ABSTRACT
For those who believe that 'a week is a long time in polities', Byzantine history is a wearisome business. The reign of Justinian 527–65 marks the climax of the first period of Byzantine history. Justinian and Theodora peer down the ages from the mosaic walls of San Vitale challenging romantic and historian alike, for their reign and their era had the attributes of greatness in struggle, endeavour and ultimate failure. The restoration of the Roman world, based on the Catholic religion as defined in the first four general councils and interpreted by the emperor himself as intermediary between God and the human race, is the keynote of the reign. The Monophysites by now held the key to any restoration of religious, and ultimately political, unity between the east and west Roman worlds. The dangers implicit in this divergence of interpretation became clear immediately, for Leo treated all those who had reservations over the Definition as heretics.
