able, its Balkan provinces were ravaged by Hun and Ostrogoth invasions and Constantinople itself was at times threatened. The eastern provinces of Syria and Egypt were racked by religious dissension over the nature of Christ, a matter of spiritual life and death to Christians preoccupied with salvation and with achieving a doctrinal orthodoxy that was pleasing to God. Gradually, however, the east's underlying advantages enabled it to emerge from its difficulties as a resilient and cohesive society. The impression that emerges is one of consensus around the ideal of a God-appointed Christian empire, prosperity reflected in lavish building throughout Asia Minor and the dynamic capital of Constantinople, and political stability enshrined in the rise of a new breed of trained, dedicated bureaucrats. One of the latter, an official named Anastasius, became emperor, and further strengthened the empire by cautious and tolerant policies of reducing taxes and trimming expenses. The full benefits of this political and financial stability were reaped by his successors, Justin I and his nephew Justinian.

Justinian, the most remarkable of Byzantium's emperors, was denounced by a vituperative contemporary for 'ruining the Roman Empire' and 'bringing everything into confusion'. In fact his efforts to turn the clock back to the great days of the universal Roman Empire had astonishing initial success. A small expedition was launched against the Vandal kingdom of North Africa, the longest standing thorn in Constantinople's flesh, under the brilliant general Belisarius, and the people who had terrorized the Mediterranean in the fifth century were rapidly conquered. In the view of the historian Procopius the Vandals had become 'of all nations the most lecherous', and their military prowess had been sapped by their wealth. The emperor's whirlwind success was celebrated in the extravagant prologues attached to the massive Code of Roman Law which he issued in 534. Justinian's legislative activity, like his stalwart defence of religious orthodoxy, was based on an elevated view of the universal empire, which he saw as the terrestrial image of God's heavenly kingdom. His autocratic leanings were reinforced by a savage uprising against his reliance on unpopular

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