The Rest Is History - 219. Justinian: Making Rome Great Again

Episode Date: August 9, 2022

The Riot that destroyed a city and almost brought down an Emperor... In the second part of our trilogy, Tom and Dominic discuss the Nika riots in the early part of Justinian's reign, and how he set himself out as the defender of Christendom against the Persian Empire in the East. The third and final episode, 'Justinian & Theodora: The Secret History', will be released on Thursday. Can't wait until then? Head to restishistorypod.com to get it right now! *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: Tom and Dominic are back on tour this autumn! See them live in London, New Zealand, and Australia! Buy your tickets here: restishistorypod.com Twitter:  @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you for listening to The Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club. That is therestishistory.com. Thanks for listening to The Rest Is History. For bonus episodes, early access, ad-free listening, and access to our chat community, please sign up at restishistorypod.com. Or, if you're listening on the Apple Podcasts app, you can subscribe within the app in just a few clicks. Some of those who have been with Justinian at the palace late at night, men who were pure of spirit, thought they saw a strange, demoniac form taking his place.

One man said that the emperor suddenly rose from his throne and walked about, and indeed he was never one to remain sitting for long. And immediately Justinian's head vanished, while the rest of his body seemed to ebb and flow, whereat the beholder stood aghast and fearful, wondering if his eyes were deceiving him. But presently he perceived the vanished head filling out and joining the body again, as strangely as it had left it. So Tom Holland, that is the historian Procopius talking of the Emperor Justinian, the 6th century emperor of what was then what they would have called the Roman Empire, what we often call the Byzantine Empire. Do you think Justinian,

two questions, do you think he was a demon? And do you think his head was capable of leaving the body and reappearing on the body afterwards well i mean the two questions are kind of interconnected aren't they well you could be a demon and not have that power i suppose well i think it's unlikely i think if you're a demon you can definitely do that um and there's a he goes on to say doesn't he that um there's another person who comes to justinian looks into his face and the whole of the face melts and becomes a featureless lump of flesh and then gradually the features come back on that's right the face changed into a shapeless

mass of flesh with neither eyebrows nor eyes in their proper places very disturbing and then what Procopius then goes on to say is that I myself did not witness this but I spoke to people who definitely saw it, which I don't know. So Justinian, of course, becomes the great lawgiver in Roman history. He compiles this enormous corpus of Roman law, all the kind of the decrees and dictates from the new Rome, Constantinople, and from the old Rome, going all the way back to the days of the Republic. And I suspect that Procopius' evidence would not stand up in court when measured against the splendor and gravity of Justinian's own law code. But we will come to this, won't we, at the end of this episode, because this is part two of an episode on not just Justinian, but also Theodora. That's right. We talked about their rise to power

in the first episode and if you haven't listened to that, you probably should. So we've got to the spring of the year 527. Justinian who is from this Balkan background, comes from what is now North Macedonia originally.

His uncle, Justin, had been emperor. Justinian has succeeded him and his wife theodora the circus performer acrobat um dancer prostitute kind of courtesan turned empress um and she's in her 20s he's in his 40s and they have this tremendous project to rebuild the glory of rome don't they tom they absolutely do so just Justinian basically has two mission statements, so two goals, one of which is to see the Roman Empire restored to its former dignity. So by this point, the western half of what had originally been the Roman Empire has gone. So Britain, obviously,

Gaul, Spain, Italy, africa and justinian dreams of getting them back but the other thing that he dreams of is seeing heaven established on earth he's a very very devout christian and essentially the two the two ambitions are not entirely disconnected because he sees the uh the power and the splendor and the might of the roman empire as being expressive of god's plans for the whole of humanity um so if he can if he can win god's favor if he can reorder the roman empire to reflect the will of god then god's favor will descend on the empire and hopefully before you know it the legions will be back in britain and it's another thing that binds them tom um his belief in the dignity and the importance of the office of emperor and of central control and central power. this sort of centrifugal process where bits were breaking off, where authority was being

challenged and authority passing to local warlords and things who end up becoming in the long run kings of kingdoms. And a lot of Justinian's projects, it seems to me, is about reasserting Constantinople's control, whether it be in religion, or indeed, you talked about law, reforming the laws, or physical control over italy and um north africa and so on and don't you think that's a lot of it so that when he when he thinks about heaven on earth as you as you put it that's the rule of god or christ isn't it the rule of the one deity and and the the idea of the rule of one emperor and the rule of one god i mean they're kind of the same thing to him aren't they don't

you think well uh except that of course the the emperor does not control the church um but he likes the patriarch the patriarch of constantinople is much more under his thumb obviously than the bishop of romes say uh or or even the patriarch of of um the pope in alexandria but even the patriarch in constantinople is a figure whose responsibility to God is of a different order to the emperors. So I think that Justinian does absolutely see himself appointed by God to serve as the shield and defender of the church. And he undoubtedly sees himself as set there, set on earth to bring unity to the church. And Justinian is very, very proud of himself as a kind of theologian. He likes to get churchmen in and then berate them

and kind of lecture them. And he definitely, you know, he sees it as his duty to stamp out heresy. He sees it as his duty to do all that he can to close down the remaining strongholds of pagan philosophy. So Justinian is notorious as the figure who closes down supposedly the Platonic school in Athens, which in fact, the truth is rather different. This isn't the Platonic school. The Platonic school had been been destroyed long long before back in the first century bc um so but but there this is a school that had been set up in the fourth century it's it's not really platonic it's no platonic it's very mystic it's kind of weird it's full of you know it's this is not a kind of stronghold of greek rationalism or anything like that um and what what justinian does he doesn't actually ban it but he stops kind of central

funding funding from the government um and philosophical schools do remain in well in alexandria for instance places like that so so that it kind of ticks along but the the writing is on the wall for that kind of philosophical tradition um and as i say he's he's very very brutal in stamping at heresy so there's an obsession with coherence and order absolute coherence and he sees it as his duty to do this and one one of the kind of the um the measures of this is that there's um there's a kind of calendar and um one of the ornaments for this calendar is the heads of heretics on spikes oh nice which is kind of like an ad friend calendar is that the calendar you get from a Chinese restaurant or something?

That kind of thing, yeah. I mean, he sees that as part of his duty. But also, of course, we mentioned in the first part that there's this kind of division within the emperor between the Chalcedonians, who are the Orthodox Christians, and Monophysites, who are centered much more in Alexandria and Egypt and other parts of the Levant. And, of course, Theodora is a monophysite yeah so there's a sense in which i think that their relationship is you know he's he is saying you know he's saying you know by treasuring theodora so much by promoting her so high he is kind of saying to the monophysites, you know, you are still Christian. You know, you are still kind of beloved as I love Theodora. So that's a part of it. But in the other areas that you mentioned, so law particularly, and military conquest,

absolutely, Justinian sees himself as appointed by God. There's one other element I want to ask your opinion about. So we talked in the first episode about Rome's great rival. I mean, by far Rome's biggest rival, which is Persia. So throughout the 6th century, Rome is facing a different kind of Persian Empire than the one that it had faced a couple of generations earlier. So a much more self-confident, much more coherent, it's the Sasanian dynasty that are running the Persian empire. And at the same time, Justinian's reign is almost exactly kind of coincidental with that of a guy called

Khosrow in Persia, who is himself a centralizer, a massive reformer, really beefing up the power of the kind of Persian monarchy in the Persian state. And there are some historians on there who say, well, what Justinian is doing is basically an attempt to kind of tool up the Roman Empire so that it can properly compete with its big Persian rival. How much do you think that's true, Tom? You're right that Khosrow is the great rival of Justinian and might even have been his brother. Because Khosrow's father, Kaved, a very formidable figure, had kind of repaired the Persian Empire after it had been shattered by a Hunnic invasion, really put it back together. But had then signed up to a kind of radical form of Zoroastrianism.

Zoroastrianism is the state religion of Iran, of Persia. There was a kind of proto-communism, which is kind of interesting combination and absolute monarchy in the form of Khavad and this kind of communist form of millenarianism. But Khosrow was much more orthodox and therefore the Mazdakites, as these communists were called, these kind of proto-communists were called, didn't want him to succeed. But Khosrow was Khavad's favorite son. So it all becomes kind of very complicated. And Khavad has this wheeze that perhaps one way to secure Khosrow's succession is to have him adopted by Justin. But obviously, the problem with that is that Khosrow might then end up inheriting the Roman Empire as well.

So that gets put on the back burner. But there is this sense, I think, that Khazra and Justinian are, you know, they're heavyweights who have matched up together. And the fact that there is this fraternal quality, you know, it's Cain and Abel. You know, these are Jacob and Esau, Romulus and Remus. These are people who are so alike that they're almost destined to go to war. But the real problem for Justinian, I think, is that no matter how many bribes he chucks the Persians away to kind of sign peace treaties, no matter how much he beefs up the defenses along the Syrian frontier, of course, you know, people will know from the way that the Islamic State just crossed over from Syria into Iraq,

that there are very few natural features here. And so essentially, the Roman defenses are dependent on a certain number of very strong kind of fortifications. But he knows that if he starts launching campaigns in the West, he's almost guaranteed to have the Persians come calling in the East. So that really is the problem problem and that is why prior to justinian since the fall of rome and that the the the collapse of direct roman rule over italy and north africa that's really why there haven't been any sustained attempts to get them back but here's an interesting counter argument to that tom um i i agree with that the rome faces i mean what people will now call byzantine but what we're calling rome that's called the new rome yeah constantinople is facing a huge sort of geopolitical dilemma which is it wants to read you know it has it seizes these commitments in the west these ideological commitments i suppose

but it also has the the pressure of persia its great superpower rival in the east but my old i mean i'm going to quote my old tutor um peter saris who um the great historian of the sixth century yeah who we mentioned in in our in our episode on disease exactly he argues that one of the things that so of course previous emperors had quite fancied the idea of reconquering the west but he argues that one of the things that really drove Justinian to want to do it is that he really needs those resources of Italy, of North Africa, of Spain, ideally, because he needs to kind of tool up for that war again, for fighting the Persians. That basically Justinian needs to take command of the kind of Mediterranean sea lanes. He needs to get taxes and resources flooding in. Because ultimately, Tom, this might surprise some listeners. Rome, in many ways, is the weaker of the two superpowers,

wouldn't you say? I mean, the Romans have never really... I'm not sure I would say that. I mean, well, here's evidence that it might be the weaker. So in 531, so within four years of becoming emperor, Justinian is paying the Persians £11,000 in gold a year not to attack him. Now, if you're the person paying that tribute, I mean, you'd rather be the person receiving the tribute than the person paying it, wouldn't you? But the Romans have been doing this continuously. But the reason they can do it is they can afford it. So in a sense, if a strong economy is the basis of strength, then by that measure, it's the Romans. Well, another way of looking at that, Tom, would be to say that it's the sort of fat, effete, weak party that is paying the lean, hungry, militarily powerful party to go away. I think that's to buy into an understanding of empires that may well be reflective of kind of traditional Greek or Roman approaches to it.

But Anastasius, who we mentioned in the previous one, the accountant turned emperor, he has set the Roman economy on such firm footings. That it can do that. That it can afford to do that. that so it's justinian is spending money to keep cuz row happy yeah so that he can start preparing for a war against the goths and the vandals in the west so you don't see him doing the west in order because he is anxious about the east as it were i think that's a part of it but i think i think it's much more that he has a sense that it is the destiny of r, God ordained to eternal victory is the phrase. Right. You know, wonderful book by Michael McCormack,

Eternal Victory, about how the Romans see the world in the time of Justinian. He sees it as predestined, but he's aware that there are huge, huge problems of which Persia is the largest. So essentially, he's trying to buy Persia off so that he can then launch this return, which is something that Roman aristocrats in the West as well are dreaming of. So by the time of Justinian, you're starting to get piracy across the Mediterranean, which is something the Romans haven't had to deal with since the time of Pompey the Great back in the first century BC.

So this is seen as a kind of humiliation. And so there's this vision of an armed prince, you know, that the land and the sea will kind of quake before his approach, that Rome's dormant navies will once again command the shipping lanes. This is part of the kind of the propaganda that has been swirling around ever since the collapse of Rome. And part of justinian's whole all his plans these great plans he's had is that he wants to he basically wants to become that

kind of puissant caesar yeah returning to the mastery of the sea and the land well i mean there's no doubt tom that he that he's he's well equipped to do that he's called a coin matos the sleepless one because he works all day he's great with paper i mean he's a tough man he wouldn't be emperor if he hadn't he wouldn't have got to the top um if he wasn't but he obviously works tremendously hard but he also needs money i mean this is the constant issue for roman emperors isn't it they need money so right from the start when he comes in at 527 he has two guys in particular john of cappadocia um who's a the sort of tax man par excellence, who I think introduces 26 new taxes in a couple of years. Makes him immensely popular.

And a guy called Trebonian who's in charge of reforming the laws, basically gathering all the laws together and sort of finally codifying this great mass of rules and regulations that's left over from centuries of Roman civilization. But the taxes in particular are obviously very unpopular. They're an attempt to, again, to assert central control over the periphery. But not just the periphery, not just the periphery. So also over the Senate. Yeah. over the senate yeah so so one of the you know we in the first part we talked about how one of the ways in which constantinople is the is is the second rome the new rome is that it does have a senate exactly as the original rome had had but justinian is such a kind of autocratic figure

that he's impatient with that as many of the you know the earlier caesars had been so procopius in his in his secret history the one that we've been reading from, he compares Justinian to Domitian, who is one of the traditional tyrants of Rome, one of Suetonius' 12 Caesars. He says that Justinian looked just like Domitian. It's basically like saying to your political rival, you look just like Adolf Hitler. It's just ridiculous. But it's very pointed because Domitian was much hated by the Senate for the way that he bullied them. He executed them. He put them in the shadow. He refused them to do their stuff. He kind of rubbed their noses in the fact that they were politically impotent. And Justinian is doing the same. So the fact that you have people within Constantinople who are unhappy about the growing tax rate,

and you have senators who are very, very unhappy about the kind of autocratic ways of Justinian. So one of the things that Justinian and Theodora both do is they say that anyone who comes into their presence, rather than just kind of crooking the knee gently, as had previously been the formula, they have to kneel down and they have to kiss the slipper or the hem of the robe. Well, this is all about the dignity of the office again, isn't it? But this is something new. I mean, this is a conscious kind of repudiation of the inheritance of Rome, if you like, because that inheritance from the distant Republic before the time of Augustus, when Rome had been a community of citizens. Romans continued to see themselves as citizens, but Justinian repudiates that. He sees them as subjects. And this is something that

lots of people in Constantinople don't like. Well, Tom, just before we set that up, long-time listeners to this podcast will be struck by the resemblance between this and a debate that we had in a podcast on Alexander theander the great but alexander introducing the persian custom of proskinesis and people you know exchanging kisses with them and stuff and it's a not dissimilar issue is it that isn't it the idea of a of an autocrat trying to get people to pay homage to him to publicly abase themselves against and people who think of themselves as having this sort of civic virtue that means they can't do it i think the difference is is that alexander is consciously adopting a foreign practice yeah um justinian sees himself as being

true to the inheritance of of roman custom so he sees as caesar he sees himself as the heir of constantine and ultimately of augustus but chiefly of Constantine, that he is kind of God's anointed. That's what he's been put on earth for. But of course, his aim is also to restore Rome to its former greatness. But the very way that he is trying to restore Rome involves crushing huge amounts of what makes the second Rome still Roman. So the dignity of the Senate, the status of the people of Constantinople and beyond as citizens. I can see, Tom, that in this argument,

you and I would be on very opposite sides. So which side do you think? I think Justinian did it and he was right. Yeah, I would be on the other side. Of course you would, because you're a Ciceronian, aren't you? Yeah, I would be. I would be. Anyway, listen, all of this brings us to the beginning of the year 532.

So Justin has been in power for, what, five years? He's started his great reform programs. He hasn't yet started his reconquest of the West. He's clearly itching to do. It's January. It's probably quite cloudy, kind of cool day. Everybody's looking forward to a great day out at the Hippodrome. The blues and the greens are all tanked up,

ready for a great day out. And it all goes horribly wrong, doesn't it? And we'll find out what happens at the Hippodrome after the break. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osman. And together we host The Rest Is Entertainment. It's your weekly fix of entertainment news, reviews, splash of showbiz gossip. And on our Q&A, we pull back the curtain on entertainment and we tell you how it all works.

We have just launched our Members Club. If you want ad-free listening, bonus episodes and early access to live tickets, head to therestisentertainment.com. That's therestisentertainment.com. Welcome back to The Rest Is History. The date is the 10th of January, 532. We are in Constantinople in the Hippodrome. The stands are packed. Everybody's looking forward to a great day of sport. Tom Holland, what happens next? Great day of sport and a great day of rioting because, of course, for the rival factions, the Blues and the Greens,

the chance to have a punch up is a crucial part of the entertainment. And the Blues and the Greens all start piling into each other. There's a riot, various bits of infrastructure outside the Hippodrome

catch fire. Justinian sends the troops in to crack heads and restore law and order um the ringleaders get arrested and these these ringleaders are both blues and greens and the following day they are they are hanged i think there are eight of them is that right is that about eight of them yeah so they're about eight of them and six of them all goes well they all die well not not well for them yeah but for justinian and you're very much on the side of justinian yeah

he did it and he was right to do it but uh two of them the rope snaps and one of these lucky people is a blue and one of them is a green and they kind of get bundled up by monks don't they and taken across the bosphorus to a monastery on the other side where they, or church, and there they're able to claim sanctuary. And so then there's an issue of what happens, what's going to happen next. And pressure grows on Justinian

to issue a pardon. And on the 14th of January, Justinian comes to the Hippodrome, takes his seat, and announces that he's not going to pardon them. And Dominic, what is the result of that? Does this go down well? The crowd goes absolutely mental, doesn't it?

I mean, people just start roaring and shouting. And clearly there's been some orchestration, I would say. And we were talking before the break about the sort of disquiet of people who don't like Justinian's new taxes. They probably don't like the fact that he is expecting greater public obedience and self-abnegation to him and to Theodora. There are probably lots of people actually who regard them as parvenues, aren't there?

Who think, oh, he's just some Vulcan peasant and she's an ex-prostitute. What are we doing? Among the Senate, definitely. These ghastly people. So there's probably an element of that. And there's also clearly an element of the crowd being, you know, tanked up and enjoying a punch-up and stuff. And so the crowd start chanting at him. They go berserk and they start chanting as one famously,

Nika, Nika, or Nika, Nika, depending on your pronunciation, which basically means victory, victory, or conquer, conquer, which is, I guess, which is what they would have chanted anyway. Am I right, Tom? During the races? Yes. And, but also what, you know, the one that wins, then they, they do the chanting and heart. So half the crowd will chant it and half won't. Yeah. Because that, you know, half is, half is back the side that's won, half is back the side that's lost. The thing that is unbelievably ominous and must have been completely terrifying for justinian is that now the whole hippodrome is

chanting this and they're doing it as unison and it becomes obvious to him that the greens and the blues have teamed up and they all spill out of the um of the hippodrome and basically they they start disassembling the center of of constantinople so burning they burn and so so we mentioned so hagia sophia the great cathedral of constantinople goes up in flames the augustaeon which is the kind of the great uh open space next to hagia sophia and that the chalke the the bronze gates that lead into the palace that goes up in flames um the baths of zypzipas go up in flames so that's the baths that had all the classical statuary so it's a bit like the british museum going up in flames i mean everything just gets lost and

basically it's absolute carnage and justinian tries to kind of reimpose order so he sends in i think about about 1500 troops and they they're able to kind of stabilize the situation so that the palace itself is not under threat but they can't bring central constantinople back under order and it just gets worse and worse and worse and worse yes five days five days before he goes back to the hippodrome to address the crowd and at this point he's been reduced basically to begging so he says i'll you know if you please go home i'll give you an amnesty you know there'll be a free pardon and they howl him down at this point and at this point tom now you mentioned and i think in the previous episode that there was

somebody else who could have been emperor um who was called hypat, who had been a commander away on the frontiers. And the nephew of Anastasius. And he's quite old. But at this point, he reemerges as a significant figure because some of the crowds say he's the man we want as emperor. I mean, this is not unprecedented, right, for crowds to go berserk and to call for new emperors. And, you know, if you lose the support of the army and of the palace guard,

then you're toast, basically. That must be the fear that Justinian has at this point. Yeah. I mean, Hypatius doesn't, I think, want to be emperor at all. He really doesn't, particularly because he knows that if Justinian succeeds in restabilizing everything, then he's absolute toast. But it doesn't matter. The, the, the, the crowds pick him up. They hail him as emperor and the destruction continues. And Justinian is very anxious by this point, whether he can trust anyone, whether he can trust his soldiers, whether he can trust his officials. And he starts to contemplate flight.

So he orders ships to, to be prepared. So, you know, cause there uh harbors in the palace so he could escape from that way and it is at this point that theodora shows her metal probably the most famous contribution to history apart from that business with the geese tom um would you like me to read theodora's, what Theodora says? I would love you to, yeah. She says, every man who is born into the light of day must sooner or later die. And how could an emperor ever allow himself to be a fugitive? May I myself never willingly shed my imperial robes, nor see the day when I am no longer addressed by my title. If you, my lord, wish to save your skin, well, you will have no difficulty in

doing so. We're rich. There is the sea. There are our ships. But consider first whether when you reach safety, you will not regret that you did not choose death in preference. As for me, I stand by the ancient saying, the purple is the noblest winding sheet. Iron lady. Is that how you imagine Theodora speaking to him? But to a degree, of course. So Theodora is very keen to crush the enemy within. She is. She's facing rioters. She's facing strikers. And so what are you going to do in that situation? You're going to recruit new platoons of police which is basically basically what justinian is shamed by this kind of iron resolve and um a whole load of troops conveniently do turn up one is uh under the command of a barbarian from the danube called

amundus yeah so he has he has a load of crap troops fortunately they're available in constantinople and the other is under the command of a very famous figure, probably Justinian's most famous general, the hero of a novel by Robert Graves, Belisarius. And these troops get kind of, you know, rather like Mrs. Thatcher getting the police, getting the Met to go and break the strike in Nottingham. Justinian and Theodora mass these troops and send them into the Hippodrome. And by this point, Justinian has kind of reactivated his link with the Blues and has said,

you know, watch out, guys. You don't want to die and defend the Greens. So most of the Blues by this point, if not all, but most have left the Hippodrome. So you've got the Greens, you've got a few stragglers. they're all unarmed they're in the hippodrome and mundus's troops come in one end balaceres has come in the other yeah and they just kind of cut their way through and they slaughter everybody in their path and actually one person you haven't mentioned tom for those who get out there are more troops waiting outside under the command of somebody

called narses oh i forgot narses narses who was one of the eunuchs wasn't he in our troops waiting outside under the command of somebody called Narcisse. Oh, I forgot Narcisse. How could you forget Narcisse, Tom? Who was one of the eunuchs, wasn't he? Our 10 top eunuchs. So newcomers to the podcast will be delighted to hear we have an episode about the top 10 eunuchs in history. And Narcisse is probably the top Armenian eunuch in history. He's of Armenian descent.

Yeah. He's about, I mean, we talked about we compared justin with joe biden i mean i think narses makes joe biden look positively youthful because narses is about 140 isn't he but he's he's a tremendous i mean he's a tremendously impressive man yeah and very loyal to justinian and if you if you listened in the first part you may remember that justin at this point who justinian's predecessor uncle, he becomes emperor because he gets given large amounts of gold to go out and bribe people to support one of the pretenders. And Justin just pockets the gold. So Narcisse is given gold by Justinian to go and do the same. But Narcisse, unlike Justin, stays loyal and true.

And he goes out and he bribes all the various ringleaders. He bribes the various senators to calm down. And this is what kind of precedes the ability of Belisarius and Mundus to slaughter everyone in the Hippodrome. That's not a bad choice for Narcisse. I mean, Narcisse has a tremendous life, doesn't he? He does, yes. I mean, he has a great career, as we shall see. Well, Mundus and Belisarius do. They all do, yeah.

Right. So they've killed all the rioters or those who were were left but they're left with a smoking smoldering capital city basically shall i read you what john the lydian said about it i'd love to hear what john and the lydian said the city was a series of blackened blasted hills like the reaches of a volcano uninhabitable because of dust smoke and the foul stench of building materials reduced to ashes and presumably tens of thousands of bodies. 50,000, according to Procopius. Yeah. So if we're saying, you know,

the population of Constantinople is half a million, that's a tenth of the city. Yes. Not the first time there'll be lots of dead bodies in the streets of Constantinople. So a tenth of the population perhaps slaughtered. I mean, maybe an exaggeration, probably an exaggeration, but still enormous numbers of casualties and the whole of central Constantinople wiped out.

But there's good news for Justinian in that as well, because he's got a lot of people that he didn't like. Plus, he can rebuild the city now as he wants. He can create the imperial city of, you know, you talked about him wanting heaven on earth. He can create heaven on earth in one building in particular. Yes. he can create heaven on earth in in one building in particular yes so hagia sophia the cathedral has burnt down and the new building the new hagia sophia starts to rise from the ashes like a phoenix um very very rapidly after the um after the riots which suggests that that justinian had already

been planning it probably uh so that is that is one example of the way in which the Nica riots actually end up redounding hugely to his benefit. The other, of course, is that, as you said, he's been able to get rid of a lot of his enemies. So quite a lot of the senators, they get disinherited, sent into exile. Poor Hypatius gets executed. Yeah, he never even wanted to be emperor, the poor fellow. No, no, very sad. But more importantly, the institutional power of the Senate is now massively, massively diminished. And so everything that Justinian wanted for his role as emperor has basically been consolidated. And this is one of the paradoxes of Justinian's reign, is that this man who is ruthlessly, monomaniacally obsessed with restoring the Roman Empire to its former grandeur,

does so much to destroy elements within the new Rome that derived from the old Rome. And so the Nicorites play a key role in the process by which Constantinople becomes that much less Roman, even as Justinian sees himself legitimately as the kind of archetype of a traditional all-conquering triumphant Caesar. And I think that that is the paradox that in a sense structures his whole reign. It structures the wars that he will very soon be launching westwards to retake Italy and North Africa. And I think that that's a note on which we should end this episode. I agree. But just before we do that, Tom, Hagia Sophia. So he builds the Hagia Sophia. I mean, you must have been to this many times. For me, the building that Justinian,

well, it wasn't Justinian, was it? It was Anthemius of Trales and Isidore of Miletus. With this colossal dome, you can see it right, you can see it to this day in Istanbul. And to me, there is nothing, I mean, maybe the mosaics of Justinian and Theodore in Ravenna, but there is nothing that better captures the grandeur and the might of the Eastern Roman Empire, this empire that Gibbon wrote off as this sort of pitiful relic, corrupt relic. I mean, to me, to go into the hagia sophia i always find it just the most transcendent experience yeah it's the building that more than anything else i think

serves as the embodiment of of constantinople of the byzantine empire because on the one hand of course it stands in a line of descent from the original rome so the dome is a Roman invention developed from the volcanic ash, actually, that had been spewed up by Vesuvius, developed by Nero, developed famously by Hadrian with the Pantheon in Rome. And this vast dome, the largest dome ever built, when it was raised, it's the ultimate triumph of Roman engineering. But at the same time, of course, it is, unlike the Pantheon, it's built as a church to the glory of God. And when Justinian goes in, it is said, he cries out, I have triumphed over you, Solomon. Solomon, I have surpassed thee. But of course, Solomon, neither Solomon nor Justinian, Tom, had ever recorded a podcast.

So they had not yet ascended to the heights of human ingenuity and achievement as we have there's a note on which to end this episode on that note on that bombshell we will recap this was meant to be one episode by the way we've just finished episode two we will reconvene next time for episode three where we will be talking about the reign of justinian theodora justinian's wars um the we'll be reflecting on the plague of Justinian, which we touched on last, well, I was going to say last time, but several times ago with Karl Harper, when we talked about disease and the end of the Roman Empire. And I suppose, Tom, we'll also be talking about Justinian and Theodora's legacy, the way they've been remembered,

and the way we think about Rome and Byzantium. And we'll be talking about Procopius' secret history, where that is coming from, how accurate the account of Theodora and the geese and Justinian's face turning into a featureless lump of flesh. So a lot more demons. There will be a lot more of Tom's special brand of gymnastics next time. See you then. Bye-bye. See you then. Bye-bye. See you then. Bye. Thanks for listening to The Rest Is History. For bonus episodes, early access, ad-free listening, and access to our chat community, please sign up at restishistorypod.com. That's restishistorypod.com. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osman. And together we host The Rest Is Entertainment.

It's your weekly fix of entertainment news, reviews, splash of showbiz gossip. And on our Q&A, we pull back the curtain on entertainment and we tell you how it all works. We have just launched our Members Club. If you want ad-free listening, bonus episodes and early access to live tickets, head to therestisentertainment.com. That's therestisentertainment.com.