ABSTRACT
The death of Anastasius without a direct heir in 518 produced another crisis of succession, but most people seemed anxious to avoid a destructive struggle. The new emperor, Justin, gained the crown through intrigues that are not entirely clear. He was an Illyrian of fairly humble origin and limited education who had become the count of the Excubitors, the emperor’s personal bodyguards. In the prime of life and a native speaker of Latin inspired by the history of Rome’s great accomplishments, Justinian yearned to recover the West and restore the territorial integrity of the Empire. A passionate believer in Chalcedonian orthodoxy as the true, universal Christian faith, he also hoped to root out paganism and heresy in the united realm and spread the “true faith” to other realms. Justinian’s policy of codifying and revising the corpus of Roman law was a great success. It is what one recalls first about his reign.
