Vandal conquest ‘broke the tax spine’ (Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages, 711), but
exchange continued (ibid., 722). Differences between the western and eastern Mediterra-
nean: ibid., 709, 713–14.
61 See Framing the Early Middle Ages, 708–20, ‘The Mediterranean world system’; further,
Conclusion.
62 Ibid., 716–17.
63 For example Niall Ferguson, Colossus. The Rise and Fall of the American Empire (London:
Allen Lane, 2004); Cullen Murphy, Are we Rome? The End of an Empire and the Fate of America
(Boston: Houghton Miffl in Co, 2007).
5 Justinian and reconquest
1 Jones, Later Roman Empire I, chapter 9, and E. Stein, Histoire du Bas-Empire, II, rev. J.-
R.Palanque (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1949, repr. Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1968), remain
basic; Michael Maas, ed., The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2005) is a valuable up-to-date guide, and see also Averil Cameron,
‘Justin I and Justinian’, in Cambridge Ancient History XIV, 63–85; John Moorhead, Justinian
(London: Longman, 1994); J.A.S. Evans, The Age of Justinian. The Circumstances of Imperial
Power (London: Routledge, 1996); Averil Cameron, ‘Gibbon and Justinian’, in Rosamond
McKitterick and Roland Quinault, eds., Edward Gibbon and Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1997), 34–52.
2 For a clear introduction see Caroline Humfress, ‘Law and legal practice in the age of Justin-
ian’ in Maas, ed., Companion to the Age of Justinian, 161–5.
3 For Tribonian and his activity, see Tony Honoré, Tribonian (London: Duckworth, 1978).
Jurists were allowed to translate the Digest into Greek, but only if they kept very closely to
the Latin text.
4 Humfress, ‘Law and legal practice’, 171–6.
5 See Michael Maas, ‘Roman history and Christian ideology in Justinianic reform legislation’,
DOP 40 (1986), 17–31.
6 See Averil Cameron, Procopius and the Sixth Century (London: Duckworth, 1985) and further
below. The Wars were completed in AD 553–4. Despite some voices of disagreement, it still
seems most likely that the Buildings dates from 554 and the Secret History from 550–51; this
apparent contradiction is made easier to explain by the fact that the note of criticism of the
regime in the Wars grows more obvious in the last two books.
7 For the Buildings, see below and further, Chapter 7.
8 By Anthony Kaldellis, Procopius of Caesarea. Tyranny, History and Philosophy at the End of Antiq-
uity (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004).
9 See Peter Bell, Three Political Voices from the Age of Justinian. Agapetus, Advice to the Emperor,
Dialogue on Political Science, Paul the Silentiary, Description of Hagia Sophia, Translated Texts
for Historians 52 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2009); D.J. O’Meara, Platonopolis:
Platonic Political Philosophy in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); John
the Lydian: Michael Maas, John Lydus and the Roman Past. Antiquarianism and Politics in the Age
of Justinian (London: Routledge, 1992).
10 See Averil Cameron, ‘Vandal and Byzantine Africa’, Cambridge Ancient History XIV (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 552–69 and further below and Chapter 7.
11 See John Moorhead, The Roman Empire Divided, 400–700 (London: Longmans, 2001); Neil
Christie, The Lombards: the Ancient Longobards (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995). Italy: see E. Zanini,
Le Italie byzantine. Territorio, insediamenti ed economia nella provincia bizantina d’Italia (VI–VIII
secolo) (Bari: Edipuglia, 1998).
12 Honoré, Tribonian, chap.1. Measures against pagans: CJ I, 5, 18.4; 11, 10 (‘the sacrilegious
foolishness of the Hellenes’); the patrician Phocas, the quaestor sacri palatii Thomas and
the ex-prefect Asclepiodotus were all put on trial; Asclepiodotus committed suicide, and so
did Phocas when he was tried again on the same charge in AD 546.
NOTES TO CHAPTER 4