Justinian I
482 – 565 · Generation IX · Emperor (r. 527–565) · Justinian
Justinian (AD 482 – 565). Emperor (r. 527–565). Married Theodora around AD 525. Nephew and adopted heir of Justin I; born Petrus Sabbatius; reconquered much of the West; died childless. Called “the emperor who never sleeps,” he poured his energy into an ambitious renovatio imperii: his generals Belisarius and Narses broke the Vandal and Ostrogothic kingdoms, and Roman rule returned to the western Mediterranean. Yet his most durable monument was legal – the Corpus Juris Civilis, a comprehensive recasting of Roman law on which the civil codes of many countries still rest. His building programme crowned Constantinople with the Hagia Sophia, and his court gathered talents from the jurist Tribonian to the finance ministers whose taxes funded his wars. The Nika riots early in his reign came within a hair of unseating him; he fought Sasanian Persia in two long conflicts, and may have been the last emperor to speak Latin as his native tongue.
One of 7 people of Justinian (518–602) in this archive. Justinian and Theodora’s house, which rebuilt the law and reached back into the west.
Parents
- Sabbatius (440 – ?)
- Vigilantia (455 – ?)
Siblings
- Vigilantia (490 – ?)
Partners
- Married Theodora I (500 – 548) in 525
Life
- 482 — Born
- 525 — Married Theodora
- 565 — Died