• The churches of San Vitale and Sant’Apollinare in the imperial city
of Ravenna in Italy, as well as the Great Palace in Constantinople,
display magnificent frescoes and mosaics in honor of God and the
imperial family.• Under Justinian, the literary arts of history and poetry flourished.
But the emperor’s whim also led to the state closure of the
neoplatonic Academy in Athens in 529. It had been a real and
symbolic center of Greek culture for almost 1,000 years.
o The Pandidakterion (sometimes called a “university”) of
Constantinople was founded in 425 under Theodosius
II; Justinian used its resources in his architectural and
legal initiatives.o The school had 31 chairs for such subjects as arithmetic,
geometry, law, medicine, music, and rhetoric; 16 chairs
teaching in Greek; and 15 chairs teaching in Latin. It flourished
as a shining example of higher learning until the 9th century and
survived in diminished form for hundreds more years.Efforts at Religious Unity
• In religious matters, Justinian was a staunch defender of the Nicene
Creed and made real if unsuccessful efforts to achieve unity within
the empire in matters of doctrine.
• As part of his policy of embracing the western part of the empire and
seeking to restore it as part of a unified state, Justinian recognized
the primacy of the bishop of Rome in 528 and maintained the
doctrinal definition of Chalcedon, reversing the monophysite
position that had dominated the empire since 483.• At the same time, he sought to placate the strong monophysite
advocates in Constantinople—not least Theodora—tendencies that
he also increasingly shared.
o In the Theopaschite controversy (the term refers to a member
of the Trinity suffering on the cross), Justinian adopted this