The Return of the Emperor (Justinian II - part 2)

Part 1 of the podcast told the sad story of how some shocking misjudgements on the part of Justinian saw him dragged to the Hippodrome where a man with a pair of pliers cut off his nose, cut out his tongue.

But in a misjudgement every bit as big as Justinian’s instead of putting him in a sack and throwing him in the Bosphorus his successor exiles him to the Crimea. I mean everyone knows you can't be emperor unless you are bodily intact so there is no chance he is coming back is there? Is there?

Well there is if Justinian has anything to do with it. Russell Crowe style he will have his revenge in this world or the next! Even if it does mean he has to marry a Turkic princess to get it.

And if all that isn't enough the brilliant David Parnell explains Justinian's religious policies. All very sensible. Well apart from his plot to kidnap the pope perhaps.

If you enjoy the episode don't forget to leave a review on iTunes!

Transcript

Back From Exile With No Nose

Russell 0:03

Hello and welcome to Subject to Change with me, Russell Hogg. And this is part two of the podcast I'm doing with Professor David Parnell about the Emperor Justinian II. And this is uh an emperor who had one of the most remarkable lives in Roman history. At the end of episode one, uh, we left him with his nose cut off and waved off at the docks by the usurper Leontius as he sails off into exile. And and and no doubt uh Justinian has his handkerchief held firmly to his face. Anyway, uh welcome back, David, to the podcast.

David 0:41

Thank you, Russell. It's good to be back here for the dramatic denounment of Justinian II's uh crazy life.

Russell 0:48

I sort of made fun of his nose being cut off. But quite aside from the fact that he's now barred from power, I mean, can't a wound like that be fatal? I mean, it's the kind I mean I'm I'm amazed it doesn't get infected and kill him.

David 1:03

Yes, absolutely. There's certainly the risk for infection. I mean, the you can imagine cutting the nose off your face and the kind of wound that would leave, and the kind of particles that might get in it, and and all that sort of yes, uh infection is an absolute risk. Uh he very well might have died from this operation that was done on him, which was not exactly done surgically, who remembers, it's done as a as a public mutilation in the hippodrome where the horses race. So I think infection is a very real possibility, maybe even almost guaranteed. But it appears he survived whatever infection uh he he might have gotten from this operation. So it wasn't great. Um I'm sure he spent uh quite some time recovering uh and probably was not holding the handkerchief to his own nose. He's probably uh delirious, and other people had to take care of him. So we don't have any indication of how many people might have gone with him into exile. In the novel that we were discussing by Turtletob, he has uh one guardsman goes in exile with him. Uh, and this provides a useful sort of additional window on what's happening with with Justinian. But it's possible he had more. Maybe he had a few servants that went with him into exile.

Russell 2:21

As you say, he's exiled to to Kirsten, which uh the novel can't really be bothered describing properly. And in as far as I could tell from from it, it's basically a monastery and a brothel and there's some docks, and that's that's about the scope of the town. So uh I think you can do better, I hope. You know, what kind of place was uh was Kirsten?

Carthage Falls And A New Usurper

David 2:42

Yeah, so uh the description in the novel is is fairly limited, as you point out, but there must have been uh enough to do there because Justinian spent uh probably seven to eight years uh in Kearson uh in his exile before he moved on to his next stage. So he must have been doing things there, and he must have found people to get to know, and we know that he he met people who would become supporters uh in his second reign there. So uh Kearsin is no city like Constantinople, certainly not. There were no cities like Constantinople in the Roman world at this time, but it's still a it's still a substantial city. And we've had excavations in Kearson which have dug up not only docks, but also places where fish was salted, as we see uh in the novel. There's a lot of talk about salted fish. Uh, but Kearson is also the the southernmost sort of promontory of of this Crimean Peninsula, which actually is uh quite quite uh good at growing grain, uh quite good for growing grain, I should say. So uh there's there's grain to be had, uh there's bread, there's porridge, uh, there's uh trading. Uh Kirsten also uh is on the border between what is uh the Byzantine Empire and what is the Khazar Khaganate uh to the north on the steps uh of what is today uh Ukraine. So uh it's a place of cultural contact where there are uh officials aligned uh with the Roman Emperor uh in Constantinople and officials aligned with the Khazar Khagan uh to the north. Uh so it's it's uh a place that is happening enough that it's worth knowing. Uh it's not just a small one-horse town, uh, but it's also not as as busy as a metropolis like Constantinople. So uh no doubt Justinian found it very boring and dry uh after having lived uh in the imperial capital all of his life, but it's not a a terrible backwater.

Russell 4:49

Aaron Powell So while he's away, I mean you said you said I think he was away for for I don't know, was it seven, eight, nine years? What's going on while he's away? You know, is the empire safe? You know, you know, is is Leontius proving to be a safe pair of hands?

David 5:06

So we don't have a whole lot of information about what Leontius is doing uh while Justinian is exiled. And uh the author of our historical novel has interpreted this as Leontius being sort of a bumbling and incapable emperor who's not doing very much, which may be the case, but it's hard to tell because we have Leontius is only emperor for three years, and for the first two years, there's there's just about nothing reported on what he's doing. Right. Um, however, uh in the third year of his reign, Leontius does act vigorously when the Arabs attack the city of Carthage in North Africa, which up to this point has still been held by the Byzantines ever since it was recovered in the reign of Justinian I, uh, 150 years earlier. So the Arabs have finally crossed uh over Egypt and the rest of North Africa, have got to Carthage, they seize Carthage in about 698 uh while Leontius is on the throne, and Leontius responds fairly vigorously by collecting a fleet and sending it against the Arabs. And the fleet is able to actually liberate Carthage and restore Byzantine control of the city. Only then the Arabs send an even bigger fleet, uh, which defeats Leontius' fleet and they retreat back towards the Byzantine Empire, towards Crete and towards Anatolia, with the idea that they're going to get reinforcements and then go do it again. So it's sort of a seesaw back and forth here. Uh only at that exact moment uh the fleet's not sure that they want to admit to Leontius that they got defeated by a bigger Arab fleet, so they decide it's safer to just proclaim a new emperor. So they proclaim one of their naval officers, a man named Apsimar, to be their new emperor, and because that's not a very good uh Greek or Latin name, they they changed his name to Tiberius, and then the fleet sails towards Constantinople, and Tiberius Apsimar is able to enter the city and capture Leontius, and he becomes emperor. So Leontius is no longer emperor. So Justinian is still in exile in Kearson, and there's already been a change in imperial power since he was since he was exiled. So we can only imagine the frustration that Justinian must have felt when he heard this news that, oh, somebody finally got Leontius, but it wasn't me. Uh so uh things are are continuing to be chaotic in Constantinople in Justinian II's absence. And I think that's worth mentioning because we we have a tendency to blame Justinian II for so many things. But you know, things are going poorly even when he's not in charge.

Russell 7:42

Yeah, and um, yeah, I still think that uh get a proper praetorian guard needs to be on the to-do list. They really need to get they really need to get on with that. Um so when Leontius is deposed, does the um does the usurper finally have the good sense to have him executed?

David 8:02

No, because because why should he? I mean it's so far it's worked, right? You you uh you depose somebody, you mutilate them, and then then you exile them, and that seems to do the trick. So uh the usurper uh Tiberius Absimar does the same thing to Leontius that Leontius had done to Justinian. He cuts off his nose, right? Uh, and he forces uh Leontius to enter a monastery.

Russell 8:24

Aaron Powell So it seems maybe maybe this nose-cutting thing, maybe they know their business, maybe it's not quite as dangerous as uh you know, if they can do it twice in a row without losing the patient, maybe it's maybe it's not as bad as we thought.

David 8:35

Yeah, maybe they have some some skill with that, yeah.

Russell 8:40

So so talking about missing noses, I mean one of the most surprising twists in the uh in the novel is that uh Justinian gets his nose back. Well, you know, sort of courtesy of a visiting plastic surgeon from India. And is that story even remotely plausible?

David 8:58

Plausible, perhaps. So uh the author, Turtledove, does a good job of explaining that he's found evidence that such plastic surgeries did exist in India about this time. And in the novel, for for those who haven't read it or maybe won't read it, uh, this plastic surgery consists of cutting a flap of skin from the patient's forehead and then sort of transplanted or grafting it over the hole left from the nose. And this sort of creates a new nose. So it's not a very pretty nose, but it it covers the hole at least, which I imagine must be desirable for you know, at least not letting particles of dust and dirt float into your nose hole. So this is what the author has found, and he hypothesizes that it's just possible that this traveling physician from India who has knowledge of this procedure might have met with Justinian in Kearson and offered him to do this procedure, and that's how the emperor was able to fix his nose. So the idea that this procedure exists could certainly be proved historically by looking at the sources that the author had. We of course have no indication that this ever happened to Justinian II. There's there's no way to verify that he ever had his nose repaired. The sources don't mention anything like this happening to him, but then again, they also don't dwell on the injury to his nose very much uh when he comes back as emperor the second time. I guess why would you this not be a helpful thing to do? And of course, all of Justinian II's coins from his second reign show him with a nose. But again, why wouldn't they? Why would you advertise that you had no nose?

Russell 10:46

If you're if you're the guy designing the coin, you're not about to. You know.

David 10:51

Right. So yeah, it's it's a very interesting episode of the novel. Uh and it sort of provides a helpful hinge that could explain how Justinian II would be acceptable once he eventually returned to Constantinople, but we have no indication that this ever happened in reality.

Russell 11:07

Aaron Powell I sort of assumed that I mean I think people in in later years in in Europe, when they had some sort of venereal disease and uh and and and the disease had eaten away their nose, you know, they would sort of have metal noses. I don't quite know how they fitted them, but but some sort of covering that that got fitted over the remains of their nose uh so it didn't look so so horrible.

David 11:31

Yeah, so there's there is a report that Justinian acquired a prosthetic nose made of solid gold. And there's no indication of how he would have worn it. I assume it must have been attached by straps that went around his head.

Russell 11:48

But uh this or maybe you could have a sort of a crown or something like that where it would sort of come, I don't know.

David 11:53

Yeah. But the the only report of this solid gold nose comes from a Italian chronicler named Agnellus of Ravenna, who wrote in Italy about a hundred years after Justinian II's death, and who never met Justinian, or probably anybody who met Justinian. So it's not clear if that's even uh a real story either, right? This might just be sort of a fanciful hypothesis that Agnelis had. So I'm not convinced Justinian had any kind of prosthesis, but it's certainly possible, right? It all depends on how self-conscious he was about his his injury and how much he thought it might help his appearance to have one.

Khazar Marriage And The Assassins

Russell 12:38

So then we come to his comeback, and how does he manage to escape Kurson? Because doesn't he end up marrying the is it is it the Kagan, you know, the the the ruler of the Khazar's daughter, which seemed like an amazing episode.

David 12:55

Yes, uh, it is a really interesting episode. So he he escapes first Kirsten, uh, where the local sort of notables, the city councillors, had gotten nervous about Justinian, probably because Justinian was being too successful in recruiting people to his side. So we we imagine the emperor spending these years walking around talking to anybody who will listen, hey, I'm the emperor, I'm gonna be the emperor again. You know, why don't you join me and I'll reward you later? And so slowly he must have acquired a following, uh, a group, uh, an entourage, if you will, that believed this about him. And this made the locals and Kearson nervous. So uh where he got out, they were planning to to capture him and send him back to Constantinople, uh, which he wants to do, but not as a prisoner or something. So so he runs away from Kearson in in the middle of the night and he goes to meet the Khagan of the Khazars, uh the Khazar Khan.

Russell 13:53

Uh and sorry, just so people are clear, the the Khazars are this sort of steppe nomads. Are they some some sort of Turkic tribe at this stage?

David 14:02

Or yes, precisely. They are they are uh Turkic steppe nomads who live to the north of the Black Sea and have, as most steppe nomads do, uh, a decent-sized army comprised of of horse archers. Uh they've occasionally impinged upon the empire before. They'd they'd helped uh Justinian's great-great-grandfather, Heraclius, uh, attack the Persians uh way back when.

Russell 14:25

Oh, okay.

David 14:26

So Justinian runs to the to the Khazars, uh, he meets with their Khan, and he managed somehow, uh, we're not clear exactly, to convince him that he's a good bet. So the Khan actually gives uh not his daughter, but his sister uh to Justinian in marriage. And we don't know her real name in the Khazar tongue, but Justinian gives her uh a proper Roman name when he marries her, and he names her Theodora, uh, which uh everybody with half a brain cell at this time immediately connects back to the famous Justinian I and his wife Theodora. So this is a political statement by Justinian. You know, not only am I marrying somebody powerful and important, the relative of the of the Khan of the Khazars, I'm naming her Theodora. I haven't given up on my dreams, my ambitions uh of being Roman Emperor. So the Khan then sets up Justinian and his sister, uh, Khan's sister, not Justinian's sister, the new husband and wife, there we go, let's put it that way, in another town on the Black Sea coast named Phanagoria, and they're to wait there for the right moment for them to try to return to Constantinople and retake his throne. Well, news of Justinian's wedding gets back to Constantinople to the new emperor, Tiberius Apsimar, and he says, I don't like the sound of this.

Russell 15:51

Yeah, this Theodora, that doesn't sound sound good.

David 15:55

It's concerning to him for good reasons. So he he sends a message to the Khazar Khan. He says, If you will give me Justinian's head, I will give you all the gold you could want and whatever alliance you could want. Like I'll I'll beat whatever offer Justinian's given you. So this this con, and you have to just sort of admire the brazenness of it or or deplore the uh deplore the faithlessness of it, he immediately switches sides. He's just married his own sister to Justinian, but he immediately accepts that the offer of Tiberius Absor says, Oh yes, I will definitely turn over Justinian to you, and I don't care what happens to my sister, that's fine. So he sends uh a couple of uh officials to watch after Justinian, and their official story is that they're there to guard Justinian in case anybody tries to uh kidnap him before he can put his plans into motion. But secretly they've been given orders to you know off Justinian at the right moment uh when when they're told to. So these two men arrive, and somebody in their entourage starts talking to some uh somebody else, and eventually word gets out to Justinian's new wife, Theodora, that these two agents of her brother are here to kill her husband. And I this is such a dramatic moment because she could do anything at this point, right? She could side with her brother and just keep her mouth shut, but she doesn't. She goes to her new husband, whom she's only known for maybe a few months, and she says, My brother is trying to kill you. These two men that have arrived are not here to protect you, they're to they're here to murder you. So she chooses her new husband at this key moment. What a love story. Uh and Justinian takes matters into his own hands, quite literally, by luring the two men to it to a dinner or a banquet. Uh, and as they arrive one by one, he appears behind them with a cord, wraps it around their necks, and chokes them to death. So uh he kills both of the men uh of the con, and then uh he boards a little fishing boat and sails away with as many followers as he can bring, which is not very many, five or six got a tiny little fishing boat. Yes.

Russell 18:09

So you know it's what are you gonna do?

Storm Oath And The Bulgar Offer

David 18:11

It's a very tiny fishing boat. So five or six people and Justinian, they sail over the Black Sea uh south, uh, leaving behind Theodora, uh, who goes back to her brother, which must have been an awkward conversation for the two of them to have at that moment. Uh so Justinian has escaped, and his new plan is to try a different sort of Turkic nomadic group, uh, the Bulgars, who are uh in the Balkans just south of the Danube River. So his his shipping, his little fishing boat sails down the Black Sea towards the Danube to go meet with the Bulgars. And on the way there, this tremendous storm and it's a terrible storm, and it seems like this fishing boat is going to sink and that they're all going to be dead. And one of Justinian's servants turns to him and says, My lord, this is a sign from God. Please promise that if we survive this storm, you'll have mercy on your enemies, and if you do that, maybe God will let us live through this storm. And Justinian sort of raises his fist and and shakes it towards the heavens and says, If I spare a single one of them, may God drown me right here. An interesting insight into Justinian's character as it's evolving through his through his exile. And uh the storm immediately stops uh after Justinian makes this pronouncement. So Justinian and the five or six people on this boat with him, they're all convinced that the emperor is going to be emperor again, that Justinian's gonna return, and that once he does, he better not have mercy on his enemies because he's just made this pledge. So it's it's almost like he has divine approval uh for the bloodletting that's going to follow in his second reign as emperor. So a very dramatic story, um, maybe too good to be true. Uh we wonder yes. No, it's but uh but perfect for a movie, as I think you mentioned in our first episode.

Russell 20:09

So he somehow manages to persuade what what has he got to offer the Bulgars? Because it it seems like he didn't have much to offer the Kagan, but he seems to have even less to offer the Bulgars. So what on earth persuades them?

David 20:26

l Right, and this is a serious problem. The only thing he could offer the Kagan of the Khazars was, hey, I'll marry your sister, but he's already married somebody, so he can't marry the the sister of the of the Bulgars Khan now, so he has to come up with something else to offer. So the only thing we know for sure that is offered is that the emperor offers money, so presents, and a title uh to the Khan of the Bulgars, whose name is Turval. The title is to be Caesar, which had, of course, once originally been the name of Julius Caesar uh in the Roman Republic, and then became a title and a name for Augustus, and then subsequently became a title for the emperors. Since the time of Diocletian, uh the title of Caesar had been devalued, and Augustus uh had been the top level of the imperial pecking order. But Caesar is still sort of the second most powerful man in the empire behind the the emperor himself, behind the Augustus. So if he is in fact offering Turval this title, he's offering to make him the second man of the Byzantine Empire, which must have been incentive enough, I suppose, for Turval to to do what he was going to do. And I think the novel does a good job of playing out a second possibility that Turval must have decided well, even if I don't get this title, even if I fail to put Justinian II back on the throne, at least I'll get to in. Invade the empire along the way and do a little, you know, pillagene and murder and all that kind of good stuff on the way. So you know it won't be a complete loss.

Russell 22:10

And I guess is this is this the first example that we know of of sort of titled diplomacy where people are given titles in order to get them to come along?

David 22:20

Not quite. Uh we've seen this happen before. Uh maybe most famously, the uh the emperors in the sixth century had offered titles to the kings of the Franks. So Clovis, for example, was made a consul of the Roman Empire. Uh so uh it's not impossible to offer uh foreign dignitaries titles, but this is the first time this high of a title has been offered to a foreign dignitary. And a title which, in theory, at least, is not just ceremonial, but implies actual power. Um, so that's that's new for Justinian. Nobody's tried to do that kind of thing before.

Russell 22:58

My guess is that it may not have come with executive power, but it probably came with with some sort of an income stream.

David 23:05

Yes, exactly. Certainly involves at least money and probably um, I don't know, uh a crown or some kind of regalia, something like that, uh, some sort of honoring uh for for turbal.

Into The City Through Aqueduct

Russell 23:18

Well, we all love dressing up, so why not? We all love we all love free money. Yes, that's great. Absolutely. I mean, we talked about this when the Arabs were trying to besiege Constantinople. There's no way uh that the Bulgars have got the army to take Constantinople. So so what's the plan? You know, what can they do?

David 23:43

Quite right, yeah. That the Bulgars are in no shape to actually physically storm Constantinople through those magnificent walls. They're not gonna do it. They're not able to do it. What they can do is provide Justinian an escort to make sure that he makes it safely to the walls. And it seems that the plan is that Justinian believes that the people of Constantinople, once they see him and recognize him as their legitimate emperor and their true lord, will simply open the doors, uh open the gates, and let Justinian in and throw out Tiberius Absimar, and Justinian will begin to reign again. That seems to be the plan. Uh, perhaps born out of uh overconfidence on Justinian's part, perhaps born out of desperation because there's no one else to do at this point. It's at least something to try. It's a roll of the dice. So that's the plan. So Justinian marches down with the Bulgar army to Constantinople in 705, and for a couple of days, Justinian walks up and down the walls, showing to himself to the people, waving to them, being having Harold shout out, This is Justinian, Emperor of the Romans. And nobody opens the gates. Even if they'd wanted to, even if they liked Justinian, I'm sure they felt nervous about opening the gates with a giant bulgar army right behind him.

Russell 25:06

What could possibly go wrong? Yes, exactly.

David 25:08

Nobody wants to risk that. So uh Justinian, beginning to despair, comes up with this great plan, uh, and that is to sneak into the city through an unused aqueduct, uh, which had been cut during the Persian siege uh of the city a generation two generations ago. So it's it's been some time since any water actually flowed through this aqueduct uh into the city, and the aqueduct was blocked up. But Justinian and some of his companions managed to unblock up the aqueduct in the middle of the night and sneak into the city, and they drop down into the middle of Constantinople out of the aqueduct, probably around midnight on a night in 705, uh, and then they run through the city and they do essentially what Leontius had done. They cause chaos. Uh, they have people start shouting uh that the emperor is here, they run into a few pockets of people that support Justinian and so immediately side with him, and that certainly helps. And they eventually round up enough people to go to the palace, and when they get there, they find that Tiberius Absimar has simply fled, has simply run away.

Russell 26:22

Get the Praetorian guard, man, that's all you had to do.

David 26:26

I mean, you know, these are you're not wrong to keep to keep coming back to this. You have to wonder what's going through these emperors' heads. I mean, sometimes things must happen too quickly, but surely Justinian was not well positioned to do this. It must have taken some time to gather a critical mass of people, and instead of staying to fight, Absimar just runs. He just likes it. Um, he just he just runs. And uh it's true that Absimar has the loyalty of probably most of the army. His brother has been the chief general of the army uh for many years now. So Tiberius probably thinks that he can get his brother, the army, and on his side and then take care of things. But once you leave Constantinople, once you're out of the city, you know, all bets are off. Uh Justinian maybe got lucky here sneaking through an aqueduct. That's not going to happen for an army. So I yeah, I don't know what Absimar was thinking uh when he ran. It would have been safer to stay and try to fight uh at that moment. But he I guess he lost his nerve uh in the moment, and Justinian kept his nerve, and Justinian won through the day.

Russell 27:31

You say they came through that aqueduct, and probably it's true because it it makes it makes perfect sense how else are they gonna get through the walls? But on the other hand, it does sound suspiciously like the story of the Goths when they were besieging Belisarius in in Rome and they try and come in through the aqueduct. Do you think this is a true story?

David 27:53

I have no reason to doubt this story. Uh it is suspiciously like an episode in the the war of Justinian I uh in Italy, but we have no reason to doubt it. It's it's mentioned in the chronicles uh who say that Justinian and his colleagues snuck through the aqueduct uh into Constantinople. They don't attempt to connect it back in some obvious way to the first Justinian's reign. They don't say it was just like that thing that happened then, where you might be suspicious then, right? They just sort of report it casually, like this happened. So, I mean, I guess we take their their word for it, because if we don't take their word for it, I don't know what else uh we ascribe to uh to Justinian getting in.

Russell 28:37

You mentioned Absimar, Tiberius Absimar, he has a brother with an army. So so what happens to that army? Because although Justinian is in the city and he's got the walls and he's got whatever troops are in the city, there's still a sucking great army out there. What happens there?

David 28:57

We don't have a good answer for that. Uh the sources are not detailed enough to tell us. We know that somehow Justinian and those loyal to him managed to maneuver the situation so that they capture both Tiberius Absimar and his brother without having to have a major civil war or a huge battle. So it's not clear what happened. You know, did he use the threat of the Bulgar army being nearby to convince the brother to resign? Was the brother sort of abducted in a in a special forces sort of raid on the army camp? It's not really clear exactly what happened, but somehow Justinian contrives it so that he captures both of them without any further violence or bloodshed.

Russell 29:37

Well, that's good to know that there was no bloodshed because I'm sort of thinking back to your picture of uh Justinian in the boat, you know, waving his fist at the sky, saying that there will be no mercy, but it seems like he's calmed down a bit. Is that right?

Hippodrome Revenge And Psalm 91

David 29:52

Ah, if only that were the case. No, he's he's saving his his uh his uh his bloodshed for the right people. Uh and and that is what Justinian proceeds to do now that he's back in power. So it's an interesting question the extent to which he's motivated by revenge during his second reign. And the the novel that we're discussing takes this to an extreme and sort of shows him as uh essentially obsessed until the point of being mentally unstable over his desire for revenge. That may be the case, or that may be sort of the black mark of historians writing who didn't like Justinian, who are just sort of trying to tar his whole second reign with this brush of revenge. But it's clear that he does want to kill certain people immediately, and chief among them are the two people that held the throne while he was gone. So he has uh Leontius fished out of the monastery that he's been confined to, uh and he has Tiberius Absimar brought up from the prison cell that he was briefly put in after he was captured, and he has this very public execution of them in the Hippodrome where he himself had lost his nose. So this was undoubtedly some sort of sweet karmic justice for Justinian. Um and he has all the people of Constantinople that can fit come and he stands on the two men. They're sort of thrown down prone in the ground, and he puts a boot on each of them to sort of symbolize his his domination over them, that he's captured them. And while he's standing on them, a a specially pre-selected chorus begins chanting a verse from Psalm 91. Uh, and this this always stands out to me because it's remarkable. The verse goes, Thou hast trodden on the asp and the basilisk, the lion and the dragon, thou hast trampled underfoot. Uh very convenient because Leontius is named after Greek Leo, the lion, uh, and and Absimar has that that ASP, the ASP in his name. Uh, and Justinian is literally trampling them underfoot uh while the chorus is is chanting this verse. It's just remarkable to me that an emperor is this much biblical knowledge that he can pull up this obscure verse from the 91st Psalm, and that he can expect the the masses of Constantinople gathered for this moment to also understand sort of the witticism of the selection. It's it really says something about the the biblical knowledge that was expected of you uh in in the medieval Byzantine state. So after this this uh ceremony, uh Leontius and Tiberius Absimar are both beheaded. Justinian, having come back from mutilation himself, is not going to take any risks by just mutilating them. He just cuts their heads off and is done with it, uh, which is what you suggested, I believe, back when we started this conversation in in part one. Get it right.

Russell 32:54

Get it right. Yeah, I think he I think well, I think he does the right thing there. I mean, this seems this seems to be the appropriate punishment. Although I suppose uh Tiberius Apsimar might say, Well, I you know, I I I didn't take your your throne, it was the other guy. But anyway, um in the book he then engages in sort of this reign of carnage, like something that Caligula would have been proud of. But I think you think that you're not totally convinced that that this is true.

David 33:26

Sure, yeah. So let me just backtrack a little bit because part of the reason that he kills Tiberius Absimar, and part of the reason that he may have killed other people, as you were asking about there, is that Justinian refuses to accept that he had ever not been emperor. So if Tiberius Absimor makes the claim, well, I overthrew the man that overthrew you, Leontius, so you should actually like me. Well, Justinian's position is that I've always been emperor. Uh we're currently in the you know, 2020th year, 21st year of my reign. So anybody who held the throne while I was emperor is is an enemy to me, is is guilty of treason. It doesn't matter who you overthrew to get there, like it should have been me the whole time. So and this this probably also then is reflected in this potential bloodletting that Justinian's accused of, because he then believes that anybody who served these two emperors in between his two reigns is also guilty of treason against him. So we have this image created of Justinian sort of lashing out at anybody who held a position of importance in the Byzantine Empire between the end of his first reign and the beginning of his second reign. Uh and he kills them in various ways, he throws them in the he throws them in the bosporus, uh, he has them stabbed, he has their throats cut, he has their heads cut off. Um and you're you're right, this is this is meant to sort of conjure up images of the worst sort of uh Roman bloodthirsty tyrants of the past and and meant to make you hate Justinian II. Now the reason that I'm slightly suspicious of this is that Justinian II's second reign ends poorly, as we'll talk about in a few minutes, I'm sure. And his successors have every reason to paint Justinian II as this horrible bloody tyrant.

Russell 35:20

Right.

David 35:20

After all, they have to excuse the fact that they overthrew him, killed him, and then took over themselves. So all of the sources written in the immediate aftermath of Justinian II's death are naturally going to make him look as terrible as possible. And that may involve some exaggeration. Now I'm not saying that all of these reports are exaggerated. I'm sure Justinian II did believe he had to kill some people, he had to get some revenge, he had to make his second reign safe. So I'm sure he did have some execution, I'm sure he did have some killings, but whether he was quite as terrible and bloodthirsty as we are led to believe, I think is an open question.

Russell 36:00

I really liked one of the uh one of one of the recurring themes in the book, in the uh in the novel, is that Justinian is forever sending out fleets in you know January or February, thinking it'll all go well, and everyone's like, no, no, don't send a fleet out. This is not sailing weather, and he always does, and it always you know gets uh gets mangled in a storm. So you want to say a bit about his uh his uh sailing policy.

David 36:25

Yeah, so I think we've got two things going on here. One, we know that Justinian did dispatch multiple fleets, uh, particularly against the city of Kearsum, where he had been held in exile for so many years.

Russell 36:39

So this is so this is this is more revenge uh against the people who wronged him.

David 36:44

Well, again, so we get more things to deal with here, so we can untail all this neatly, right? So is it revenge? That's what the chroniclers want us to believe. That's what our sources want us to believe. They tell us this is Justinian crazed with revenge. He knows the people of Kearson thought about turning him over uh near the end of his exile. He wants to punish them for it. Two problems with that. First, he doesn't send a fleet against Kearson until five or six years after he's regained the throne. So you'd think if he was really sort of white hot in his anger and his sense of revenge, he would have done it sooner, right? Why wait so many years? Um and the second issue is that, as I mentioned earlier, Kirsten is this liminal space between the Byzantine Empire and the Khazar Kaganate. So it seems likely that the time period in which Justinian has left and has been working on Constantinople and his potential revenge plots there, perhaps the Kagan of the Khazars has decided, well, he's not really paying attention up here. Maybe I can do some things. Maybe I can take a little more authority for myself in the Crimea in general, and Kirsten in particular. So there's the very real possibility that Justinian has a legitimate reason for sending a fleet to Kearson, and that is to restore Byzantine authority there and to push back the encroachment of the of the Khazars. So there's there's a potential legitimate reason to send a fleet that's apart from revenge. But the sources do paint it as revenge because by this point they're interested in making Justinian as bloodthirsty and and sort of vicious as possible. And that's picked up in in the historical novel by Turtletob, uh, who decides that the emperor is doing this for revenge and that he's so blinded by this desire for revenge, he's not even listening to basic facts about the weather or the seasons, and he's ignoring all that to send these fleets out when he does. We don't have any definite indication that the fleets were sent at the wrong time of year. I mean, maybe the first one he might have sent a little too early. That's certainly possible. Um, but we don't have sort of a consistent indication of that in the chronicles from this period. But it's certainly, if you're trying to make it dramatic and make him look like revenge crazed, it makes sense to portray him as a wrong time. But whatever the case is, it's never safe to sail on the Black Sea. The Black Sea is a very dangerous body of water, uh, and has been known as that for uh a long, long time during this period. The Greek name for the Black Sea uh is the the Euxene, and that means uh hospitable uh or or friendly. And that's that's actually a deliberate sort of ironic misnomer because uh the ancient Greeks considered the Black Sea to be so inhospitable and so dangerous. So it's never safe really to sail the Black Sea, as we saw with Justinian on his little fishing boat uh when he's trying to get to the Bulgars. So uh I have some sympathy for him here because I I don't know if he necessarily meant to send fleets that would get sunk by storms. Uh, but you know, sometimes luck doesn't go in your favor. So that first fleet he dispatches to Kearson uh does manage to get to Kearson and subdues part of Keirsen and then comes back, and the Emperor's apparently displeased with it, so he sends it out again to do the job a second time. Why exactly is not clear. The sources say it's because they didn't kill all the children there, and Justinian really wanted them to kill all the children.

Russell 40:21

Yeah.

Philippicos Overthrows Justinian For Good

David 40:22

But of course the sources would say that because they're trying to make Justinian look as bad as possible, right? That seems a bit much. So perhaps there's some other reason. So he says about a second time, and it's sunk by a f uh by a storm. Uh and then, you know, according to the sources, Justinian laughed when he heard this news. He thought this was great news because surely, you know, some of those sailors and soldiers had served Leontius and Tiberius Absimar, and therefore they were traitors and they deserved to die by being sunk in the storm. Which is which is madness. I mean, if the Emperor did believe that, it's a clear indication he's mad by this point. Um, likely it's just an invention to make Justinian look bad to blacken his reputation further, uh, because an emperor is is not going to cheer the death of his of his subjects, especially his armed subjects that he needs to carry out his will. So he has to prepare yet another fleet uh to go to Kearsin. Uh, and this time when the fleet gets there, um it it rebels uh against Justinian because it's it's nervous about what he might say uh when they return the next time if they didn't do things quite right, and they elect a new emperor named Philippicos. And this is where the story gets a little bit odd, I think. Uh Justinian is presented as wanting to keep track of what's happening on the north coast of the Black Sea. So he leaves Constantinople and he travels along the northern coast of Anatolia uh towards uh Sino, uh which is on the northern coast of Anatolia, sort of the northmost part of Anatolia, but it's still quite far from Kirson. It's the whole Black Sea in between them. Yeah, yeah. It's not clear to me how this is imagined to be closer uh to Kirson than Constantinople is. But the story in the Chronicles is that he wants to keep track of the fleet, so he does this by going to Synope. Uh and then while he's at Sinope, Philippicos and the fleet, which is now rebelled, just sail back to Constantinople.

Russell 42:13

Yeah, as you would.

David 42:14

As you would. And the Emperor's not there, and by this point, Justinian has apparently irritated enough people, either through his taxation policies, his military policies, or his his executions of his enemies, or some combination of the three, that nobody really feels much like fighting for Justinian when he's not in there personally to tell them to. So they just sort of let Philippos and the fleet in, and Philippicos enters the city and is crowned emperor, while Justinian's still on the north coast in Anatolia and frantically telling his soldiers, hey, we need to get back. So they start marching back towards Constantinople. And it's not clear what Justinian thinks he's gonna do. Maybe he thinks he's gonna have a repeat of the previous time and break into Constantinople and become emperor yet again. But Philippicos sends out uh an expedition from Constantinople, which meets Justinian about halfway between Sinope and Constantinople. The two armies meet, and uh, as is very nicely illustrated uh in the historical novel, Justinian's forces essentially don't don't defend him, they don't fight for him, they just go over to to the rebel army, and Justinian is is left stranded, and he's captured and immediately killed by agents of the new emperor Philippicos, and his head is cut off this time to make extra sure that that he won't come back a third time. So Justinian is killed on November 4th. We actually know the exact date, November 4th of the year 7-Eleven, and he would have been about 42 years old when he's killed.

Russell 43:43

Well, I suppose they spared him taking taking him to the Hippodrome at least, so that's uh that's something at least.

David 43:49

That's true. I suppose he could have had a public execution. It's interesting, they didn't even want to waste time on that. Like they were concerned something might happen in the transporting of him to the hippo, they just had to do it right there and then again. It over with. I think this sort of points to the hypnotism and fear that Justinian was able to exercise over people.

Russell 44:07

So I guess we're we're kind of getting to the end of the story. Well, Justinian's dead, so we're definitely getting to the end of the story. Um but why is he not better known? Because it is such a dramatic reign. Is it something to do with the fact that for whatever reason people aren't interested in Byzantine history?

David 44:28

That's a good question. I mean, uh, we could go back to to the time period in which he lives, right? His his reputation is so blackened by these chroniclers that come after him working for the emperors that succeed him, that his name is is sort of expunged in many ways from even Byzantine memory. Uh and this is perhaps seen most dramatically in the fact that there's no more emperors named Justinian after him. He's the last one. Right. And Justinian I have been such an imposing emperor, it's possible to imagine that name being reused multiple times, sort of the way Constantine is reused so many times throughout Byzantine history. So the fact that Justinian, the name is done after Justinian II, I think, tells you something about the way he's treated by his by his own people in the centuries after his death. So that's probably part of the reason. And I think the other part of the reason, I think you're right, that this period of Byzantine history in particular is just not well known or understood. We have so few sources. What we do have, we can cobble together interesting stories, but we just don't have the kind of details we'd like to have. And so if people are likely to know about the Byzantine Empire, they're likely to know about that first Justinian, um, not the second Justinian. So I think I think he is a relatively unknown, and that is a shame because he's his life is so dramatic and interesting that it really would make uh an interesting uh mini-series or movie, uh something like that.

Rome Ravenna And Papal Power

Russell 45:59

Well, we can but hope. So we're definitely getting towards the end now, but uh I think we've still got time for at least one more digression. And uh and I wasn't sure whether or not to bring it up because uh theological matters you know can get a bit complicated in Byzantine history, and I think people's enthusiasm might be might be well a bit limited. But I do think uh Justinian's religious policy is worth talking about, uh, and in particular, how does he get on with the various popes? Uh, which I think is actually quite exciting. And and another question, uh, which is maybe related, uh, and I always get a bit confused here, is at this time, is Rome um still under imperial control? These are good questions.

David 46:46

Let's start with that last one and then sort of work our way back to Justinian and the popes. So, yes, uh, Rome is under imperial control, if you can call it that at this point. So there's a there is a political structure known as the Exarchate of Ravenna. So the emperor has a governor in Ravenna, who in theory is in charge of all of Roman Italy. And Rome is part of Roman Italy at this time. Again, in theory. So I'm saying in theory, because we know that the governor in Ravenna had a subordinate officer in Rome, uh, a duke. So there's a duke of the of the Byzantine state in Rome, and he has some sort of detachment of troops, probably. But really, increasingly in this period, the Pope uh is becoming the prime mover in Rome at not just religious matters, but defending the city, um, making sure that the city is well kept and repaired, supplying the people with food in the case of famine or sieges. So the pope's becoming an incredibly important person. And it's happening right during this period that we're talking about uh with Justinian II uh and his family. So we can see a change happening over the course of the Heraclean dynasty, where for a while the emperors still have the upper hand over the popes, but by the time we get to Justinian II, we see the the scales shifting, uh uh the balance occurring, and Justinian II ends his second reign sort of having to compromise with a pope in a way that emperors haven't previously had to do. You know, they didn't like what the Pope was doing, they just you know order him out of there and and get him replaced, and that starts to shift by the end of Justinian II's second reign.

Russell 48:42

Aaron Powell So what is the um because there is a bone of contention, isn't there, even this early between the East and the West?

David 48:48

Aaron Powell Yes, there is a bone of contention, uh, and at this point that bone of contention is primarily disciplinary uh rather than based on dogma uh or uh statements of faith. So uh Justine II's father, Constantine, had convoked the Sixth Ecumenical Council. Uh so we're we're getting to the weeds here on that religious stuff. I said it was gonna get out of control quickly. It is it is out of control. Uh the sixth ecumenical council had affirmed what the Pope thought of as Orthodox Christianity. So we can simplify it and just leave it at that. So the Sixth Ecumenical Council in 680 AD affirms what the Pope sees as correct Orthodox Christianity. Um that's the Byzantine Emperor in Constantinople organizing this council. So at that point, from 680 onwards, there is comedy between the popes and the Byzantine emperors as far as the definition of the Christian faith. However, our boy Justinian II can't quite leave well enough alone. He's clearly a very religious man, he's clearly very interested in matters of the faith. So he calls his own council in 691 uh into 692, and it's known as the Quinisext Council, which is Latin for fifth sixth, because in Justinian's mind, it's a follow-up to the fifth ecumenical council from the sixth century and the sixth ecumenical council of his father.

Russell 50:26

Okay.

David 50:27

And he says, Well, those two councils did great with you know belief, with dogma, but we really need to focus on discipline. And that means how the church is run, uh all these little things about uh what priests are supposed to do, what are the rights of bishops, uh, what are the public supposed to do as far as being a good Christian. So there's all these little rules in this council, like um you can't jump over a bonfire uh in a celebration of the new moon. Um you can't have a public dance in honor of one of the old gods. Um you you can't invoke the god Bacchus while you're making wine. You know, little things like this that that appear in this uh in the canons of this council, they're all quite amusing, actually.

Russell 51:12

But this jumping over a bonfire thing, uh, is that because that was a pagan ritual? Is that the idea?

David 51:17

Yes. Yes. So so many of these canons are designed to eliminate what Justinian II and his bishops thought of as sort of remnants or holdovers uh of the old sort of polytheistic pagan Roman ways that maybe still lived on, even though the people who were practicing them perhaps didn't literally believe in these gods anymore. Perhaps they were still mostly Christian, but they still had this these customs that they did, right? Because it was fun. Right. Um, and the church said, Well, we can't have that, so we we need to start, you know, tapping down on these practices.

Russell 51:53

Was there not something about you couldn't represent Jesus or God as being as being in the form of a lamb, the sort of the lamb of God, or am I getting completely confused? You're correct.

David 52:05

Yeah. So that's one of the actual that's one of the more, how shall we say, controversial canons uh of this council, that Christ can no longer be depicted visually as a lamb on iconography or church walls or stained glass, what have you. So the reasoning behind this, uh, at least in theory, is concern that some of the less literate, shall we say, uh, less educated Christian worshipers who see this image will get confused and think that Christ is actually a lamb and that they're worshiping, you know, a sheep as their religion. So they're very concerned about that. So just in case, it's just better to not have this kind of depiction. Um this is actually one of the things that the Pope doesn't like about this council. He's he's offended about this because apparently the Pope at the time, uh, his name is Sergius, is actually quite attached to the idea of of Christ as the lamb of God and likes this sort of uh allegorical imagery.

Russell 53:07

Aaron Powell Right. So so the Pope is okay that we do away with the jumping over the bonfires, but he but he wants to keep his he wants to keep his stained glass lambs.

David 53:17

That's right. That's right. Well, and I you know we should say there are a few other things for the Pope to be upset about uh in this council, things that make sense in Constantinople, where the council happens, but make less sense in Rome. Uh so one of these is that you know the bishops in Constantinople at the council say, Well, the bishop of Constantinople should enjoy the same rights as the bishop of Rome. And of course, you know, the bishops in Rome don't like that because they want to be seen as superior to all the other bishops.

Russell 53:48

Aaron Powell And even at this stage I was getting into the weeds, I promised myself I wouldn't, but even at this stage, the the bishop of Rome is seen as the senior bishop. Is he the you know the I don't quite know how they decide what what precedence means in this context. Um but is but is the bishop of Rome seen as the most important?

David 54:08

Aaron Ross Powell He's seen as senior in honor, but not necessarily in rights or authority or or prerogative. So, you know, that there's this distinction there that the bishops of Constantinople and the other major patriarchs want to draw because they don't want to elevate the the bishop of Rome or the Pope too far above them. So they're willing to agree that he has some extra honor because of St. Peter and Saint Paul dying in Rome, but they don't want to admit that he's uh senior to them in a sort of authoritarian sense.

Russell 54:41

Aaron Powell And I think we've we've established that Justinian, you know, isn't always the most patient of men, isn't always the most reasonable of men. So how does he try to sort of persuade the Pope to his way of thinking?

David 54:54

Sure. So uh we have a couple of pieces of evidence of what Justinian II does. First, he sends the the canons of the council to the Pope to sign, uh and says, sign these, and the Pope says, No, I'm not going to. And then Justinian sends um an official over who arrests two of the Pope's closest allies in Rome, but doesn't touch the Pope. And the Pope is uncowed by this and still refuses to sign.

Russell 55:19

And when you say he uh arrests them, do you mean he ships them back to Constantinople? He locks them up in Ravenna? What does he do?

David 55:27

Brings them all the way back to Constantinople and throws them into a jail cell there, um, which you know must have been unpleasant for them. But the Pope is unfazed by this. Uh-huh. Uh and it turns out the Pope is right to be unfazed because Justinian's next move is to send one of his guards all the way to Rome to arrest the Pope himself and to bring the Pope back to Constantinople. And there's this dramatic scene, and when the guard arrives in Rome with his troop of soldiers to arrest the Pope, the people of Rome are so offended by this, they rise up in support of their Pope and they begin mobbing the Lateran Palace, uh, where where the Pope is is residing. Uh, and it's soon put under siege, essentially. So the detachment of soldiers and the guard who are there to arrest the pope are basically being held prisoner in the pope's residence by the mob that surrounded the place, and they have to actually ask the pope to intercede with the mob to let them leave so that they don't get torn to pieces. Um, so needless to say, the Pope, uh Pope Sergius is not arrested, uh, and Justinian II is unable to uh pursue this further because um the next few months uh Justinian II is overthrown uh and you know is sent off into his exile with his nose cut off. So uh at that point, Justinian II is forced to stop this this uh rivalry with the Pope, but the Pope has sort of uh won the first round, if you want to put it that way.

Russell 56:59

Aaron Powell I mean it's very different, isn't it? Antonina has the uh I can't remember his name, Sylvester, he has uh he has the she has the Pope deposed of the Yes, absolutely.

David 57:15

So that's the 6th century, and there's no problem for Belisarius and Antonina to to depose the Pope. And even into the mid-7th century, it was still possible. So Justinian II's um grandfather, Constance II, sent forces to arrest Pope Martin I in 653. So that's just 40 years before this, and he's able to arrest him no problem, and Martin is dragged back to Constantinople and sent off into exile. Ironically, sent off into exile to Kearson in the Crimea, the same exact place that Justinian II would go uh about uh 40 years later. So it was possible, you know, just in the reign of his grandfather, for the emperor to arrest the Pope, and now here in the reign of Justinian II we see that it fails. So this is what I talk about when I mean the sort of transition as the popes become more powerful than the emperors, at least within the confines of Rome itself.

A Pope Visits The Emperor

Russell 58:14

So in his first reign, um, let's be honest, you know, his his relations with the Pope, you know, they haven't gone well. What happens in his second reign?

David 58:24

You know, we have a completely different story uh from his second reign, which is really interesting because most of our other sources for his second reign are all about how Justinian II is this terror and he's interested in revenge and he's bloodthirsty. But in his second reign, he has this very interesting relationship with the Pope at the time, whose name is Pope Constantine. Uh, and as far as we can tell, Justinian II and the Pope compromise on the issue. Uh, the Pope willingly comes to visit Justinian II in the East. He's not arrested, he comes willingly, and the two meet, not at Constantinople, but at Nicomedia, uh, just across the Straits. And as far as we can tell, Justinian II allowed the Pope to accept only the canons of the council that he was comfortable with, and to sort of ignore the other ones. Um, and and the two had a good positive meeting and exchanged the kiss of peace, and Justinian II took communion from the Pope's hand, and then the Pope went back home to Rome, and everybody was pleased with it, uh, which is uh very shocking because that's not what we have come to expect from Justinian II, especially in his second reign. But you know, apparently he he managed to bring himself to compromise with the Pope, which again it shows that shift in the relationship between popes and emperors that's occurring right around this period.

Russell 59:49

And am I right in thinking that's the last time a pope visited Constantinople? Yes, until the 20th century. Right.

David 1:00:00

But by that time the Roman Empire in the East is long gone, yes. So yeah, this is this is a very important event in sort of papal Byzantine relations.

Words We Use For The Past

Russell 1:00:10

Okay. Okay, well I think that's uh I think that's enough uh religious uh I think that's our religious digression done, so uh so thanks for that. Um final question, which is my uh political correctness quiz for historians. So BC or BCE? BC and Byzantine Empire or East Roman Empire?

David 1:00:36

That's a harder one. I prefer medieval Roman Empire myself, um Eastern Roman Empire if forced to, but I do allow uh the use of the term Byzantine occasionally, as we have used throughout our discussion here.

Russell 1:00:51

Well the trouble is I use it, and I know I can see you flinching, but uh you very kindly didn't you went along with my terminology. But it's just so convenient. It's it's it's East Roman Empire, it's it's kind of confusing, and medieval Roman Empire, it's it's kind of long. You know, Byzantine is just it's snappier, but it does come with all that uh you know baggage which it's which its critics don't like.

David 1:01:15

Well, it it comes with baggage, but it also comes with a certain amount of recognition and cultural understanding. Not a huge amount. Uh Byzantine still, I think, is a little bit niche, but more people know what Byzantine is than know what East Roman is, for example. And I think it's important for us to work at meeting people where they are and their understanding and trying to draw them in. And maybe I'll eventually convince more people to adopt terminology like medieval Roman. But in the meantime, while I'm working on that, I'm happy to welcome people in by using the Byzantine word as well when when necessary to sort of invite them in to the study of the subject and to connect with whatever tiny bit of knowledge they may or may not have.

Russell 1:02:04

And um, this may not be your uh subject, but uh is uh Anglo-Saxon still okay to talk about Alfred the Great?

David 1:02:12

Definitely the far side of the world from my subject, but as far as I'm concerned, you can still say Anglo-Saxon. You can still say Anglo-Saxon, you can still say Byzantine, you can still say B C A D.

Russell 1:02:22

Ah, fantastic. What a nice guest. Okay, okay, Professor David Parnell, thank you very much indeed.

David 1:02:32

Thank you, Russell. It's been a great funny.