Justinian And The Byzantine Empire

Long ago, the Eastern Roman Empire became known as the Byzantine Empire because the Roman Empire was split into two. The Roman Empire was no longer controllable by Diocletian, who was the emperor at the time, so he decided to split it into two parts. The Eastern Empire governed out of Byzantium (which became known as Constantinople), while the Western Empire was governed from Rome. After a civil war, Constantine claimed it all, he changed the empire in a way that many others could not. The term “Byzantine” derives from Byzantium, a Greek colony founded by Byzas. Located on the European side of the Bosporus, the site of Byzantium was supposed to serve as a transit and trade point between Europe and Asia. (History.com, 2016) The Byzantine Empire
Justinian, who reigned from 527 to 565 CE, is known as one of the most important roman and Byzantine emperors. Unlike most of the great rulers during this time, Justinian was not born into a royal family, he was born to a woman named Vigilantia in the town of Tauresium located in Macedonia. Luckily for Justinian, his uncle Justin was in the emperor's imperial guard. Justin adopted Justinian and had him move to Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. While he was there Justinian received a good education learning how to read and write as well as law and history. He learned how to speak in Greek even though he was known for having a bad accent. When the emperor died in 518, Justin took the position as the new emperor. Justinian wanted to preserve the laws of rome while at the same time added new laws to make sure everyone was protected which formed Justinian's code.His code contains four parts.The first one was The Code which contained useful roman laws, the second one was The Digest which summarized roman legal opinions, the third one was called The Institutes which was a guide for lawful students and last but not least The Novellae which contained laws passed after 534 , it allowed for new laws to be passed. Justinian had a strong passion for the arts and religion. His passions came together when he rebuilt the Hagia Sophia. Which is located in Istanbul,Turkey and is still there today. Another one if his major accomplishments was The Nika Revolt. In 532, while Justinian and Theodora were attending a chariot race at the Hippodrome, 2 groups of people were angry about the arrest of some certain members. Justinian did not know what the groups were planning.Eventually, Theodora convinced Justinian to stay and fight. With the help of Belisarius who was a general, they won the fight killing 30,000 people. However, this was needed in order to create peace among the people .This allowed