Mahomet.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
By far the most valuable source of information for Justinian and his times is
Regarding modern sources, Gibbon, to my mind, stands supreme when it comes to giving us a sweeping overview of the Justinianic era. His ability to fashion from a complex, often tangled, sometimes obscure mass of facts a clear, colourful, and coherent narrative, is surely unrivalled. His only fault — if such it can be called — lies in his impatient dismissal (which I’ve touched on in the Notes) of the Christological controversies which occupied so much of Justinian’s time and energy. Also essential as background reading is the magisterial
For the sake of drama and clarity, I have (as mentioned in the relevant sections in the Notes) gone in for some abridging and telescoping of events in places, without, hopefully, distorting essential historical truth. Anyone who has ever wrestled with the Christological subtleties of the Three Chapters controversy, or tried to form a coherent overview of the Gothic War from the endless (and frankly, often tedious) catalogue of sieges, counter- sieges, marches, counter-marches, blockades, sorties, ambuscades, ruses de guerre, et cetera of Belisarius’ and Narses’ campaigns in Italy, will understand my reasons for doing so.
The Dramatis Personae are, for the most part, real people. The majority needed little fleshing-out on my part, the records being sufficiently detailed for clear individual profiles to emerge, regarding, for example: Belisarius, Narses, John the Cappadocian, Theodora, and, of course, Justinian himself. A richly complex character, the great emperor comes over as a well-intentioned but ultimately tragic figure; someone who, by his own lights tried to do good things, but whose efforts resulted in the impoverishment of the Empire, the ruin of Italy, and a final parting of the ways between the Churches of the East and West.
In telling the story I have, wherever possible (and allowing for a modicum of artistic licence), stuck to the known facts, only giving rein to my imagination where lacunae in the records permitted me to do so. For example, we don’t know if Justinian was personally involved in the Dhu-Nuwas campaign, but — as (theoretical) commander of the eastern army — he was certainly in a position to be so. Again, my making Procopius an agent provocateur dedicated to destabilizing Belisarius, although fictitious, is entirely consistent with his views about the general, plus his location alongside Belisarius in various places during the campaigns in Africa and Italy, as well as in Constantinople when he was prefect of that city.
APPENDIX I
THE ETHNIC AND LINGUISTIC BACKGROUND OF JUSTIN AND JUSTINIAN
Historians have tended, perhaps too uncritically, to accept Procopius’ assertion that Justin and his nephew Justinian were of Thracian stock. I would suggest that this needs some re-examination.
Gibbon points out that Justinian’s original name, and that of his father —
I have suggested that Justinian had slave progenitors. In his
If (as on the evidence seems likely) Justin’s sister Bigleniza was married to a Goth living in a Gothic community, it is not unreasonable to suppose that she too was of Gothic origin — an inheritance that would be shared by her brother. (Admittedly, ‘Bigleniza’ is not a particularly Gothic-sounding name, which is why I have hinted in the story that she may have had some Thracian blood.) In the end, perhaps, any attempt to define Justin as either a Goth or a Thracian runs into the sand. As Robert Browning says in
* The names of his companions on that youthful journey to Constantinople were Zimarch and Dityvist.
APPENDIX II
THE NIKA RIOTS: A TIMETABLE OF EVENTS
The Nika Riots of 532: was there ever, in the whole of history, a more exciting and momentous set-piece? Had the revolt succeeded in toppling Justinian (as it very nearly did), subsequent history might have been very different; at the very least, Istanbul today would be without Hagia Sophia, one of the world’s sublimest buildings, and Justinian’s reform of Roman Law (the basis of the legal systems of many nations at the present day) would never have been finalized, and may well have been passed over and forgotten.
For dramatic reasons, I have gone in for some fairly radical telescoping and condensing regarding some of the