindful of the unsuccessful campaign under Leo I, spoke out strongly against this idea, on June 22, 533, on six hundred ships, a fifteen thousandth army under the command of Belisarius recalled from the eastern borders (see .) entered the Mediterranean Sea. In September, the Byzantines landed on the African coast, in the autumn and winter of 533–534. under Decium and Trikamar Gelimer was defeated, and in March 534 he surrendered to Belisarius. The losses among the troops and the civilian population of the vandals were enormous. Procopius reports that "how many people died in Africa, I do not know, but I think that myriads of myriads perished." “Passing through it [Libya. - S.D.], it was difficult and surprising to meet at least one person there. Belisarius celebrated a triumph upon his return, and Justinian began to solemnly be called African and Vandal.

In Italy, with the death of the minor grandson of Theodoric the Great, Atalaric (534), the regency of his mother, the daughter of King Amalasunta, ceased. Theodoric's nephew, Theodates, overthrew and imprisoned the queen. The Byzantines provoked the newly-made sovereign of the Ostrogoths in every possible way and achieved their goal - Amalasunta, who enjoyed the formal patronage of Constantinople, died, and arrogant behavior Theodata became the reason for declaring war on the Ostrogoths.

In the summer of 535, two small but superbly trained and equipped armies invaded the Ostrogothic state: Mund captured Dalmatia, and Belisarius captured Sicily. From the west of Italy, the Franks, bribed with Byzantine gold, threatened. The terrified Theodatus began peace negotiations and, not counting on success, agreed to abdicate the throne, but at the end of the year Mund died in a skirmish, and Belisarius hastily sailed to Africa to suppress a soldier's rebellion. Theodatus, emboldened, took into custody the imperial ambassador Peter. However, in the winter of 536, the Byzantines improved their position in Dalmatia, and at the same time Belisarius returned to Sicily, having seven and a half thousand federates and a four thousandth personal squad there.

In the fall, the Romans went on the offensive, in mid-November they took Naples by storm. Theodates' indecision and cowardice caused a coup - the king was killed, and in his place the Goths elected a former soldier Vitigis. Meanwhile, the army of Belisarius, without encountering resistance, approached Rome, whose inhabitants, especially the old aristocracy, openly rejoiced at the liberation from the power of the barbarians. On the night of December 9-10, 536, the Gothic garrison left Rome through one gate, while the Byzantines entered the other. Witigis's attempts to recapture the city, despite more than a tenfold superiority in forces, were unsuccessful. Having overcome the resistance of the Ostrogothic army, at the end of 539 Belisarius laid siege to Ravenna, and the next spring the capital of the Ostrogothic state fell. The Goths offered Belisarius to be their king, but the commander refused. The suspicious Justinian, despite the refusal, hastily recalled him to Constantinople and, not even allowing him to celebrate a triumph, sent him to fight the Persians. The basileus himself took the title of Goth. The gifted ruler and courageous warrior Totila became the king of the Ostrogoths in 541. He managed to assemble the broken squads and organize skillful resistance to the few and poorly provided units of Justinian. Over the next five years, the Byzantines lost almost all their conquests in Italy. Totila successfully applied a special tactic - he destroyed all the captured fortresses so that they could not serve as a support for the enemy in the future, and thereby forced the Romans to fight outside the fortifications, which they could not do due to their small numbers. The disgraced Belisarius in 545 again arrived in the Apennines, but already without money and troops, almost to certain death. The remnants of his armies could not break through to the aid of the besieged Rome, and on December 17, 546, Totila occupied and sacked the Eternal City. Soon the Goths themselves left from there (failing, however, to destroy its powerful walls), and Rome again fell under the rule of Justinian, but not for long.

The bloodless Byzantine army, which received no reinforcements, no money, no food and fodder, began to maintain its existence by robbing the civilian population. This, as well as the restoration of harsh Roman laws in relation to the common people in Italy, led to an exodus of slaves and columns, which continuously replenished Totila's army. By 550, he again took possession of Rome and Sicily, and only four cities remained under the control of Constantinople - Ravenna, Ancona, Croton and Otrante. Justinian appointed his cousin Germanus to the place of Belisarius, supplying him with significant forces, but this decisive and no less famous commander died unexpectedly in Thessalonica, without having time to take office. Then Justinian sent an army of unprecedented numbers to Italy (more than thirty thousand people), headed by the imperial eunuch Armenian Narses, “a man of sharp mind and more energetic than is typical of eunuchs” (Pr. Kes.,).

In 552, Narses landed on the peninsula, and in June of this year, in the battle of Tagina, the army of Totila was defeated, he himself fell at the hands of his own courtier, and Narses sent the bloody clothes of the king to the capital. The remnants of the Goths, together with Totila's successor, Theia, retreated to Vesuvius, where they were finally destroyed in the second battle. In 554, Narses defeated a 70,000-strong horde of invading Franks and Allemans. Basically, the hostilities in Italy ended, and the Goths, who had gone to Rezia and Norik, were subjugated ten years later. In 554, Justinian issued a "Pragmatic Sanction" that canceled all the innovations of Totila - the land was returned to its former owners, as well as the slaves and columns freed by the king.

Around the same time, the patrician Liberius won the southeast of Spain from the Vandals with the cities of Corduba, Cartago Nova and Malaga.

Justinian's dream of the reunification of the Roman Empire came true. But Italy was devastated, robbers roamed the roads of the war-torn regions, and five times (in 536, 546, 547, 550, 552), Rome, which passed from hand to hand, became depopulated, and Ravenna became the residence of the governor of Italy.

In the east, with varying success, there was (since 540) a difficult war with Khosrov, then stopped by truces (545, 551, 555), then flared up again. Finally Persian Wars ended only by 561-562. world for fifty years. Under the terms of this peace, Justinian undertook to pay the Persians 400 libres of gold per year, the same left Lazika. The Romans kept the conquered Southern Crimea and the Transcaucasian shores of the Black Sea, but during this war other Caucasian regions - Abkhazia, Svanetia, Mizimania - came under the protection of Iran. After more than thirty years of conflict, both states found themselves weakened, with virtually no advantages.

The Slavs and Huns remained a disturbing factor. “From the time Justinian took power over the Roman state, the Huns, Slavs and Antes, making raids almost every year, did unbearable things on the inhabitants” (Pr. Kes.,). In 530, Mund successfully repulsed the onslaught of the Bulgarians in Thrace, but three years later the army of the Slavs appeared there. Magister militum Hilwood. fell in battle, and the invaders devastated a number of Byzantine territories. Around 540, the nomadic Huns organized a campaign in Scythia and Mysia. The emperor's nephew Justus, who was sent against them, perished. Only at the cost of enormous efforts did the Romans succeed in defeating the barbarians and driving them back across the Danube. Three years later, the same Huns, having attacked Greece, reached the outskirts of the capital, causing an unprecedented panic among its inhabitants. At the end of the 40s. The Slavs ravaged the lands of the empire from the headwaters of the Danube to Dyrrhachium.

In 550, three thousand Slavs crossed the Danube and again invaded Illyricum. The imperial commander Aswad failed to organize proper resistance to the aliens, he was captured and executed in the most ruthless way: he was burned alive, after cutting the belts from the skin of his back. The small squads of the Romans, not daring to fight, only watched how, divided into two detachments, the Slavs engaged in robberies and murders. The cruelty of the attackers was impressive: both detachments “killed everyone without considering the years, so that the whole land of Illyria and Thrace was covered with unburied bodies. They did not kill those who met them with swords or spears or in any ordinary way, but, having driven stakes firmly into the ground and making them as sharp as possible, they impaled these unfortunates on them with great force, making it so that the point of this stake entered between the buttocks. , and then under the pressure of the body penetrated into the inside of a person. This is how they saw fit to treat us! Sometimes these barbarians, having driven four thick stakes into the ground, tied the hands and feet of the captives to them, and then continuously beat them on the head with sticks, thus killing them like dogs or snakes, or any other wild animals. The rest, along with bulls and small cattle, which they could not drive into their father's territory, they locked up in the premises and burned without any regret ”(Pr. Kes.,). In the summer of 551, the Slavs went on a campaign against Thessalonica. Only when a huge army, intended to be sent to Italy under the command of Herman, who had acquired formidable glory, received an order to deal with Thracian affairs, the Slavs, frightened by this news, went home.

At the end of 559, a huge mass of Bulgarians and Slavs again poured into the empire. The invaders, who plundered everyone and everything, reached Thermopylae and Thracian Chersonese, and most of them turned to Constantinople. From mouth to mouth, the Byzantines passed on stories about the wild atrocities of the enemy. The historian Agathius of Mirinei writes that the enemies of even pregnant women were forced, mocking their suffering, to give birth right on the roads, and they were not allowed to touch the babies, leaving the newborns to be eaten by birds and dogs. In the city, under the protection of the walls of which fled, taking the most valuable, the entire population of the surroundings (damaged long wall could not serve reliable barrier robbers), there were practically no troops. The emperor mobilized all capable of wielding weapons to defend the capital, putting up to the loopholes the city militia of circus parties (dimots), palace guards and even armed members of the senate. Justinian instructed Belisarius to command the defense. The need for funds turned out to be such that in order to organize cavalry detachments, it was necessary to put the race horses of the capital hippodrome under the saddle. With unprecedented difficulty, threatening the power of the Byzantine fleet (which could block the Danube and lock the barbarians in Thrace), the invasion was repelled, but small detachments of the Slavs continued to cross the border almost unhindered and settle on the European lands of the empire, forming strong colonies.

The wars of Justinian required the involvement of colossal Money. By the VI century. almost the entire army consisted of hired barbarian formations (Goths, Huns, Gepids, even Slavs, etc.). Citizens of all classes could only bear on their own shoulders the heavy burden of taxes, which increased year by year. On this occasion, the autocrator himself frankly spoke out in one of the short stories: “The first duty of subjects and the best way for them to thank the emperor is to pay public taxes in full with unconditional selflessness.” To replenish the treasury, a variety of methods were sought. Everything was used, up to trade in positions and damage to the coin by cutting it around the edges. The peasants were ruined by "epibola" - attributing to their lands forcibly neighboring vacant plots with the requirement to use them and pay for new land tax. Justinian did not leave wealthy citizens alone, robbing them in every possible way. “Justinian was an insatiable man with regard to money and such a hunter of strangers that he gave the whole kingdom subject to himself at the mercy of part of the rulers, part of the tax collectors, part of those people who, for no reason, love to intrigue others. Almost all property was taken away from an uncountable number of rich people under insignificant pretexts. However, Justinian did not save money ... ”(Evagrius,). “Not a shore” means he did not strive for personal enrichment, but used them for the benefit of the state - in the way he understood this “good”.

The economic activities of the emperor were reduced mainly to the complete and strict control by the state over the activities of any manufacturer or trader. The state monopoly on the production of a number of goods also brought considerable benefits. During the reign of Justinian, the empire had its own silk: two Nestorian missionary monks, risking their lives, took out silkworm grena from China in their hollow staffs.

The production of silk, having become the monopoly of the treasury, began to give her enormous income.

An enormous amount of money was absorbed by the most extensive construction. Justinian I covered both the European, Asian and African parts of the empire with a network of renovated and newly built cities and fortified points. For example, the cities of Dara, Amida, Antioch, Theodosiopolis and the dilapidated Greek Thermopylae and the Danube Nikopol were restored, for example, during the wars with Khosrov. Carthage, surrounded by new walls, was renamed Justinian II (Taurisius became the first), and the North African city of Bana, rebuilt in the same way, was renamed Theodorida. At the behest of the emperor, new fortresses were built in Asia - in Phoenicia, Bithynia, Cappadocia. From the raids of the Slavs, a powerful defensive line was built along the banks of the Danube.

The list of cities and fortresses, one way or another affected by the construction of Justinian the Great, is huge. Not a single Byzantine ruler, either before him or after the construction activity, did not conduct such volumes. Contemporaries and descendants were amazed not only by the scale of military installations, but also by the magnificent palaces and temples that remained from the time of Justinian everywhere - from Italy to Syrian Palmyra. And among them, of course, the church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople that has survived to this day (Istanbol Hagia Sophia Mosque, from the 30s of the XX century - a museum) stands out as a fabulous masterpiece.

When in 532, during the city uprising, the church of St. Sophia, Justinian decided to build a temple that would surpass all known examples. For five years, several thousand workers, led by Anthimios of Thrall, "in the art of so-called mechanics and construction, the most famous not only among his contemporaries, but even among those who lived long before him," and Isidore of Miletus, " in all respects a man who knows” (Pr. Kes.,), under the direct supervision of August himself, who laid the first stone in the foundation of the building, a building that still admires was erected. Suffice it to say that a dome of a larger diameter (at St. Sophia - 31.4 m) was built in Europe only nine centuries later. The wisdom of the architects and the accuracy of the builders allowed the gigantic building to stand in a seismically active zone for more than fourteen and a half centuries.

Not only courage technical solutions, but also unprecedented in beauty and wealth interior decoration main temple empire struck all who saw him. After the consecration of the cathedral, Justinian walked around it and exclaimed: “Glory to God, who recognized me as worthy to perform such a miracle. I have defeated you, O Solomon! . In the course of the work, the emperor himself gave some valuable engineering advice, although he had never dealt with architecture.

Having paid tribute to God, Justinian did the same in relation to the monarch and the people, rebuilding the palace and hippodrome with splendor.

Realizing his extensive plans for the revival of the former greatness of Rome, Justinian could not do without putting things in order in legislative affairs. In the time that has passed since the publication of The Theodosius Code, a mass of new, often contradictory imperial and praetor edicts appeared, and in general, by the middle of the 6th century. old Roman law, having lost its former harmony, turned into an intricate heap of fruits of legal thought, which provided the skillful interpreter with the opportunity to conduct lawsuits in one direction or another, depending on the benefits. For these reasons, Vasileus ordered to carry out colossal work to streamline a huge number of decrees of rulers and the entire heritage of ancient jurisprudence. In 528-529 a commission of ten jurists, headed by lawyers Tribonian and Theophilus, codified the decrees of emperors from Hadrian to Justinian in twelve books of the Justinian Code, which has come down to us in the corrected edition of 534. Decrees not included in this code were declared invalid. From 530, a new commission of 16 people, headed by the same Tribonian, took up the compilation of a legal canon based on the most extensive material of all Roman jurisprudence. So by 533, fifty books of the Digest appeared. In addition to them, "Institutions" were published - a kind of textbook for jurists. These works, as well as 154 imperial decrees (short stories) published between 534 and the death of Justinian, constitute the Corpus Juris Civilis - the "Code of Civil Law", not only the basis of all Byzantine and Western European medieval law, but also the most valuable historical source. At the end of the activities of the mentioned commissions, Justinian officially banned all legislative and critical activities of lawyers. Only translations of the Corpus into other languages ​​(mainly Greek) and the compilation of short extracts from there were allowed. From now on, it became impossible to comment on and interpret the laws, and out of the entire abundance of law schools, two remained in the Eastern Roman Empire - in Constantinople and Verita (modern Beirut).

The attitude of the isapostle Justinian himself to the law was quite consistent with his idea that there is nothing higher and holier than the imperial majesty. Justinian's statements on this subject speak for themselves: "If any question seems doubtful, let them report it to the emperor, so that he resolves it with his autocratic power, to which alone belongs the right to interpret the Law"; “the creators of law themselves said that the will of the monarch has the force of law”; “God subordinated the very laws to the emperor, sending him to people as an animated Law” (Novella 154, ).

The active policy of Justinian also affected the sphere of public administration. At the time of his accession, Byzantium was divided into two prefectures - East and Illyricum, which included 51 and 13 provinces, governed in accordance with the principle of separation of military, judicial and civil power introduced by Diocletian. During the time of Justinian, some provinces were merged into larger ones, in which all services, unlike the provinces of the old type, were headed by one person - duka (dux). This was especially true for territories remote from Constantinople, such as Italy and Africa, where exarchates were formed a few decades later. In an effort to improve the structure of power, Justinian repeatedly carried out “purges” of the apparatus, trying to combat the abuses of officials and embezzlement. But this struggle was lost every time by the emperor: the colossal sums collected in excess of taxes by the rulers settled in their own treasuries. Bribery flourished despite harsh laws against it. The influence of the Senate Justinian (especially in the first years of his reign) reduced to almost zero, turning it into a body of obedient approval of the orders of the emperor.

In 541, Justinian abolished the consulate in Constantinople, declaring himself consul for life, and at the same time stopped expensive consular games (they took only 200 libres of state gold annually).

Such an energetic activity of the emperor, which captured the entire population of the country and required exorbitant costs, displeased not only the impoverished people, but also the aristocracy, who did not want to bother themselves, for whom the humble Justinian was an upstart on the throne, and his restless ideas cost too much. This discontent was realized in rebellions and conspiracies. In 548, the conspiracy of a certain Artavan was uncovered, and in 562, the capital's rich (“money changers”) Markell, Vita and others decided to slaughter the elderly basileus during an audience. But a certain Avlavius ​​betrayed his comrades, and when Markell entered the palace with a dagger under his clothes, the guards seized him. Markell managed to stab himself, but the rest of the conspirators were detained, and under torture they declared Belisarius the organizer of the assassination attempt. The slander worked, Belisarius fell out of favor, but Justinian did not dare to execute such a well-deserved person on unverified accusations.

It was not always calm among the soldiers. For all their militancy and experience in military affairs, the federates have never been distinguished by discipline. United in tribal unions, they, violent and intemperate, often revolted against the command, and the management of such an army required considerable talents.

In 536, after the departure of Belisarius to Italy, some African units, outraged by the decision of Justinian to attach all the lands of the vandals to the fiscus (and not distribute them to the soldiers, as they expected), rebelled, proclaiming the commander of a simple warrior Stotsu, “a brave and enterprising man "(Feof.,). Almost the entire army supported him, and Stoza besieged Carthage, where a few troops loyal to the emperor were locked behind the dilapidated walls. The eunuch commander Solomon, together with the future historian Procopius, fled by sea to Syracuse, to Belisarius. He, having learned about what had happened, immediately boarded a ship and sailed to Carthage. Frightened by the news of the arrival of their former commander, the Stoza warriors retreated from the walls of the city. But as soon as Belisarius left the African coast, the rebels resumed hostilities. Stoza accepted into his army slaves who fled from the owners, and survived the defeat of the soldiers of Gelimer. Assigned to Africa, Herman suppressed the rebellion by force of gold and weapons, but Stotza with many supporters hid in Mauritania and disturbed Justinian's African possessions for a long time, until in 545 he was killed in battle. Only by 548 Africa was finally pacified.

For almost the entire Italian campaign, the army, whose supply was badly organized, expressed dissatisfaction and from time to time either flatly refused to fight or openly threatened to go over to the side of the enemy.

The popular movements did not subside. With fire and sword, Orthodoxy, which was asserting itself on the territory of the state, caused religious riots in the outskirts. The Egyptian monophysites constantly threatened to disrupt the supply of grain to the capital, and Justinian ordered the construction of a special fortress in Egypt to protect the grain collected in the state granary. With extreme cruelty, the speeches of the Gentiles - Jews (529) and Samaritans (556) were suppressed.

Numerous battles were also bloody between the rival circus parties of Constantinople, mainly the Venets and Prasins (the largest - in 547, 549, 550, 559.562, 563). Although sports disagreements were often only a manifestation of deeper factors, primarily dissatisfaction with the existing order (to Dima different colors belonged to various social groups of the population), base passions also played a significant role, and therefore Procopius of Caesarea speaks of these parties with undisguised contempt: spectacles, began to squander money and subject themselves to the most severe corporal punishment and even shameful death. They start fights with their opponents, not knowing why they put themselves in danger, and being, on the contrary, confident that, having defeated them in these fights, they can expect nothing more than imprisonment, execution and death. . Enmity towards opponents arises in them for no reason and remains forever; neither kinship, nor property, nor bonds of friendship are respected. Even siblings who stick to one of these flowers are in discord among themselves. They have no need for either God's or human works, just to deceive their opponents. They have no need to the extent that either side turns out to be impious before God, that the laws and civil society are offended by their own people or their opponents, for even at the very time when they need, perhaps, the most necessary, when the fatherland is insulted in the very essential, they do not worry about that, as long as they feel good. They call their accomplices a side ... I can’t call it otherwise than mental illness. ”

It was from the fights of the warring Dims that the largest Nika uprising in the history of Constantinople began. At the beginning of January 532, during the games at the hippodrome, the prasins began to complain about the Veneti (whose party was more favored by the court and especially the empress) and about the harassment by the imperial official spafarius Kalopodius. In response, the "blues" began to threaten the "greens" and complain to the emperor. Justinian left all the claims without attention, the "greens" left the spectacle with insulting cries. The situation escalated, and there were skirmishes between the warring factions. The next day, the eparch of the capital, Evdemon, ordered the hanging of several condemned for participating in the riot. It so happened that two - one venet, the other prasin - fell off the gallows twice and remained alive. When the executioner began to put the noose on them again, the crowd, seeing a miracle in the salvation of the condemned, beat them off. Three days later, on January 13, the people began to demand pardon from the emperor for those "saved by God." The refusal caused a storm of indignation. People poured from the hippodrome, destroying everything in their path. The eparch's palace was burned down, guards and hated officials were killed right on the streets. The rebels, leaving aside the differences of the circus parties, united and demanded the resignation of the Prasin John the Cappadocian and the Venets Tribonian and Eudemona. On January 14, the city became ungovernable, the rebels knocked out the palace bars, Justinian deposed John, Eudemons and Tribonian, but the people did not calm down. People continued to chant the slogans sounded the day before: “It would be better if Savvaty had not been born, if he had not given birth to a murderous son” and even “Another basil to the Romans!” The barbarian squad of Belisarius tried to push the raging crowds away from the palace, and the clergy of the church of St. Sophia, with sacred objects in their hands, persuading citizens to disperse. The incident caused a new fit of rage, stones flew from the roofs of houses at the soldiers, and Belisarius retreated. The building of the Senate and the streets adjacent to the palace caught fire. The fire raged for three days, the Senate, the Church of St. Sophia, the approaches to the palace square of Augusteon and even the hospital of St. Samson, along with the patients who were in it. Lydia wrote: “The city was a bunch of blackening hills, like on Lipari or near Vesuvius, it was filled with smoke and ash, the smell of burning spreading everywhere made it uninhabited and its whole appearance inspired the viewer with horror mixed with pity.” An atmosphere of violence and pogroms reigned everywhere, corpses lay on the streets. Many residents in a panic crossed to the other side of the Bosphorus. On January 17, the nephew of the emperor Anastasius Hypatius appeared to Justinian, assuring the basileus that he was not involved in the conspiracy, since the rebels had already shouted out Hypatius as emperor. However, Justinian did not believe him and drove him out of the palace. On the morning of the 18th, the autocrat himself went out with the Gospel in his hands to the hippodrome, persuading the inhabitants to stop the riots and openly regretting that he had not immediately listened to the demands of the people. Part of the audience greeted him with cries: “You are lying! You're making a false oath, donkey!" . A cry went through the stands to make Hypatius emperor. Justinian left the hippodrome, and Hypatius, despite his desperate resistance and the tears of his wife, was dragged out of the house and dressed in captured royal clothes. Two hundred armed Prashins appeared in order to force his way to the palace at the first request, a significant part of the senators joined the rebellion. The city guards guarding the hippodrome refused to obey Belisarius and let his soldiers in. Tormented by fear, Justinian gathered in the palace a council of the courtiers who remained with him. The emperor was already inclined to flee, but Theodora, unlike her husband, who retained her courage, rejected this plan and forced the emperor to act. His eunuch, Narses, managed to bribe some of the influential "blues" and to reject part of this party from further participation in the uprising. Soon, having hardly made his way around the burnt part of the city, a detachment of Belisarius burst into the hippodrome (where Ipatius listened to praises in his honor) from the north-west, and on the orders of their chief, the soldiers began to shoot arrows into the crowd and strike right and left with swords. A huge but unorganized mass of people mixed up, and then through the circus "gates of the dead" (once the bodies of murdered gladiators were carried out of the arena through them) soldiers of the three thousandth barbarian detachment of Mund made their way into the arena. A terrible massacre began, after which about thirty thousand (!) Dead bodies remained in the stands and arena. Hypatius and his brother Pompey were captured and, at the insistence of the empress, beheaded, and the senators who joined them were also punished. The Nika uprising is over. The unheard-of cruelty with which it was suppressed frightened the Romans for a long time. Soon the emperor restored the courtiers who had been removed in January to their former posts, without meeting any resistance.

Only in the last years of the reign of Justinian did the discontent of the people again begin to manifest itself openly. In 556, on the drawings, dedicated to the day foundation of Constantinople (May 11), the inhabitants shouted to the emperor: “Basileus, [give from] abundance to the city!” (Feof.,). It was in the presence of the Persian ambassadors, and Justinian, furious, ordered many to be executed. In September 560, a rumor spread through the capital about the death of the recently ill emperor. Anarchy swept the city, gangs of robbers and the townspeople who joined them smashed and set fire to houses and bread shops. The unrest was calmed down only by the quick wit of the eparch: he immediately ordered that bulletins on the state of health of the basileus be posted in the most prominent places and arranged a festive illumination. In 563, the crowd threw stones at the newly appointed eparch of the city, in 565, in the Mesenziol quarter, the prasins fought with soldiers and excuvites for two days, many were killed.

Justinian continued the line begun under Justin on the dominance of Orthodoxy in all spheres of public life, persecuting dissidents in every possible way. At the very beginning of the reign, ca. 529, he promulgated a decree prohibiting taking on public service"heretics" and a partial defeat in the rights of adherents of the unofficial church. “It is fair,” the emperor wrote, “to deprive earthly goods of one who worships God incorrectly.” As for non-Christians, Justinian spoke even more severely about them: “There should be no pagans on earth!” .

In 529, the Platonic Academy in Athens was closed, and its teachers fled to Persia, seeking the favor of Prince Khosrov, known for his scholarship and love for ancient philosophy.

The only heretical direction of Christianity that was not particularly persecuted was the Monophysite - partly because of the patronage of Theodora, and the basileus himself was well aware of the danger of persecution of such a large number citizens who already kept the court in constant expectation of a riot. Convened in 553 in Constantinople, the V Ecumenical Council (total under Justinian church councils there were two more - local in 536 and 543) made some concessions to the Monophysites. This council confirmed the condemnation made in 543 of the teaching of the famous Christian theologian Origen as heretical.

Considering the church and the empire as one, Rome as his city, and himself as the highest authority, Justinian easily recognized the supremacy of the popes (whom he could appoint at his own discretion) over the patriarchs of Constantinople.

The emperor himself gravitated towards theological disputes from a young age, and in old age this became his main hobby. In matters of faith, he was distinguished by scrupulousness: John of Nius, for example, reports that when Justinian was offered to use a certain magician and sorcerer against Khosrov Anushirvan, the basileus rejected his services, exclaiming indignantly: “I, Justinian, the Christian emperor, will I triumph with the help of demons? !" . He punished the guilty churchmen mercilessly: for example, in 527, two bishops convicted of sodomy, on his orders, were taken around the city with their genitals cut off as a reminder to the priests of the need for piety.

Justinian embodied the ideal on earth all his life: one and great God, one and great church, one and great power, one and great ruler. The achievement of this unity and greatness was paid for by the incredible exertion of the forces of the state, the impoverishment of the people and hundreds of thousands of victims. The Roman Empire was revived, but this colossus stood on feet of clay. Already the first successor of Justinian the Great, Justin II, in one of the short stories, lamented that he had found the country in a terrifying state.

In the last years of his life, the emperor became interested in theology and turned less and less to the affairs of the state, preferring to spend time in the palace, in disputes with church hierarchs or even ignorant simple monks. According to the poet Corippus, “the old emperor no longer cared about anything; as if already numb, he was completely immersed in anticipation eternal life. His spirit was already in heaven."

In the summer of 565, Justinian sent out a dogma about the incorruptibility of the body of Christ for discussion among the dioceses, but he did not wait for the results - between November 11 and 14, Justinian the Great died, "after he filled the world with grumbling and troubles" (Evag.,). According to Agathius of Mirinea, he is “the first, so to speak, among all those who reigned [in Byzantium. - S.D.] showed himself not in words, but in deeds as a Roman emperor.

Dante Alighieri in the Divine Comedy placed Justinian in paradise.