ercise great influence. In 527 the
Emperor Justin, by the advice of the senate, proclaimed him his partner
in the empire. Justin survived this step but four months, and in the
same year Justinian was proclaimed sole emperor, and crowned along with
his wife, the famous Theodora, whom, despite her more than dubious
antecedents as an actress, he had raised to the position as his wife.
Justinian on his accession was in his forty-fifth year. His reign, which
extends over thirty-eight years, is the most brilliant in the history of
the late empire. Although himself without the taste or the capacity for
military command, he had the good fortune or the skill to select the
ablest generals of the last days of Roman military ascendency. Under the
direction of his generals, and especially of the celebrated Narses and
Belisarius, his reign may be said to have restored the Roman Empire, at
least in outward appearance, to its ancient limits, and to have reunited
the East and the West under a single rule. In his first war--that with
Persia--he concluded a treaty by which the crisis that had so long
threatened, was at least warded off; but the rejoicings which celebrated
its termination had, owing to a domestic revolution, almost proved fatal
to the authority of Justinian himself. A conflict of the so-called Blue
and Green factions in the circus, in 532, was but an outburst of
political discontent, which went so far as to elect a rival emperor,
Hypatius. Justinian himself was struck with dismay, and had made
preparations for flight; but the vigor and determination of Theodora
arrested the revolt. Narses, with a relentless hand, repressed the
tumults, 30,000 victims having, it is said, fallen in a single day. By
the arms of Belisarius, the Vandal kingdom of Africa was re-annexed to
the Empire; and the same general, conjointly with Narses, restored the
imperial authority in Rome, in Northern Italy, and in a large portion of
Spain. One of the most extraordinary, though in the end ineffective
works of the reign of Justinian, was the vast line of fortification
which he constructed, or renewed and strengthened, along the eastern and
southeastern frontier of his empire. These works of defence, and the
construction of many public buildings both in his capital and in other
cities of the Empire, involved an enormous expenditure, and the fiscal
administration of Justinian, in consequence, pressed heavily on the
public resource.

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