Rome Resurgent: War and Empire in the Age of Justinian (Ancient Warfare and Civilization)

Half of this book showcases Peter Heather's strengths, which were abundant in his previous work "Empires and Barbarians" and make up the beginning and end of this work. He does an exceptional job analyzing the geopolitics and broader patterns within the Eastern Roman Empire. Critically, he spends several pages discussing how emperors earn authority, given that they were subject to frequent usurpation. Besides exploring a fascinating if understudied subject, this analysis forms the backbone of the thesis of this work: Justinian's wars of conquest in the central and Western Mediterranean were not nearly as planned as have previously been suggested, and were instead a last-ditch gambit to cement his authority after a series of disasters in the Middle East. At the end of this book he then discusses the implications of these wars and the effect they had on reshaping the Mediterranean world - eg, the depopulation of Rome and the Italian peninsula. However, neither topic comes remotely close to the kind of detail we as readers were spoiled with in "Empires and Barbarians", and I personally would have loved to read ~400 pages of analysis on the broader geopolitical and cultural forces that shaped Justinian's reign, as well as the implications of his reign.Instead the middle 200 or so pages detail the wars that define that time period, namely against the Persians, the Vandals, and the Goths. Heather focuses on the actual military actions that define these wars, focusing on troop deployment, maneuvering, casualties, etc. Unfortunately, true to his background as a historian, he cannot provide too many details on these battles, because most of what we know from them comes from a single source (credit where credit is due: Heather does qualify many of his commentaries by suggesting where this source was during a particular battle, or how his opinion may have changed over the course of his lifetime). While reading this I often lost track of how many years had passed between certain events, since battles and sieges are rattled off in rapid succession. The most disappointing bit, though: the fascinating characters that define this period, Justinian and his wife Theodora, are virtually absent throughout this portion of the book. In fact the very idea of specific characters, with personalities and idiosyncrasies that influence events around them, seems to have been deprioritized (I will say that this was also the case in "Empires and Barbarians", but those shortcomings were more than compensated by his comprehensive analysis of the trends defining that time and place). Characters like Solomon, Chosroes, and Totila appear suddenly and cease to be mentioned when they exit the world stage, with limited examinations of why they may have taken certain courses of action or preferred certain strategies.In short, it seems that this is trying to be two books at once: a serious review of the geopolitical and cultural trends leading up to and following Justinian's thirty-year reign, as well as a short review of the wars throughout that reign. In my mind, Heather excels at the first and does a decent job of the second. With the exception at the occasional potshots toward contemporary politicians, it is very well written and engaging. However, in juggling these two roles, it does not provide the details on either subject that members of a target audience might crave.

The topic of this book has attracted a lot of interest: to what extent, if at all, were the extensive foreign campaigns of Justinian (reigned 527-565 CE) counterproductive in causing the Roman Empire long-term weaknesses, especially in the realm of military defense? This is a difficult question that requires a differentiated answer. The conquest by Belisarius of North Africa, for instance, was almost painless against the Vandal occupiers; but the Gothic wars in Italy were devastating. As Heather correctly describes it, Constantinople was faced by enemies on three fronts: the Persians to the East, the Vandals and Goths to the West, and the various tribes in the Balkans; and the capital city was not always successful in managing all three simultaneously. Heather's arguments, which are based not only on literary sources but also on the increasing body of archaeological evidence, do not point conclusively in one direction or another, but do suggest that Justinian set a very high bar that, at the least, his successors were far short of reaching. I thought the first chapter, on the role of military victory in legitimizing central authority, was especially helpful in thinking about the reasons for Justinian's aggressive policies.

Rome Resurgent, Peter Heather's fourth book on the Roman Empire, may perhaps be legitimately characterized as a conversation between the author and Procopius of Caesarea mediated through Kenneth Waltz's ideas put forth in Man, the State and War. Even at a remove of a millenium and a half, Procopius looms large in this book and hence, any review must necessarily give a context to him and his works which form the basis on which this book (and really, any book that deals with the topic) is written.Procopius of Caesarea was jurist educated and trained in the classical Roman mould who served as legal advisor to Belisarius, Justinian's brilliant general who led the extraordinary campaigns that dominated the emperor's reign. He wrote a chronicle of the various wars of the regime across multiple fronts (North Africa and Italy as part of the 'reconquest' and Persia as part of super-power rivalry) that lasted the best part of two decades and generated significant upheaval in the Empire. More intriguingly, he also wrote one of the most striking books of antiquity, the so-called Secret History that was an unbelievably subversive account of the imperial regime in Constantinople (I have also written a review of the Secret History). If the Wars saw Procopius as an official chronicler, straying between being laudatory to sometimes neutral in his narration of the various campaigns, in the Secret History (SH), Procopius produces a no-holds barred polemic that is clearly the work of a man thoroughly disillusioned with the misery and suffering engendered by the wars of callous regime. In the SH, Procopius' protagonists are incompetent, greedy, vicious, vile and debauched and the human suffering caused by their actions is put down to their inherent evil - a 'classical realist' explanation in the sense that the actions and injustices of a state were seen as the reflection of the flawed and sinful nature of their rulers. Even allowing for the exaggeration that ancient authors were known for and which was why some of their more sensational claims were discounted, it must be acknowledged that the Secret History has weighed heavily on all subsequent evaluations of Justinian - the shadow of the SH has always followed the impressive accomplishments that the regime claimed for itself - Justinian may have authorised the most influential legal codebooks in history, established one of the most impressive architectural monuments in the form of the Hagia Sofia, briefly reconquered both North Africa and Italy for the Roman Empire and fought the Persians to draw, yet the lasting legacy of the SH has always ensured that even the most committed Romano-philes hesitate before addressing him as Justinian the 'great'.Coming to Rome Resurgent itself, Peter Heather attempts to re-evaluate the reign of Justinian and his actions through a lens of the political system in which he operated rather than through the prism of his character. In that sense, his overall thesis is that Justinian's actions were a natural and ultimately rational outcome of the 'state system' facing any emperor of the time - this thesis borrows heavily from Kenneth Waltz's 'three image' system of analysing war - the first image being the nature of an individual, the second image being the internal structure of a state and the third image being the anarchical state system. Heather's analysis emphasises the second image in analysing Justinian's policies and minimizes, almost to the point of discarding, the first image - in other words, Justinian's actions can only be understood by analysing the internal political structure of the Roman Empire, the paradoxically precarious position of the autocratic emperor and the inherent instability of regimes which were always vulnerable to overthrow. Most importantly, in keeping with Waltz's neo-realist principles, the nature of the individual in charge is almost irrelevant to the actions of the state and the author keeps this as the central principle of his thesis, applying a 'second-image' realist analysis to the actions of Justinian, without ever explicitly referring to neo-realism by name.The author's line of analysis commences by characterising the inherent instability of the Roman imperial system itself, where the emperor was unquestioned autocrat and was legitimized by the claim of divine favour that was the foundation of all good that happened to the Empire, primarily manifesting itself as victory in war and prosperity. As a logical converse, failure in war served to thoroughly delegitimize imperial regimes and would spark off plots of assassination and usurpation. The political system of the Roman Empire invested the emperor with 'imperium' and 'maiestas' - the authority to wage war and extend the borders of empire - hence war making, albeit successful war-making, was perhaps the most critical role of an emperor.Viewed in such light, Justinian's bellicosity can be understood in terms of his experience of the instability that accompanied the series of successions before he came on the throne and his extremely shaky position after the Nika riots where his own troops slaughtered the residents of Constantinople. To highlight to his subjects that he was a legitimate ruler, he sought war with the Persians soon after coming on the throne and then sought a small victory in the West to quell unrest in the wake of the Nika riots. Thus, far removed from having any natural predilection for war or a grand strategy aiming to reconquer the 'West', Peter Heather makes a very convincing argument that his military strategy in North Africa and Italy was gradualist and opportunistic. Initially seeking a quick victory in a limited conflict for domestic propaganda, a run of luck combined with the skills of Belisarius and the structural weaknesses of his opponents soon morphed into a commitment to total war and reconquest for prestige purposes.If matters had ended here, there would be no equivocation - Justinian would be hailed as a genius, Procopius would have remained laudatory and he might have ended the Wars with a celebration of the triumph of Rome and the Secret History would never have been written. What complicated matters was the reaction engineered by the wars of Justinian - winning territory was far easier than retaining it and North Africa quickly degenerated into rebellions and raids by Berbers, a new generation of Gothic leaders in Italy fought back extremely strongly and the Persians decided to take advantage of Roman preoccupation in the West to start another series of destructive wars that impacted urban communities in the Near East. Justinian's wars now generated reactions out of proportion to the original intent of strengthening an emperor's standing at home - it was this cycle of violence that took decades to control, generated unimaginable misery, led to the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives and turned Procopius decisively against the regime - if the Wars was born from the initial triumph of Justinian's conquests, the Secret History was born from the misery and despondency that accompanied the seemingly never-ending cycle of secondary violence that was precipitated by Justinian's wars.In a surprising turn for a military historian, the actual campaigns are narrated in a straightforward manner, almost a simple retelling of the Wars (one can see this on the Notes pages where entire pages refer simply to various chapters from Procopius' book) - but it is clear that the intent is not to give a thorough battlefield account. The book is an evaluation of Justinian as he fits in the political tradition of the Roman Empire, hence, the initial third of the book is not even concerned with Justinian but touches upon the very important points of the political system of Rome and the role of the Emperor and the instability preceding the accession of Justinian. The middle of the book is a broadly chronological retelling of the campaigns where Justinian is surprisingly absent or merely an ephemeral presence in the background for large parts of the narration - the protagonist here is Belisarius the general, Justinian is mentioned almost only in passing when he takes a major decision or sends instructions to Belisarius. In some ways, it is quite appropriate for the tone of the book wherein Justinian is often portrayed as acting within the constraints of a system imposed on him rather than possessing overwhelming agency himself.In the final few chapters of the book, the author attempts to summarize his evaluation and concedes upfront that in terms of human misery and the avoidable loss of lives, Justinian's wars were indefensible. However, from the point of what being an emperor entailed, they were understandable and he diverges most sharply from Procopius in the economic assessment - whereas for Procopius, Justinian's wars were not just a waste of money but they also created unbearable tax burdens, in the author's assessment, prosperity probably returned soon to the war devastated provinces after an admittedly long period of structural adjustment and over the century or so where these territories were held by Rome, the conquests paid themselves off. I am a lot less convinced of the economic argument because a state fiscus can be made to look good by taxing the populace to death - and Justinian's successor immediately brought down taxes upon accession, possibly an admission that taxes were very high - however, I do agree with the author that the recaptured territories were probably not a desolate landscape of misery, death and resentment as depicted by Procopious (though within the lifetime of Procopius that was probably closer to the truth - even Peter Heather acknowledges that the territories paid for themselves in the 'long run' - Procopius probably died within a decade of the final pacification of Italy so from his perspective he saw the ruin of these provinces and not their revival). In the author's assessment, the actions of Justinian probably didn't undermine the empire fatally either economically or militarily to explain its eventual capitulation to the Arabs - here I am not so convinced. I agree that positing long chains of causation across centuries is problematic - in that line of reasoning it is sometimes possible to make absurd assertions such as ultimate responsibility of the Holocaust lying with Napoleon because without his campaigns a unified German state may never have emerged. However, I think Peter Heather understates the extent to which destabilizing events in the Balkans were engineered by Justinian's moves - in the author's assessment, the rise of the Avar Empire and the Slavification of the Balkans cannot be blamed on Justinian's policies whereas I am not so sure - I do think that Justinian's games of chess with various steppe nomads eventually did engineer the geopolitical currents that changed the situation in the Balkans and Danubian plains that came to a denouement in the reign of his successors. However, in perhaps an abrupt volte-face in literally the last paragraph of the book, after spending a whole chapter seemingly exculpating Justinian, Peter Heather states that Justinian's policies made bellicosity towards Persia and the nomadic tribes a sin-qua-non for any emperor that followed - Justinian's successors had a legacy of war to live upto and they couldn't afford to cool down temperatures for fear of appearing weak for their domestic constituency - this sparked off the nearly fifty year cycle of war between Rome and Persia that ultimately brought down both Empires and hence, in the final final summary, the author does hold Justinian responsible for the fall - or at least demotion to regional power status - of the Eastern Roman Empire - an assessment that brings Peter Heather unexpectedly closer to my - and possibly Procopius' - assessment of Justinian.I began this review with a discussion about Procopius and I cannot end it without him. While Peter Heather comes across as a very fine and thoughtful writer, Procopius really shines through. If the author does a good job of explaining Justinian's actions through a realist paradigm, one most also concede that in writing the SH, Procopius in his own way questioned autocracy and despotism in a way that almost pre-figures John Locke and his social contract theory. It must be remembered that Procopius was writing in a time when the Emperor was almost unquestionable on account of his divine sanction - Procopius in his SH challenges people to imagine how could a person who brought about so much misery for his own ambition and lust for power be divinely appointed? I believe that it is in this vein one must read the SH - as a challenge to the divine claims that served to legitimize unchecked and absolute power. There is much debate about Procopius' motives in writing the SH, with Anthony Kaldellis stating the maximalist position that his aim was to engineer an overthrow - Peter Heather is rightly skeptical of such claims but doesn't really advance an alternative. In my mind, I think the SH needs to be read as a counter to imperial propaganda - Procopius was well aware that imperial self-promotion would emphasize Justinian's success in War and his grand buildings and he wasn't going to allow posterity to forget the human misery that were lay on the obverse. Procopius wrote the book - literally - on the regimes Wars and Buildings - in my view, the SH was his aim to balance the balance sheet on Justinian; in emphasising that a regime be measured by the totality of its actions, in particular as they impacted people who had otherwise no outlet to make their misery known, Procopius was remarkably sensitive to the idea of telling 'history from below'. Plenty of ancient historians condemned unsuccessful emperors or condemned emperors who were safely enconsced in their graves - Procopius is the only writer who wrote a blistering critique of a successful emperor while he was alive. In my mind, for his fearlessness in even putting down such incendiary thoughts to paper in an age of imperial absolutism, it is Procopius who deserves the sobriquet of 'Great' - far more than a Justinian could.

This is a gem of book that reappraises the reign of Justinian and reviews, analyses and discusses in depth the main themes debated by historians for several generations. It is very accessible, easy to read and well supplemented by half a dozen maps, a glossary and a chronology and backed up with a comprehensive bibliography. In other words, this is a book written by a scholar but successfully targeted at the general reader.While they may be a few glitches, these are minor and clearly no enough to spoil the book. I will mention just one of these to illustrate the point.There are a couple of instances where the author feels obliged to vent his anger and personal feelings with regards to a certain Boris Johnson being betrayed by one of his allies, something that is both anachronistic and difficult to relate with the subject at hand. However, apart from these two instances, I found all of the rest – and in particular the author’s ability to integrate seamlessly the abundant existing scholarship - simply excellent.The over-arching question is to reassess whether Justinian and his re-conquest of Africa and Italy should be seen as the root cause of what Peter Heather calls “the Fall of the Eastern Empire”, that is the loss of about three quarters of its territory to the Muslim onslaught, but also the invasion of Italy and of the Balkans by, respectively, the Lombards and the Slavs. In other words, was the Empire so overstretched as a result of these efforts so as to be incapable of resisting the Arab attacks?Within (or perhaps alongside) this question, which used to receive a positive answer, lay a number of other assumptions. One was that Justinian always had a “grand strategy” – an over-arching plan to re-conquer the western part of the Roman Empire – or at least as much of it as he could – at the earliest opportunity. Here, and alongside other authors writing on the topic over the last thirty years or so, Peter Heather’s answer is a resounding “no” which he demonstrates by analysing both the key features of the Christian Roman Empire including its ideology and culture of Victory, and the events that lead to the invasion and conquest of Vandal Africa. The author demonstrates very convincingly that the later was essentially a “last desperate gamble”, and a high risk one, from a regime that had just survived a coup by slaughtering tens of thousands when putting down the Nika riot, and which badly needed a victory to acquire legitimacy. The gamble, however, paid off rather magnificently and to such an extent that Justinian’s position became unassailable for decades. Even the invasion and sack of Antioch by the Sassanids – largely made possible by the depleted state of the Roman army in the East with many of the troops sent to conquer Italy - did not lead to attempts to overthrow him.The initial stages of the conquest of Italy over the Goths were also opportunistic although, in this case, Justinian and his general Belisarius failed to win the war quickly for a number of reasons including mistakes, all of which are well presented and explained in detail in the book. This inability to win the war quickly enough did indeed have consequences with regards the defence of the east but the plague epidemic and the additional strain was clearly unpredictable and cannot be blamed on Justinian, nor can the onslaught of the Lombards on Italy and of the Avars in the Balkans shortly after his death. Additionally, and as shown throughout the book, starting with the introduction, Justinian did not abandon or even neglect the defence of the Balkans. There was an impressive fortification program meant to allow it to withstand nomadic raids and Slavic invasions and while it could not entirely compensate for the troops that had been shifted to other fronts (Italy in particular), it did allow the Empire to maintain control, even at the price of much suffering.Another interesting section is an appraisal of Justinian’s personality and aims, together with an explanation of the apparently strange ambivalence of some of the sources – Procopius in particular. Essentially, according to the author, all of Justinian’s achievements, including the great legal reforms, were aimed at bolstering his regime and staying in power. As mentioned, the implication was that there was no “great plan” to reconquer the western half of the Empire. Moreover, the Emperor was not seeking the good of his subjects but merely to act in ways that cemented his grip on the throne and his power. However horrible this may seem to our modern eyes, this is probably a very realistic assessment that corresponded to the need for the Emperor to ensure his own political (and physical) survival including against whatever internal opposition that could arise if he was to suffer defeat or failure.To conclude, the author shows that it is his successor Justinian II, and his unwise policy of antagonising both the Sassanid Persians and the Avars and, even more so, the long war against Sassanid Persia following the execution of Emperor Maurice in AD 602 which lasted more than a quarter of a century that brought the Empire to its knees, leaving it barely able to withstand the Arab onslaught but incapable to defend its eastern provinces.The main value of this book is therefore to present a comprehensive reassessment of Justinian, his reign, his achievements and his shortcomings within the context and ideology of his times, a reassessment that pulls together and draws upon the vast amount of studies that the Age of Justinian has generated over the past thirty years of so. Five stars.

Potted, rambling, irrelevant. Every major factor is missed or mangled. Read Procopius or Browning instead.A. SPEND, SPEND, SPENDJustinian’s empire was the biggest, richest state on the planet, with the biggest armed forces. (China was also about to reunite, and then probably became bigger.) The empire had hundreds of thousands of men, all of whom were paid and fed on time in the massive exercise of taxation and logistics which is what the Romans did.At the top level, the Empire never ran out of money or supplies. Enormous subventions were paid to the Persians and others. Huge building programmes were carried through. The capital was fed and entertained. A large court was maintained.At the same time, the Empire could readily make colossal additional expenditures when required : 100,000 Roman gold pounds on the failed attack on the Vandals in 468. This is more than the entire income of the Achaemenid empire at its height in 450 BCE.Heather misses this completely.B. BUDGET BREAKDOWNIt would be a straightforward exercise to use the varied sources to estimate the size of the main budget items : number of units and men, and their pay and provisions ; the fleet ; foreign aid ; the public works, the capital’s supplies, etc.Heather misses this completely.C. TAX, TAX, TAXSo Constantinople’s tax system raised lots of money and supplies and everyone got paid on time with a big surplus to spend on additional measures. It must have been an imposing system.Heather explains none of this. Instead he gives us tales of tax dodgers from two and three hundred years earlier, padded out with scams from his own imaginings ; one delay in army supplies two centuries earlier (and even then the provisions did eventually get through) ; and one army payroll heist. This would all have been ancient history to Justinian.And Heather quotes with approval the example of English taxation 700 years later, at its nadir under King John. England was a small unitary kingdom, and John’s micro management led the barons to revolt and force him to sign Magna Carta. So this is not a very helpful example.Sometimes it is true the pay did not get through and the troops might desert. But this was down to the logistical difficulties in the war zone, not shortage of money, and the arrears were repaid when the troops rejoined the colours.D. DEATH AT THE HIPPODROMEThe unruly Hippodrome factions had been allowed to have a central role in the choice of emperor, and had forced a previous emperor to beg his crown back from them. The crowds rioted against Justinian, proposing a new emperor. 30,000 of them were killed, along with senatorial opponents and imperial hopefuls. This was the correct imperial response to restore order and stability. For Heather it leaves Justinian reeling and in need of a quick PR coup in the West. But all the opposition was dead, and the emperor was large and in charge.E. GO WESTJustinian pulled out of the stalemate on the eastern front, by giving territory back to the Persians and a one off gold subsidy. He then switched all his key resources to the reconquest of the West. Shameful and humiliating, says Heather, which makes it all the more striking as a policy change. It would take a year to assemble and prepare the fleet of 600 ships needed for the West, so this was not a sudden whim. Yes Justinian agonised and prayed over the fleet. The same happened on D Day. But he also performed meticulous planning to avoid the disasters which had overtaken previous armadas. The fleet stopped midway at a friendly port to pick up vital intelligence, and the equally vital fresh horses for the cavalry. Carthage was recaptured at the first attack. Dithering and fluke, says Heather.F. THE FLEETJustinian’s fleet performed faultlessly on its first major mission to Africa. It then landed men and supplies at will repeatedly on the coasts of Italy throughout the following campaigns. This put Constantinople at a huge military advantage. Heather misses this completely.G. GENERALS AND MINISTERS.Justinian chooses able lieutenants, and sticks by them even when they are defeated or unpopular. Belisarius obviously stands out – able to win battles by surprise, speed and stratagems, often without all his troops, or even any troops at all. Heather thinks this is cheating and underhand. Belisarius can also stay on the defensive, shepherding superior Persian forces out of Syria in 541. Heather thinks this is pusillanimous. All of these men remained loyal to Justinian, and he could even let Belisarius celebrate the first non royal triumph for half a millennium.H. SUCCESSION PLANNINGRome always had a spare heir for any neighbouring kingdom. So another Antiochus could take over at Antioch, and another Herod be sent to Palestine. Justinian continued this time honoured approach, with the disaffected royals and rebels from the barbarian kingdoms coming over to him. Heather complains this is sneaky and underhand. But it was absolutely standard for the time. The Persian king even asked Justinian to take in his favourite third son, Chosroes, to improve his life chances.Justinian’s own handover of power, to another Justin, is carried through flawlessly, a complete change from the hit and miss riotous successions of the previous century, as Heather fails to note.I. ONE HOLY CATHOLIC & APOSTOLIC CHURCHHeather’s attempts to describe the admittedly dense squabbles within the church are themselves too dense, formulaic and repetitive to understand.Browning perhaps wisely explains it more in terms of the personalities involved, rather than the persons of the Trinity.Certainly the reconquest of the awkward Rome and Carthage made it easier for Justinian to get Church unity.J. RECONQUISTABy the end of the reign provinces were rejoining the empire voluntarily – the richest quarter of Spain came back within the imperial fold with no violence or destruction. For Heather this is a cheat and doesn’t count.K. POTTED, RAMBLING AND IRRELEVANTHeather devotes 110 pages, a full third of the book, to introductory material, way too much. Most of it is problems from two and three hundred years previously, ancient history. The rest is jerky accounts of the previous century, flashbacks within flashbacks, too compressed and bitty to follow. Heather himself has already covered this ground much better in earlier works. Justinian’s reign is action packed, so Heather is able to provide little narrative thread or context in the remaining space. Heather adopts a sour 21st century sneering tone throughout. His limited storyline is convincing only when closely following Procopius.Heather finally takes up the final 30 pages of his book with a similar potted ramble through the next century, short on relevance and long on uncontrolled what ifs, which vanish up their own hypotheses.L. LEGACYJustinian fulfilled the imperial job spec and then some. He unified the Church, he laid down the Law, he reconquered most of the lost provinces, he rebuilt the foundations of imperial defence, literally. He built great churches and public buildings. He firmly stamped out disorders, he securely established the succession. Most of these were things his predecessors had been conspicuously failing to do. The Balkans and Syria perhaps paid a price for this at times, although to leave field armies there would mostly have been idle (Syria) or waiting for hordes they couldn’t predict and couldn’t catch (the Balkans).The empire he handed on was immeasurably stronger. When the Islamic whirlwind swept out of Arabia, the only major state left standing between the Loire and the Indus was the remnant of this empire, its immovable forward line in the Taurus mountains, within easy distance of Damascus and Baghdad, its fleet and defences throwing back repeated attacks. It withstood Islam for 800 years. From Constantinople went forth the missionaries to convert Eastern Europe and to establish the third Rome. Constantinople went on to provide much of the knowledge base for the Italian Renaissance.Behind this bulwark, the rest of Christendom had the time and space to develop the resources and technologies to call forth New Worlds and bypass Islam. Otherwise we would all be speaking Arabic.

Peter Heather is an academic historian writing for the non-specialist reader although some broad knowledge of the Roman world in late antiquity would be an advantage. I have long been interested in the later Roman Empire and wanted to know Heather’s assessment of Justinian’s efforts to re-establish East Roman rule over parts of the former Western Empire in the 6th century.This is not a weighty tome and is relatively easy to read. Do not be misled by the slimness of this volume however as the author analyses his subject thoroughly, wearing his learning lightly and providing sufficient narrative to allow us to follow both the historical events he is describing and the arguments he is developing.Heather poses two questions:1. Did the Eastern Roman emperor Justinian have a romantic vision of reuniting the two halves of the Roman Empire by re-conquering the former Western Roman Empire?2. Did the hard work to re-conquer the Western half of the Empire namely in the money and manpower expended leave the expanded Empire seriously weakened and vulnerable in the 7th century firstly to Persian and then to Arab invaders?As a good historian Heather discusses his sources and he deals extensively with Procopius who provides much of our knowledge of the period and its military campaigns. Procopius appears to say different things e.g. in the Secret History compared with his other books although Heather has an answer for this – criticism of the emperor was not encouraged and could be punished by exile or worse and so Procopius could let off steam and provide gossip e.g. about Theodora which he knew to be untrue. In general Heather considers that Procopius is more reliable than other authors when describing military campaigns although he cannot use him exclusively as he was not present on all occasions. The bibliography shows that the author has read widely in both primary and secondary sources. Although his sources appear mostly literary he frequently mentions archaeological evidence that back up his arguments particularly in the later parts of his book where he reaches his conclusions about the value of Justinian’s reconquests and their effect on the continuing security of the Eastern Roman Empire.Heather shows us that the position of an emperor could be a highly precarious one and that Justinian despite his long reign had not always been so secure. Emperors depended on the perception of divine favour to rule, so it was important that an emperor show he had God’s continuing support. One way to show His favour was by winning military victories against the Empire’s enemies; Persians and barbarians. Conversely, losing military campaigns indicated the withdrawal of divine support and leaving the emperor vulnerable to ousting by potential rivals.Therefore early defeats to the Sassanid Persians were very damaging to Justinian and the subsequent Nika riots came very close to seeing him replaced but bribery did just enough to see him retain power albeit precariously. What he needed was a win, specifically a military victory.The Vandal kingdom established in modern Tunisia and Sardinia had for many decades had been a major loss to the Western Empire in terms of tax revenues and various attempts to expel these barbarians had failed due to the difficulty in launching a successful seaborne invasion. So for Justinian to launch another invasion even under the competent Belisarius was somewhat of a gamble. A success would be a great underpinning of Justinian’s status as emperor but a defeat could have both the Blues and Greens (the semi-Mafiosi-like supporters of the chariot racing teams in the Hippodrome) baying for his blood and the installation of a new emperor. The gamble came off and Justinian was far more secure and had additional revenues for further conquests.Heather doesn’t say that military success is the only reason for an emperor continuing in power although it was very important to be seen to be a victor; especially when vanquished peoples were paraded in chains at Constantinople at the triumph for the general and where the emperor received even more glory as it had been done at his command. Justinian had also to be a lawgiver and a theologian. The emperor had to ensure that the written law was maintained as this was a potent symbol of the continuing civilisation of the Empire and a practical measure to preserve domestic tranquillity. Regarding the Christian faith he had to ensure a unity in belief across the Empire to avoid discord and schism. Whereas an emperor was less likely to lose his position for solely legislative and ecclesiastical reasons, no one wanted to have potential rivals using dissatisfaction in these areas to drum up support by championing the disaffected.Justinian’s codification of Roman law was far more successful than his attempt to arbiter religious disputes but even here he could only do so much and elements of the consolidated codes and commentaries appear to have been rushed in places. Even so the importance of having been seen to have instigated a great legal triumph in his reign was important to strengthen his hold on power as his predecessors had not been able to achieve this. In a believing age the religious controversy about the divine and human natures of Christ had great potential for causing domestic unrest and was a legitimate matter for the emperor to take interest. As vice-gerent of God on earth the emperor had to preserve both the religious unity of his own Eastern Empire and relations with the Western Empire in the form of the Pope who was the sole authority there. Justinian’s efforts to reconcile the decision of the Council of Chalcedon with the beliefs of many eastern bishops were only ever partly successful.The conquest of Italy was much lengthier and more costly than the fight against the Vandals. There were successes and reversals depending on the demands of the Persian front and the amount of fresh supplies and soldiers that could augment the existing armies. Gradually the Ostrogoths were worn down and their fighting cadre destroyed. It had helped that the kingdom was initially bereft of strong leadership but even when this was supplied it could only slow down the resistance to the tactical supremacy of the Eastern armies under first Belisarius and then Narses. The success in Italy proved to be short lived as the peninsula was attacked from the north by the Lombards only three years after the death of Justinian and many gains were soon lost.In conclusion Heather provides answers to his two questions. Justinian did not have a master plan to re-conquer the former Western Empire from the various barbarians who had carved out kingdoms in its lands. It was more by expediency; this project was started as a desperate gamble to gain any military success to steady Justinian’s hold as emperor. That it went well was partly due to luck but also due to good generalship which in Belisarius (who rarely put a foot wrong) and later Narses, he was fortunate to have in command of the large but expensive armies. The conquest of Italy was pursued because the succession crisis in the Ostrogothic kingdom offered Justinian an opportunity to make easy gains although they eventually proved time-consuming and costly. The success in southern Spain which Heather only briefly mentions was transient and left no lasting Roman rule as in Africa and Italy.Heather argues that these costly military campaigns did not weaken the Eastern Empire as the African lands were not lost until the mid 7th century and parts of Italy were retained for longer. The Empire gained considerable tax revenues from the re-absorbed lands of the old Western Empire which more than paid for the cost of taking them. Archaeological and other evidence suggests that trade and commerce were not diminished over the rest of the 6th century. It was not until the following century that the disaster of defeats to Persia and then the Arabs which lost Syria, Palestine and Egypt at first temporarily and then for good greatly weakened the Eastern Roman Empire of late antiquity and its successor based primarily in its Anatolian heartland was both a different and medieval Byzantine empire.This is a book I can recommend highly. My only caveat is that Heather often uses up to date analogies when trying to make his points. I can understand why he does this but in the long term it may be counterproductive to mention Boris Johnson and Michael Gove as future readers may not be aware of these current political figures depending on how successful they may be in their own present day struggles for power.

I’ve read several books by Peter Heather and I consider him the master of this period of Roman and European history (I believe it’s known as Late Antiquity these days as “the Dark Ages” is now considered a completely misleading term).Some of the material in this book overlaps with two other books by the author, Empires and Barbarians and The Restoration of Rome, both of which I’ve reviewed on Amazon. The latter lists Justinian as one of the “restorers” of Rome (along with Theoderic and Charlemagne). In this volume, the author shows Justinian more as a destroyer than a restorer, though it’s in the nature of history that there isn’t really a contradiction here. The premise of this volume is that Justinian’s wars against Persia in the East and his campaigns to regain lost chunks of the Roman Empire in the West were ultimately ruinous in terms of loss of life and led to no lasting political or economic stability for those who survived. However, one of the author’s hallmarks is his judicious sense of balance and he stops short of arguing – as other revisionists do – that Justinian’s wars contributed directly to the 7th century East Roman Empire’s inability to withstand the onslaughts of Islam. Those revisionists would argue that a stronger East Roman Empire, perhaps allied with Zoroastrian Persia, could have checked the Islamic armies and changed the course of world history. Maybe they have a point, maybe not. Heather refuses to get into that kind of speculation. Instead he merely argues that East Roman weakness in the 7th century wasn’t directly attributable to Justinian but to the mistakes of his successors later in the sixth century.However, he has no time for an older generation of historians who saw Justinian as “one of history’s great romantics, desperate to return the Roman Empire to its glorious apogee.” Instead he argues that Justinian’s military campaigns began as a “desperate gamble to save his imperial skin”. That gamble arose from the events of January 532, which Heather describes in gripping detail. It’s amazing to think what a powerful effect chariot racing and the animosity between the rival teams of Blues and Greens could have on imperial affairs. It’s also noteworthy that it was Justinian’s wife, the Empress Theodora, who put the fire in his belly when he was ready to cut and run. Ultimately, though, as Heather argues, it was Justinian’s need to stamp his authority on the empire that led him to provoke a war with Persia and then seek to recover Italy and the former Roman North Africa from the Goths and Vandals respectively. Heather says, “all the many thousands of human beings who died….were killed to satisfy the short-term political agendas of an autocratic ruler who cared not one jot for the fate of anybody outside his immediate circle.” This is revisionist history at its best: not overtly ideological but just humanitarian.I’ve noted before that Heather has a very engaging style. He presents a mass of complex material in a lively and informal way. He must be good at this because even I can follow what he’s saying.I would recommend this book with enthusiasm to anyone who has read other books by the author; to anyone who is interested in this period of European history; and to anyone who enjoys reading history that is written in an erudite but entertaining way.

I thought this was a very good price for a brand new hard back and it looks a really interesting read. It arrived well packed and to the normal Prime delivery deadline. I have enjoyed all Peter Heather's previous books on later Rome so I expect this will also be an excellent and illuminating read.