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Rome and the Justinian Era

 

            Since the permanent dividing of the Roman Empire in 395 ad, eastern rulers viewed themselves as the emperors of Rome. This all changed in 527, when a nobleman named Justinian took over. He ruled most of Rome's territory that was ever ruled. As a result of him going to power, all the Byzantine emperors ruled with absolute power over the state and the church. The life of the people of Rome changed tremendously due to Justinian. First, He started the great city of Constantinople, where he spent a good deal of time upgrading the area. He built a new church called the "Hagia Sophia, known to be the greatest church in the Christian world. Another famous place that he cleaned up was the Hippodrome, where wild chariot races and performances acts happened. Also some other general things he fixed included baths, schools and hospitals. As far as their learning, the people study a lot from the Greeks and Romans, this influenced them to start speaking this. One of the most important changes used for the Byzantine Empire was Justinian's code. The main purposes for this was to preserve Roman law, define the law of the empire, and keep the idea that people need to be governed by law.
             As Justinian's death was nearby, disaster started to strike. In 542 after his death a plague killed a big percentage of Byzantines, around an average of 10000 a day. As time went on more and more groups tried to control the Byzantine Empire like the Muslims. The empire began to grow small. By 1453 the Ottoman Turks finally took hold of Constantinople. Other changes occurred as the during the empire times, including the split inside the church. During the years of the Byzantine Empire, differences occurred between the eastern and western parts of the church. The leader of the east side was the patriarch and on the west side was the Pope. Well in 730 Emperor Leo 3rd banned the use of religious images used by eastern Christians.


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