Mutilated and exiled (the Emperor Justinian II - part 1)

Justinian II becomes emperor at sixteen. Even allowing for the hostility of our sources the reign is not all plain sailing.

I'm joined by Professor David Parnell to work through the first half of one of Byzantium's most extraordinary reigns. Part one takes us from his accession to the moment the city loses patience and terminates the reign violently. David and I are left scratching our heads as to why this story has never had its own Netflix series.

We started with the empire Justinian inherits, which is much smaller than the one his famous namesake Justinian I assembled. Two generations of Arab expansion and some energetic Slavic settlement have done their work. Constantinople and Anatolia are doing fine. Greece and the Balkans are a mess. The Arab caliphate is slightly distracted by civil wars but still very much a threat on the eastern frontier, having already put Constantinople itself under siege in the 670s. We talk about that siege, the role Greek fire played in saving the city, and why all this matters for understanding both what Justinian thinks he can achieve and his overconfidence.

Then we get into the reign itself. Justinian is pious, bold and occasionally effective but capable of the most disastrous misjudgements. So it starts well and then starts to unravel!

Transcript

Welcome And The Justinian II Setup

Russell 0:04

Hello and welcome to Subject to Change with me, Russell Hawk. Our guest today is David Parnell. David is a professor of history at Indiana University Northwest, and he's been on the podcast a few times now, and on one of these episodes we talked about Belisarius and Antonina, and of course their great patron Justinian. And that's the Justinian who built Hagia Sophia. Anyway, today we're talking about another emperor of the same name, and this is Justinian II. And Justinian II he comes to the throne about 135 years after the death of his more famous predecessor. But he has one of the most extraordinary careers of any Roman emperor. He was overthrown, he was mutilated, he was exiled right to the edge of his empire, and he came back with an army of steppe nomads to try and win back his throne. And it's such a good story that I'm frankly amazed nobody has made uh a film about it. Anyway, welcome back, David, to the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

Thank you, Russell. It's a great honor to be back here again.

Russell 1:12

So when we discussed uh this topic a few months ago, you very kindly recommended that I read an historical novel to get a bit of background. And that's uh that's the novel by H.N. Turtletaub called Justinian. And I must say, I I mean I thought it was really good, and I actually then went and read a couple more of his books, which I thought weren't quite so good, but I thought his Justinian was excellent. So I thought we might loosely use uh the novel as a sort of roadmap for the discussion. So uh is that okay with you?

SPEAKER_01 1:42

That sounds great. I think I should just point out for your listeners that uh H. M. Turtletob, uh, as you describe him, is a pen name. And under most of his other novels, he goes simply by Harry Turtle Dove. Uh so that's worth noting if your listeners are trying to look up these books later.

Russell 1:58

And and is Turtle Dove, is he the science fiction author?

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Yes, he writes he writes science fiction and historical fiction.

Russell 2:05

Oh, okay. Is he is he still going? Because I've just been very rude about his novels.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

I'm feeling bad about that now. He is still going. Uh he's no longer on X, uh formerly Twitter, as you and I are, but he is on Blue Sky if you want to follow him there.

Who Was Justinian II

Russell 2:20

Yeah, that's uh that's an honor I'll maybe uh anyway. Let's move on. So look, before we go any further, um I'll just I'll just tell the listeners we're gonna split this uh podcast into two episodes, because I think uh Justinian's life, it does uh as you'll find out, uh it has a very natural split uh in in the middle. So anyway, that's uh that's the plan. Um okay, but so we should get started. So do you want to introduce him uh for us? I mean, who is this Justinian and and and what sort of empire uh has he been born into?

SPEAKER_01 2:55

Sure. Uh Justinian II is one of my favorite characters in what we call medieval Roman or Byzantine history. He's he's absolutely fascinating. I don't know how to sum him up because he's so complex, and that's what makes him interesting. Um, he is incredibly pious, uh, as many medieval Christians are, uh, and we know this because he's the first Byzantine or Roman emperor to put Jesus Christ on his coins. We know that he is impetuous, uh, that he's very confident. We know that he is eager to make his mark on the world uh because he becomes emperor at about the age of 16. And, you know, when I think of what I was trying to do at 16 or what we dreamed of doing at 16, you can imagine, you know, that this might lead to some impetuous arrogance on the part of a young emperor of 16 years old. Uh anyway, he becomes emperor in uh 685, and the empire he inherits from his father, Constantine IV, is much smaller than the Roman Empire at its heyday, much smaller than the empire of Justinian I. Um, it sort of mostly focuses on what is today Turkey, a little tiny bit of what is today Greece, little bits of Italy, a corner of North Africa, uh pieces here and there. It's very small, but it is compact, and it is an empire that has been ruled by his family for four generations by this point. So Justinian II is the great great grandson of Heraclius, uh, who had led the fight against first the Persians and then the Arabs in their initial onslaught. So he is the the final representative of this Heraclian dynasty, and I think that's a good enough introduction to get us started at least.

Russell 4:42

I was surprised, certainly, when I when I looked and saw that I I sort of assumed that Greece was sort of part of the of the Byzantine heartlands. And it turns out that actually they don't control most of the Greece. They they have some of the big cities, but large parts of it have been taken over by various Merduels.

SPEAKER_01 5:01

Yes, yes. So uh as a result of Heraclius focusing so much on fighting the Persians uh in his reign uh at the beginning of the seventh century, the Danube frontier uh was was breached and was never recovered. So what we have is a situation in the in the early to mid-seventh century where waves of non-Romans, uh the Romans would have called them barbarians, were crossing the river and settling and taking over lands in first the northern part of the Balkans by the Danube, and then eventually all the way down into Greece itself. Uh, and most of these people were um generically called Slavs, uh, and they took over most of Greece except for the coastlands, so Thessaloniki, uh, and then some cities to the to the very south part of Greece and the Peloponnese remained in Roman control. But a lot of this region was lost uh to the empire, and it wouldn't become heartland again for a couple hundred years.

Russell 6:00

Okay. And so when the book opens, so I think it's it's good to open the book. It sort of opens very dramatically with a young Justinian. He's standing on the walls of Constantinople and he's looking out at a sea, you know, it's a bit like something out of uh Helm's Deep at um in Lord of the Lord of the Rings movie, the sort of sea of besieging armies. So uh this is the great Arab siege. Does do you want to just tell us a bit about uh about the siege?

SPEAKER_01 6:28

Yeah, sure. So the Arab siege of Constantinople, there's several. Uh this is the first one. It's traditionally dated to about 674 or so, and that's why in the novel the author has the young Justinian looking out at it as about five years old. Um, it's actually been more recently redated to be perhaps uh around the time Justinian II was born, uh the 667, 668 time period. So maybe the historical Justinian didn't actually do this as he does in the novel, but it makes a very you know evocative opening scene, uh, as you point out. Uh so the Arabs have sent uh both an army, which has traveled over land all the way through Anatolia and is now encamped on the other side of the Bosporus from Constantinople, and they sent a fleet. Uh, and the fleet has come and sort of surrounded uh the waterways around Constantinople, the Golden Horn there. And uh this would continue uh for a couple of years uh at least, with the Arabs sort of creating a winter base uh on the Anatolian side of the straits, and so when the winter comes, their ships would go back, when the summer comes, their ships would come back in and continue the siege. Uh and it was a serious attempt to take Constantinople that Constantine IV, Justinian II's father, as a young emperor, um, had to sort of hold back the best he could. And he did. Uh they they survived, otherwise, we probably wouldn't be talking about this story because Justinian II would have never had a reign if the Arabs had succeeded at this siege.

Russell 8:03

But was success a serious possibility, or is or is I mean I always do this. I start one question and I go on to another one, but uh but but is this when the uh when they sort of wheel out Greek fire and cause all sorts of trouble?

SPEAKER_01 8:19

Yes, yes. This is the moment that Greek fire is introduced as a weapon, and much to the surprise uh of the Arabs, and we don't know the exact circumstances around the creation of this weapon, and we definitely don't know the exact composition of the weapon and how it was made. That was a carefully guarded state secret, uh, and it it died with the state. We don't have it anymore, but we do have the reaction to what happened, and it's this napalm-like substance, this sort of jelly that can be fired out of a essentially a water gun, a cannon, and then lit uh as it's fired, and then it sort of burns brightly and it burns on wood and it burns on ground and it burns on water because it's it's oil-based of some sort. Um, so it's it's a devastating weapon, particularly when used against ships on sea in a confined location where you have them all sort of stacked together, and that's that just happens to be exactly what the Bosporus is. So this air fleet is stacked up, and uh the uh the Byzantine ships are able to row out and then point these water guns at it and fire this this Napal jelly, this Greek fire, and then burn them all up. And you know, they're they're especially horrified to find that water doesn't put out the fire, and the fire floats on the water and goes to other ships, and um it's it's quite a disaster. I think the novel sort of uh evocatively captures um the confusion that must have been the result of this new weapon.

Russell 9:46

But you know, but it's not just the Greek fire. I mean, the walls of Constantinople, they're absolutely um magnificent, and you know, I just wonder it must have been incredibly hard for the Arabs to maintain an army through winters and really have a chance of conquering it. I mean, I just I do slightly wonder if they might have been better just nibbling at the empire bit by bit rather than trying to go for you know a killer knockout blow. So is there method in their madness or or or what do you think?

SPEAKER_01 10:17

Well, that's a great question, and and probably a better question for a historian of uh the early medieval Arabs than for me, but I'll do my best to answer it because what I think is happening here, and maybe you'll have a specialist later that will correct me, but I think what's happening here is uh ideologically driven strategy planning by the Arabs. They see it as their destiny to knock out the Romans, to destroy Constantinople. Uh, and they correctly identify this as really the only remaining serious opposition or threat to what they're doing in the Mediterranean basin. So if they could do this, then everything else is a cakewalk. Everything else is easy. So I think motivated by their belief that that God wants them to do this, that they are inspired by God and what they're doing, they see just going for the straight knockout blow, get Constantinople, get it done, and then everything else will fall afterwards. I think I think that's what's motivating them, perhaps more than the sort of rational, cold-blooded strategy you're advocating of slowly advancing and securing that advancement and then advancing a little more and that sort of thing.

Russell 11:29

Right. And I suppose if you do nibble up a bit, then when the Byzantines recover, you know, they can always come back and nibble straight back at you. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

As happens, yes. That is that is how how it actually unfolds.

Russell 11:43

So Justinian, he becomes emperor. You said he's 16 when he becomes emperor. Does he does he take over full power or does he have sort of uh somebody standing behind him to tell him what to do, or or is he straight and straight, straight into the job?

SPEAKER_01 11:59

He is straight into the job. There is there's no regency council, uh, there's no formal advisory group that we can identify. His father is, of course, dead. Uh we know his mother is still alive, uh, and so it's possible that she tries to exercise some sort of influence over him. But in in Roman culture at this time, uh, when you're 16, you're you're an adult. Right. You're able to answer for yourself. And it just so happens that this is not unusual. Uh all of his his his father, Constantine IV, uh, his grandfather, Constance II, both of them had come to the throne as teenagers. So this is seen sort of as standard for the family, right? You know, once once you're a teenager, you're you're a precocious young lad, you're ready to go. Why don't you go ahead and lead this empire?

Russell 12:48

How good is he at the job? My impression was uh that he's actually moderately successful at the start. He seems to have some decent campaigns. I don't know, it seemed not go too badly.

Moving Peoples As Imperial Policy

SPEAKER_01 13:02

Yes, I think that's I think that's accurate to say. Um I should say before we we get into his successes that a lot of our imagery, a lot of our knowledge of Justinian II is shaped by the excesses of his second reign and the way that the sources write about those. So uh the the common perception of Justinian II, if there is one, is that he's a sort of arrogant and mad emperor who's not very successful. But you know, when you look at these first few years of his reign, he does seem to have some some good ideas. He does what a Byzantine emperor should do. He he fights against enemies, both east and west, uh, relatively successfully. He organizes a uh a religious council uh of the Christian church that you know approves the Orthodox faith and advances it in various ways. He gets married um and has a child, which is expected of you if you're the emperor. So he he seems to be doing the kind of things he should be doing. Um so we we could talk about some or all of those things, but I I think he is he's if not a model emperor, he is he is living up to expectations and he's establishing that he has the possibility to turn into a very good emperor within within those first few years.

Russell 14:21

One thing he seems very keen on is is resettling people in the sort of the depopulated bits of the empire because he he manages to sort of tough up the uh the Slavs, as I understand it, and and and those, you know, he just uproots their villages and carts them off to Anatolia. Is that is that about right?

Sex Rituals And Proof Of Virginity

SPEAKER_01 14:40

Yes, yeah. This is this is maybe one of his more interesting defining features, uh, and something that will become maybe a little more common after him, but really wasn't something that previous emperors showed much interest in. But Justinian II does like to resettle people. He sort of sees people as these interchangeable blocks that he can move around uh his empire to sort of fill in holes where they're needed. So, you know, he does he does this twice in his first reign. First, as you point out, he leads this campaign into uh what today we call Greece against the Slavs, and he manages to march from Constantinople to Thessaloniki, which no emperor has done for, I don't know, a couple of generations at this point, because it's not been open to them. It's been covered by these Slavs. So he marches through, he defeats any military opposition, and he rounds up thousands of these Slavs. At minimum, probably something like 50,000 people, are rounded up, uh, and then they are taken and transported uh over the strait and settled in Anatolia, probably in the sort of north uh western corner of Anatolia there. Uh and then, you know, not too long after that, he fights uh a campaign against the Arabs on the borders of Anatolia, and as a result of the campaign during the peace treaty, the Arabs ask him to remove some uh warriors from the areas just north of Lebanon and ship them somewhere else so that they're not going to be threatening uh the Arabs anymore. And he does this and he moves those warriors, known as the Mardaiites, uh, probably all the way over to the Balkans and sort of plugs them in there, maybe where the Slavs used to be. So he's he's shifting peoples around in a way that makes sense uh from a macro sort of big picture level. And you know, those listeners of yours who like to play, you know, strategy video games where you can just sort of move pieces around on the board or or or tabletop board games, right? Like this makes sense to us from a from a strategic perspective, but you know, it's sort of not paying attention to the feelings of the individuals involved who may not necessarily have enjoyed their their forced resettlement in mass.

Russell 16:56

No, I don't suppose they did. Um so you mentioned that he got married and that he had a child. And one thing about the novel, uh, I didn't uh it's all a bit cringe-making. It had it had a lot of sex scenes in it, and at times uh you know it read almost like a sort of a an instruction manual for inquisitive young boys that don't know what to do. Personally, I prefer the Bernard Cornwall approach to historical writing, which is you know none of that kind of thing uh whatsoever. Um but one thing that was very interesting to me was that when Justinian marries uh is it Eudokia, there's a kind of a public ritual on the wedding night, which is people are cheering them into the bedroom. It's a very public sort of uh occasion when they go into the bedroom and then afterwards he you know comes out and he triumphantly shows off the bloodstained sheets, sort of proving uh that they've consummated the marriage and I guess verdunity uh as well. And I was puzzled by that because I sort of associated these sort of bedding ceremonies with later times, and the idea that a Roman emperor would be called upon to do this, it just struck me as incredibly undignified.

SPEAKER_01 18:13

Yes, uh that's it's a very interesting and evocative scene in in the novel, which I guess is meant to sort of show us his his transition to to more settled manhood, I I suppose, right, from his from his earlier dalliances as a boy. Um and I think it's very difficult to know whether Justinian personally had this kind of thing happen to him. The author has created this scene based probably primarily on knowledge of later traditions, uh, as you indicate. But that doesn't mean it's impossible that this could have happened to Justinian or to Byzantines like him at this period. So we know that as early as the 200s, uh, there was a tradition of giving a speech at the wedding chamber, if you will. So this is separate from the actual wedding ceremony, where of course, you know, uh there's the pronunciation of the vows, and then you probably have a speech like in praise of the bride and the groom. There's a there's a tradition of giving a speech outside the door of their wedding chamber, which the speech is meant to sort of refer less to love and more to sort of the physical act of consummation. So so we know that there are people that are potentially assembled to hear this speech. We don't know the timing of it though. So is it happening sort of before the consummation? Is it happening after the consummation? And the speeches include some description of let's see the evidence, in other words. So that's that's a possibility that something like a bed sheet is brought out. Uh, but but all this is a little bit hazy for this very early period. And even if it's a known rhetorical exercise that people might give these speeches, it's not necessarily clear if this is happening in every marriage, especially in an imperial marriage, or not. So uh I think uh uh the author takes a little bit of uh artistic license there in in painting that scene. It may have happened that way and it may not.

Russell 20:23

I mean, I guess for people like um Henry VIII, I don't know if they did this for Henry VIII, but but for him, consummation was was a critical legal matter because because the wedding wasn't valid, uh sorry, the marriage wasn't uh wasn't complete until there was consummation, and he could still get a divorce if he could uh you know persuade the Pope, which he couldn't, that it that the marriage was imperfect. But in Byzantine marriage was consummation uh a significant part of the story.

SPEAKER_01 20:55

Not for legal purposes, as as you're alluding to there with Henry VIII, but I think there is a concern for the Byzantines as well as the Romans that the bride have her virginity intact, uh that uh this could be demonstrated in some way, maybe not necessarily publicly like that, but that the the groom would be satisfied that the the bride's virginity was intact. And this is primarily for the purposes uh of guaranteeing legitimacy of offspring. So it's not so much uh proving to the Pope that you've consummated the marriage, but you know, can I be certain that the child born eight to nine months from now is mine rather than potentially somebody that my now wife slept with the week before, right? So so from that situation, I think proof of virginity on the wedding night matters.

Tribute Gamble And Sebastopolis Disaster

Russell 21:53

Then he does the thing you're not supposed to do, which he star he starts a land war in Asia Time against the Arabs. And it seems like absolute madness because his father, which I don't really understand, and I need you to explain this, but his father's managed to negotiate a tribute from the Arabs, and I'd always thought it would be the other way around. And then Justinian, by causing them a little bit of trouble, he's managed to sort of twist their arms and get a bit more tribute. And now he thinks, well, now we're going to really take them on. I'm just thinking, what was he thinking? And more to the point, how does it go?

SPEAKER_01 22:29

This is a feature of Justinian's character. He's just always ambitious. Uh he always believes he can get a little bit more. So the the first treaty signed by his father, Constantine IV, was probably signed as a result of the Byzantine success in withstanding that first Arab siege, right? They'd they'd been able to repulse the Arab attack on Constantinople. The Arabs eventually retreated in disgrace back across Anatolia, back to Syria. And when they did that, it caused convulsions uh in the caliphate, because they'd, of course, as I mentioned to you, they'd they'd done this sort of ideologically. They believed they were they were destined to do this. They they'd failed. So there was some there was some dispute uh in the caliphate, which we don't need to get into in detail here. There's there's unrest, there's the potential for rebellion. And so to focus on his internal affairs, the caliph had promised Constantine IV a very small uh subsidy and a peace treaty. So that's the situation that Justinian inherits. Uh the uh peace treaty itself says that the Byzantines will get 3,000 uh nomismata, 3,000 gold coins, 50 horses, and 50 slaves per year, uh, which is relatively a nominal kind of thing for empires of this scale. So it's not a huge uh tribute, but it's some sort of something that recognizes that the Byzantines had the upper hand at the moment and the Arabs needed the peace. So when Justinian uh becomes emperor, he thinks he can do better than this. Uh so uh this is probably the result of intelligence he's receiving that the Arabs are still sort of racked with convulsions and potential civil wars of their own. So he sends uh his army against the Arabs. Uh, as you said, he starts a land war in Asia. Uh he wins some victories, and he gets a new treaty out of them. And this is an improved treaty uh because uh instead of 3,000 gold coins for the whole year, he gets 1,000 gold coins every week. Gosh. Uh out of the Arabs. So, you know, it's a substantial increase uh in in the emperor's coffers from from this war. So it works out. So, you know, as you point out, like he already had a good deal, but he thought he could get a better deal, and it turns out he was right. So I do have to wonder if that just sort of encouraged him to then try again. Uh, because that's what he does about three years later. He tries yet again, even though he's already got the better deal that his father had, he's got a pretty good deal. All he has to do is do nothing and collect this money. But he's he's overconfident because this is after his his campaign in the Balkans against the Slavs that we mentioned earlier. And as a result of that campaign, he resettled all those Slavs in Anatolia and the men of military age he formed into a fighting regiment, which he perhaps rather foolishly left as a single group under a Slavic chieftain instead of sort of breaking up and distributing in the Byzantine army. Um, so he he gets excitable about this this army, which allegedly uh numbers 30,000 Slavs, and he thinks this is a real dagger. I could just stab this into the heart of the caliphate, and I'll I'll either get more land or I'll get an even better deal than I currently have. So he launches yet another war uh against the caliphate. Uh, and this one finally does not go well. Not surprisingly, the special army of the Slavs is quickly identified by the Arab commander as hey, this isn't a normal Roman army. What are they doing here? And so he sends an emissary and manages to bribe them to switch sides, which they happily do because they're not terribly loyal to Justinian II after he's resettled them from their homelands anyway. So uh the Slavs move over to the Arabs, and then the Romans lose this battle, uh, the Battle of Sebastopolis uh in 692. And uh Justinian loses the tribute that he was receiving and doesn't get any more tribute out of the Arabs for the rest of his reign.

Russell 26:36

And and what's his role? Because he was present at the battle, at least according to the book, he's present at the battle. And what's his role? Because I think if Trajan would have been there, I don't really know, but I always assume Trajan is there, sort of pointing out where you know where everyone has to stand and what they're to do. Does he sort of act as on-the-ground general, or is he just there as a spectator? What's his role?

SPEAKER_01 26:57

Yeah, so I don't know that Justinian was there historically. Uh our details about how that campaign unfolded are not very detailed. Uh they're very vague. So I think for the purposes of the novel, he's there because he's our point of view in the novel. So he has to be there for something to get sort of reported in the novel.

Russell 27:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:21

Um, but I think if Justinian was present for a campaign, and we know he wasn't if he wasn't there for this one, he was present for other ones that we know he went on personally, like uh against the the Bulgars later in his reign.

Russell 27:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:34

Um he probably is not giving all of the sort of specific commands that sort of an earlier emperor like Trajan might have done, or even his grand his great-grandfather um Heraclius.

Russell 27:46

Right.

SPEAKER_01 27:47

Because those individuals came up through the army. They were soldiers first, they were generals first before they became emperors. And Justinian has done none of that. Uh you know, that's that's the downside of becoming emperor at 16. You don't have any life experience before you become emperor. So he doesn't have any any military experience. Uh now that doesn't mean he gives zero orders, right? We could envision him being like, well, we're gonna set out and you're gonna go do this. But I I the the day-to-day and the specific minutiae are left to his his generals.

Russell 28:21

Yeah, he's sort of more the ideas man and sort of more the bad ideas man.

SPEAKER_01 28:27

Hey, hey, sometimes he has got good ideas, right? We've got to give him credit. Sometimes it works out.

Russell 28:32

Yeah, I don't want to uh I don't want to fall into line with the uh with the later sources. Uh you're right. Um so there's two things that sort of come out of that battle which are quite interesting. I mean, one is accord again according to the book, but I think there's something in this you'll tell me some part of the of the army of the Slavs, either nobody's told them to desert or they don't want to desert. But anyway, they they march back uh with uh with Justinian and they stay loyal, and and he then repays them rather badly.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

Yes, so in the novel, he's filled with rage at the treason of the Slavic special army as he sees it, and he returns with them, uh giving no indication that he's upset. Uh, and then when he gets to the lands they've been settled in, he has them rounded up with their women and their children, he kills all of them. Uh this this horrible massacre. So this is based partly in the reality of the sources we have, which do describe that Justinian was enraged after this and that he punished uh some of the Slavs that he could get his hands on. However, there's no indication that he killed all of them, the way the novel sort of implies. Um, because there are still Slavic sort of communities within the northwestern part of Anatolia uh in the next generations. We have not necessarily written literature about them, but we have these little sort of seals um that were used to sort of stamp letters uh that are say things like, I am the count of the Slavs in this town. So we know that they were still there and were still being supervised in succeeding generations. So he didn't wipe them all out, but clearly something happened, some kind of punishment was meted out. Uh, and we're left to sort of imagine what that was. Somewhere between nothing and slaughtering all of them is where it happened. And where that continuum, I guess, depends on how much you want to give Justinian credit here.

Russell 30:35

Well, I mean, yeah, it didn't seem very credible to me. I don't think I've ever heard of such a thing in Roman history, but who knows. Um, and then the other the other person who sort of, you know, it's not just the Slavs that get the blame for all this, it's uh it's his general Leontius, if I'm pronouncing that right, who's sort of blamed for having you know mucked it all up. And uh he flings him in prison and uh and chucks away the key, which I thought was uh an extremely odd decision because you know, wouldn't it be safer just to execute the man rather than leave him sort of brooding angrily in a dungeon?

SPEAKER_01 31:15

You know, Russell, I've thought about this, and it's not the imprisoning part that bothers me, it's what comes next, uh, and that is that he releases Leontius from prison and appoints him the general of a different region of the empire, and then just expects him to go off and serve loyally there after he's been in prison for several years. That's the part that really baffles me. I don't I don't know what what our emperor was thinking of there. But as as far as the imprisonment goes, I think we have to understand that Justinian is a pious man. He's very religious, and as far as we can tell, the first reign, he's actually very reluctant to execute individuals for something that is they've done that are inappropriate. So I kind of wonder if this is actually religiously based, that he sees it as his job as a good Christian ruler to not kill uh but to find other ways of punishing slash rehabilitating sinners as a Christian king would see them. Uh and in fact, this is the basis of the Byzantine system of mutilation, which we might talk about later with with regards to Justinian. Who knows? It's that if you if you mutilate somebody, you you cut off a hand, you you put out their eyes, uh, you cut off their nose. You're keeping them alive so they can consider sort of their sins and they can have time to repent. Whereas if you cut their head off, if you kill them, well their life's obviously over then. There's no time for them to reflect and repent and to potentially become right with God before their death. They're just gone. So I kind of wonder if that's part of the reason for this inclination Justinian seems to have in his first reign towards imprisonment rather than execution.

Russell 33:10

Right. In the book, they say, oh, this is such a terrible place to go to, he's sure to be killed, Leontius. But I thought that was extremely, uh, extremely weak. But anyway, Leontius is sent off to some special command. Uh so what happens next?

SPEAKER_01 33:25

Yeah, so the the special command is actually connected to Justinian's uh campaign against the Slavs. So this is very poorly recorded, but sometime after he defeated the Slavs between Constantinople and Thessaloniki, he sets up a military command, a theme of of Hellas, of Greece, which there hasn't been one before because they haven't controlled enough of Greece to to need one uh since since the reign of Heraclius and everything going to hell in a handbasket. So this is a new command on sort of what is now a wild west frontier for the empire. And Justinian gets in his head that Leontius, you know, even though he failed him against the Arabs, that this would be a good sort of just punishment or a way for him to sort of prove himself, you know, in this new command on this far-flung western region. So he he says to Leontius says, Okay, you're you're going to be general of Hellas. And Leontius, according to our sources, is despondent because he he believes that this is a terrible uh position to be given him, and he's sure to be killed by some Slavs or something like that. Uh so he has two friends that have been visiting him in prison. And they say to Leontius, Well, if you don't want to go to Hellas, why don't you just be emperor? And Leontius, you know, doesn't seem to know exactly how to do this. I think the novel captures that that aspect of his character well. But these two friends are more ambitious and more cunning, come up with a plan for him. And the plan is uh actually a ridiculous one on its face, but it works, so I guess we can't call it ridiculous, you know, having worked in retrospect. Uh Leontius and his two friends, instead of going to the ship to set sail for Hellas and his new command, they go back to the prison and they knock on the door, and his men shout, The Emperor demands access, and whoever the damn fool is in the prison hears this, just assumes that it's Justinian, and opens the door, and then Leontius and his two friends bust in and knock the guy over the head, uh, and they liberate all the people in the prison. So this gives them sort of a ready-made group. I mean, not very large, but you know, a body of men that they can then sort of run around together, and they run through the streets with this body of men sort of waving swords around and saying, Everybody go meet at the church. And so thousands of people converge on Hagia Sophia, and Leontius gives a brief speech, and then somebody shouts that he's the emperor, and then the patriarch is produced from in the church, and he very agreeingly pronounces that this is the day the Lord has made, and Leontius is our new emperor. And then everybody just starts running through the streets of Constantinople shouting, dig up Justinian's bones, uh, which is a Byzantine contemporary saying for you know something horrible to do to somebody you really don't like. You know, digging somebody's bones up doesn't sound very nice. So uh there is a popular revolt against Justinian, and it's the middle of the night when this happens. So he is captured in the palace without uh the chance to resist, and he is deposed, and all of a sudden Leontius from being appointed general of Hellas from three years in prison has suddenly become the emperor, and Justinian is on his way out.

Russell 36:50

And what I don't understand about that, well, one of the many things I don't understand about that story is why doesn't uh why doesn't uh uh Justinian simply whistle up the praetorian guard and crush this before it before it you know gets gets going? Are emperors not properly looked after?

Why Byzantine Sources Disappear

SPEAKER_01 37:08

Yes, it's it's a good question. Uh and you have to be a little concerned in this period, not just with Justinian, but this is gonna happen, oh, uh six or seven more times in the next 20 years. This is a sequence of events beginning here with the downfall of Justinian, which is going to be repeated for other emperors for the next 20 to 30 years. It's it's a very unstable time in the empire's history. The Empire does have the Emperor does have bodyguards. Uh it's no longer the Praetorian Guard, they're now known as the Excubators, but he has bodyguards. So what's happening with them? Why are they not helping? And the only thing you can assume is they have been sort of suborned, they have been bought off by the rebel, um, or by some quick action the rebels are acting before there's a chance for the excubators to get called together and to be organized in a proper way. Um, it's very difficult to tell over the long centuries that separate us from these events, right? Like how compressed were these events? How quickly did Leontius and his friends move to do all of this? You know, if they moved very quickly, maybe there's not time for news of the revolt to spread, the emperor to learn of it, the emperor to assemble the excubators, all of his guards, line them up in uh in a nice box to sort of protect him, right? Maybe it just all moves too quickly. Um, but you're you're right to ask questions because there are questions about this. Like, how could this have happened?

Russell 38:34

Yeah. I mean, it was interesting you say about the sources are a bit are a bit unclear because actually something you said right at the start, which was that we don't quite know what the date of the Arab siege was. I mean, that sort of gives you some idea of how lousy our sources must be if you, you know, didn't even bother to make a note in their diaries, you know, that there was an Arab army, you know, ready to wipe them out.

SPEAKER_01 38:57

Yes, yeah. Uh we can go down this rabbit hole if you'd like. I don't know how much you want to go down it, but but our sources for Justinian II uh date largely to uh a hundred years or more after his reign. Gosh. We're looking at sources that were written much later. Now we believe that they were written based on sources that were written much closer to his reign. Sure. Um, but you know, the the fact remains that the common source from the close period is gone, and we only have these sources that are from later, who are a little fuzzy on some of the details.

Russell 39:28

Why do we lose the sources from uh Byzantium? Because you would have thought that, you know, Byzantium survives down to whatever it is, 1453 or whenever. Um, if that isn't when Columbus said, I can never remember. Anyway, roundabout then. And you would have thought that uh, you know, the sources would get better and better compared to uh compared to say Western uh Roman Empire.

SPEAKER_01 39:53

Yeah, uh this is a question that sort of vexes uh us Byzantine historians who were trying to figure it out. So there's there is a sense that there is sort of a a dark age of Byzantine historiography where things are perhaps going so poorly uh in the empire that there just aren't as many historians writing as there are at other periods. Um that's one potential answer. But of course, the much more general answer is just that in order for sources to survive to our day, you have to have people who care about them enough to read them and then painstakingly recopy them by hand, or of course, the the the manuscripts that they're written on just disintegrate over time. So there's the possibility that there were more people writing here in the reign of Justinian II, but that when those later chroniclers, a hundred years later, sort of did their bigger overview chronicles and included that material in there, that people thought, well, why would I bother recopying, you know, the first guy when the second guy, he's got a much better sort of systematic overview. I could just recopy him and then not worry about that one. So some scribal choice made in Constantinople in the year 1000 to recopy this chronicle from 800, but not this history from 700, that could very well explain why some things just don't survive. Um, and it's not having to do with the quality of them, it's just what some guy and some monastery who had to decide which manuscript to recopy in his time he had, uh, he made that choice.

Russell 41:32

So now we should get to one of the sort of the uh most famous episodes of Justinian's reign, uh which is which is how they make sure that he's never gonna come back and cause trouble again. So uh so what's their what's their solution?

SPEAKER_01 41:48

Yeah, so Justinian is captured alive by the partisans of Leontius, and he's brought to the Hippodrome and thrown down at Leontius's feet, and the whole the the population that can fit in the hippodrome are there, and they're they're cheering for Leontius, their new emperor. They're shouting, dig up Justinian's bones, and everybody's looking for Leontius to decide.

Russell 42:13

No, no, sorry, sorry. When we say they're saying dig up Justinian's bones, is that just some general unpleasantness, or are they saying dig up Justinian's the first's bones? I'm a bit confused.

SPEAKER_01 42:23

Oh, yes. No, this is this is just a general unpleasantness. This is like a curse you whisper you you wish upon your enemies. But yeah, you're right. It doesn't make uh total sense to us because we imagine this refers to somebody who's already dead and interred. Uh but no, this is a local colloquial saying you do to somebody who's alive, right? This is just saying like, you know, to hell with him kind of thing. Right. Um that's that's what the statement means. So they are talking about Justinian II, not Justinian the first bones, but it's a good question to ask for clarification. So Leontius has to decide what to do, and surely he has advisors whispering in his ear, just kill Justinian, let's get this over with. Kill him, you're the emperor now. But Leontius can't quite bring himself to do this, and the reasons for that are probably varied. The sources tell us that Leontius had regard for Justinian's father, because Leontius had been a general for a long time. He'd served Constantine IV as well as Justinian II. So the sources tell us that his heart was softened by memories of Constantine IV. He couldn't bring himself to kill Constantine's son, so he didn't want to kill him. Also, the possibility that Leontius, like Justinian, is very pious and doesn't want Justinian's blood on his hands in that sense. Of course, he'll get his blood in another way. So what Leontius decides to do uh is uh a judicial mutilation, because it is widely believed, and Justinian will later prove this untrue, that an emperor who is not physically perfect. Cannot hold the throne because the emperor uh represents sort of God on earth, uh, and at least uh the imperial propaganda that emperors like to spit out. Uh therefore, as as God is is sort of perfect, the emperor has to at least be physically whole, right? So this is the idea behind why a eunuch can't be the emperor, because they're not physically whole. So Leontius decides to uh render Justinian ineligible through this judicial mutilation, and he chooses uh to cut off his nose, uh rhinocopia uh in the Greek, and to cut out his tongue, Glossitomia, uh in the Greek. So he's gonna he's gonna cut off his tongue and his nose, uh, and this will make Justinian ineligible to rule again because he's no longer physically whole. It also would make it very difficult for him to plan to return to rule again since he can't talk to anybody. So so that's the plan. So right there in the hippodrome in front of everybody else, Justinian's nose is sliced off, uh, his mouth is pried open, and the the executioner sticks a knife in there and attempts to to cut his tongue out, uh which he must fail at to some degree because there's no indication later in his life that Justinian is incapable of talking. In fact, he seems to talk quite a lot to people. So that that part of the the mutilation apparently didn't go as a plan. Um but the nose is definitely gone. Right. Uh and Justinian is uh then uh exiled uh because you don't want him hanging around even he has no nose. He's exiled to Kirsen, uh which is uh in uh today's uh Crimea, uh which uh used to be a part of Ukraine, is today occupied by Russia. So he's shipped off uh to the far end of the Black Sea to live out the rest of his days there, and I guess think about his sins as as emperor.

Russell 45:55

Okay, so um so it's off um it's off to exile uh to the far shores of the Black Sea. And uh as I said earlier, I just this just seems to be the idea, this is sort of part one of uh Justinian's story, so I think it makes sense to end part one of the podcast here. And if you think uh it's been eventful up to now, then then just wait for part two. Anyway, until then, uh Professor David Parnell, thank you very much indeed.

SPEAKER_01 46:25

Thank you, Russell. I look forward to part two.