From 533 on, Justinian banned any teaching of law privately, to make clear that only the official canon, taught in the official way, would be effective. Law, lawyers, and court proceedings now belonged unmistakably to imperial government, not to the empire’s citizens. The same years of the codification of law, for example, were accompanied not only by Theodora’s antiprostitution campaign, as she built shelters for fallen women (we cannot tell whether those places felt more like shelters or prisons), but also by actions against homosexuals. “In that year [528] some of the bishops from various provinces were accused of living immorally in matters of the flesh and of homosexual practices.
Among them was Isaiah, bishop of Rhodes but formerly prefect of police at Constantinople, and Alexander, the bishop of Diospolis in Thrace. They were brought before Victor, the prefect of the city, to be examined, condemned, and punished in conformity to the sacred decree. Victor tortured Isaiah severely and banished him. He had Alexander’s genitals cut off and had him carried around on a litter to be mocked. Justinian immediately decreed that those convicted of pederasty should have their genitals cut off. In those days many homosexuals were arrested and died after having their genitals mutilated. From then on there was fear amongst those afflicted with homosexual lust.”
Byzantine empire
Government management under the enhanced rule of law was in the hands of a serious class of professionals now. We know many of them by name, and we have books by some. The influence of the men at court had never been stronger, nor their professional qualities more impressive. A professionalized aristocracy, courtiers, and a standing community of lawyers and businessmen stood at the heart of what from this date forward is more and more often called the Byzantine empire.
John the Lydian (from western Asia Minor) was proud of the historic line of Roman service that he had taken up, and other men like him came from all parts of the empire, trained in a meritocracy and ruling in it with a mixture of authority and indiscretion. John studied philosophy first, then found a job as a shorthand writer when Zoticus, from his home province, was praetorian prefect for a brief time. Under Zoticus, John advanced rapidly, made 1,000 gold coins for himself, and made a good marriage to a woman whose dowry brought 100 pounds of gold. He could have retired with that, but Anastasius invited him back to service and he made a career of it. He served with the court for many years and wrote books embodying his idealized view of imperial service.
Grasping the perspective of these men can help us understand the spirit of the age, and its deformations. Let us linger a bit over one interesting figure, the count Marcellinus travel ottoman bulgaria.
Like many of the most ambitious people of this time, he was born in the Balkans—not far from modern Skopje, Justinian’s own home terri¬tory.18 He was born in uncertain times there, when the two Theoderics vied for position, and stability was slowly returning, but he received a solid education in Latin and Greek. Marcellinus emerged during Justin’s reign, when he served as cancellarius (“chancellor,” something like a chief of staff) to Justinian while the latter held the title of patrician and was the power behind (or alongside) the throne. In that job, Marcellinus would have seen all and known all, and would have come to know Justinian very well indeed.
Justinian and remarkably blind
A man of the new age, he was inflexibly loyal to Justinian and remarkably blind to the virtues of earlier emperors. In the year 519, the same year in which Theoderic set out to have Roman history summarized for Gothic purposes, Marcellinus began to write history, history that survives in his Chronicle, twice extended. His voice is one Justinian knew well and his views are the influential ones of a senior courtier in an autocracy.
He began with the year 379, at the point where the earlier authoritative account begun in Greek by the learned Eusebius, bishop and colleague of Constantine, then translated and continued by Jerome in Latin, broke off. The choice of date imposed by that tradition let him tell the story of barbarian invasions and the first generations of palace rule from the reign of Theodosius down to Justin and Justinian Justinian’s circle in Constantinople.
The story Marcellinus tells reads like a first draft of every modern textbook of the period: barbarians, resistance, restoration. There are no good barbarians in Marcellinus; the Huns are the worst. The pragmatic emperor Anastasius was a negligible force in this view, and his achievements were undervalued. The rise and fall of Vitalian is the most interesting personal tale Marcellinus tells, for he overstates Vitalian’s successes, makes him out to be violent and arbitrary, and then tells the story of his end deadpan—noting that he died in the palace, along with his retinue, after being stabbed sixteen times, but with no mention of Justinian’s role. Justinian’s power was so solid that Marcellinus could describe his crimes directly and boldly, without fear.
