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How Did Justinian Influence The Byzantine Empire

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In 330 A.D. a Roman emperor named Constantinople founded a city named Constantinople on the old Greek city of Byzantium. This city expanded into the Byzantine Empire, a continuation of the Roman Empire in Eastern Europe even after the Western Roman Empire fell. During the entire span of the Byzantine Empire, there were several emperors that influenced the empire, but one emperor, Justinian I, is widely acknowledged as the greatest Byzantine emperor.

Very little is known about Justinian's early life, as he was born to a Latin-speaking peasant family in Tauresium, which is now the Republic of Macedonia. His mother was the sister of a Excubitor, (the Imperial Bodyguard) Justin. Justin adopted his nephew and brought him to Constantinople, where …show more content…

He was also well known for judicial reforms, such as the Codex Justinianus, a single text that combined legal notes, commentaries, and laws of the Roman legal system. Though he was not active in fighting, Justinian did lead military conquests, beginning in the east. The Iberian War was fought between the Byzantines and the Sassanian Empire over control of the kingdom Iberia. Once the war concluded in 532, Justinian the turned his attention to the western Mediterranean, where for the following twenty years, his armies, led by the general Belisarius, regained what was once the territory of the western Roman Empire. Many of the people were unhappy with the Codex Justinianus and started a rebellion called the Nika Riot. During this time, Justinian considered leaving the capital, but stayed by Theodora's urging. The riots were stopped by the generals Belisarius and Mundus in 532, but many religious and political centres had been burned down. Following the riots, Justinian started a campaign to rebuild and remake Constantinople. One of biggest success of this program was the rebuilding of the Hagia Sophia, which had been burned down. The church's designers, Anthemius of Tralles and Isidorus of Miletus had training in mathematics, physics, and engineering led to building a revolutionary, new cathedral who's domed roofs and great structure set a

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