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'Flavius Iustinus (Iunior) Augustus'^[1] or 'Justin The Divine' (c. 520 - 578) was an Eastern Roman emperor (565 - 578) He was the nephew of Justinian I, and husband of Sophia, the niece of the late empress Theodora, and therefore member of the Justinian Dynasty. His reign is marked by war with Persia and the loss of the greater part of Italy.

Contents

Reign

Personal traits

Trivia concerning Justin's insanity

External links

Notes

References

Reign

When Justinian died on November 14, 565, Justin was elevated to the imperial throne. In the first few days of his reign he paid his uncle's debts, administered justice in person, and proclaimed universal religious toleration. Contrary to his uncle, Justin relied completely on the support of the aristocratic party.
In 568 the Lombards invaded Italy under Alboin, and in a few years they made themselves masters of nearly the entire country. Justin's attention, however, was distracted from Italy towards the North and East frontiers. Proud of character, he discontinued Justinian's policy of buying off potential enemies. After refusing to pay tribute to the Avars, Justin fought several unsuccessful campaigns against them. More importantly, in 572 his refusal to pay tribute to the Persians in combination with overtures to the Turks led to a war with the Sassanid Empire. After two disastrous campaigns, in which the Persians overran Syria and captured the strategically important fortress of Dara, Justin reportedly lost his mind. The temporary fits of insanity into which he fell warned him to name a colleague. Passing over his own relatives, he raised, on the advice of Sophia, the general Tiberius to be Caesar in December 574 and withdrew into retirement. Sophia and Tiberius ruled together as joint regents for four years, while Justin sank into growing insanity. When he died in 578 Tiberius succeeded him as Tiberius II Constantine.

Personal traits

The historian Previte-Orton describes Justin as "a rigid man, dazzled by his predecessor's glories, to whom fell the task of guiding an exhausted, ill-defended Empire through a crisis of the first magnitude and a new movement of peoples". Previte-Orton continues,
: "In foreign affairs he took the attitude of the invincible, unbending Roman, and in the disasters which his lack of realism occasioned, his reason ultimately gave way. It was foreign powers which he underrated and hoped to bluff by a lofty inflexibility, for he was well aware of the desperate state of the finances and the army and of the need to reconcile the Monophysites."^[2]

Trivia concerning Justin's insanity

★ According to John of Ephesus, as Justin II slipped into the unbridled madness of his final days he was pulled through the palace on a wheeled throne, biting attendants as he passed. He reportedly ordered organ music to be played constantly throughout the palace in an attempt to soothe his frenzied mind, and it was rumoured that his taste for attendants extended as far as devouring a number of them during his reign.^[3]

External links

★ DIR: De Imperatoribus Romanis: Justin II

Notes

1. Called ''junior'', "the younger", to distinguish him from Justin I
2. Previte-Orton, Charles William, ''The shorter Cambridge medieval history'' (Cambridge: University Press, 1952), p. 201.
3. John of Ephesus, ''Ecclesiastical History'', Part 3, Book 3

References

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