THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD IN LATE ANTIQUITYscope and impact are hard to assess for a variety of reasons. The fi rst has to
do with the fact that our main literary source is Procopius’ Buildings, written
explicitly to praise Justinian, which makes extravagant claims for the emper-
or’s achievements.^57 Since the work is also incomplete as a record (it omits
Italy entirely and only gives lists of fortifi cations for the Balkans in book IV),
and since individual statements often cannot be checked, this is a diffi cult text
on which to base a fair assessment, especially as in those places where check-
ing is possible from archaeological or other evidence Procopius is quite often
found wanting (Chapter 7).^58 In addition, especially in the case of the forts
and fortifi ed sites in the northern provinces, many sites remain unexcavated,
or, if they have been excavated, there is nothing in the material remains (for
example, inscriptions or coins) by which they can be securely dated. It may
well be that substantial parts of the programme which Procopius ascribes to
Justinian were actually begun by Anastasius, and indeed it is entirely in the
nature of panegyric to seem to claim the credit for building anew when in fact
the work in question is a work of restoration. But even if Justinian was the
restorer rather than the initiator, the sheer amount of building suggested by
Procopius was enormous, implying capital investment in military installations
on a massive scale.
How strategic or effective it was in terms of defence is another matter.
Extensive fortifi cations were built in North Africa, but many served the pur-
pose of housing troops for supply purposes rather than actual defence, and
they were quite often modest in size. The building works in North Africa
are described in some detail by Procopius in book VI of the Buildings and
have been thoroughly studied.^59 However Procopius’s narrative puts them in
a wider context of building, and also emphasizes the importance of church
building for Justinian’s policy. His account of the building work in Carthage^60
is useful but incomplete, and one must remember that he himself left Africa at
the same time as Belisarius, and so far as we know never returned. His sources
for many of the building works he describes are indeed still unclear. When
writing of Palestine in book V, he is, not surprisingly, a good guide, as a native
of Caesarea, and his accuracy was spectacularly confi rmed by the discovery of
the Nea church in Jerusalem, dedicated to the Virgin.^61 As for the position of
the walled monastery which still stands at the foot of Mt Sinai, where Moses
saw God, it was built over the traditional site of the burning bush and in a
location already inhabited by monks and hermits. Its location clearly shows a
diplomatic and religious function, though Procopius claims that it was built to
keep Saracen invaders from entering the province of Palestine.^62 This it could
hardly do, positioned as it is in a cleft between two mountainous peaks; on the
other hand, the Justinianic walls which surrounded the monastery remain one
of its most striking features.^63 Justinian’s motives in his buildings were reli-
gious as well as military; the site of the burning bush was enclosed within its
walls, and the apse of the monastic church, built by a local architect from Aila
and with an inscription on its roof beams which commemorates the death of
Theodora in 548, is decorated with an impressive mosaic on the theme of the