Brian Croke Justinian the “Sleepless Emperor”
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Brian Croke Justinian the “Sleepless Emperor” The emperor Justinian is usually portrayed as an energetic and active man, forever reforming and reconquering. His reign was the longest of any Roman emperor after that of Augustus and only Basil II would subsequently rival his tenure. In effect, Justinian held imperial power from 525 when he became Caesar until his death in November 565, that is, just over forty years. What is less often remarked is that in all those forty years he hardly ever left the imperial palace, let alone Constantinople itself. He reinforced the sedentary model of the early Byzantine emperor, established by Arcadius and Theodosius II a century before. The city was his cosmos, the place where the whole world was concentrated and encapsulated. The emperor never needed to reach out to his empire; it continually came to him. Even though Justinian, like his predecessors, almost never left the imperial city, his contemporaries considered him to be an endlessly busy emperor who was preoccupied day and night with the affairs of empire. He is therefore characterized as the “sleepless emperor”. Indeed, this notion of Justinian as “sleepless” was a virtue consciously created and promoted by emperor and court. In the contemporary propaganda and satire of Justinian’s reign imperial insomnia oscillated between virtue and vice, beginning with Procopius whose picture of Justinian has shaped and coloured all subsequent interpretations from the sixth century to the present, but particularly since the discovery of his Secret History in the seventeenth century. I That sleeplessness was deliberately cast by Justinian as an imperial virtue, and could be described accordingly, is suggested by the claims of the bureaucrat and courtier John the Lydian. John characterizes Justinian in 551 as “the most indefatigable of all emperors”,1 and “for the most part keeping tireless vigil against the foe and taking pains to brave the first danger on our behalf”,2 and who makes “ceaseless efforts” for the Praetorian Prefecture to which John himself belonged.3 The historian Procopius of Caesarea, by contrast, who may well have been a friend of John, viewed Justinian’s sleeplessness very differently. In the encomiastic context of Procopius’ Buildings, his elaborate inventory of the various constructions and reconstructions attributable to Justinian, written in the mid- 550s, attention was drawn to the emperor’s austere personal habits. He apologised for them as unbecoming any imperial official, let alone an emperor, because they were not healthy practices.4 Clearly for Procopius good governance required a balanced diet and a good night’s sleep. Justinian, however, would rise from his bed “at early dawn and keeping watch over the State, and constantly managing its affairs by word and deed from early dawn to midday and equally into the night. And although he went to his couch late in the night, he immediately rose again, as if he could not endure his bed”.5 1 John Lydus, De Magistr. 3.55.1. 2 John Lydus, De Magistr. 2.15.2. 3 John Lydus, De Magistr. 3.39.1. 4 Procopius, Aed. 1.7.7. 5 Procopius, Aed. 1.7.8–9. 104 Justinian the “Sleepless Emperor” John the Lydian was possibly one of the first readers of Procopius’ Secret History,6 which is a searing account of the emperor, his wife Theodora and senior officials. In particular, Procopius is more sharply critical of the motive and outcomes of Justinian’s sleeplessness. “He was not given to sleep (ahypnos) as a general thing”,7 so Procopius wrote, “and during his two-day fast for Easter the emperor would sleep about one hour, for he made it his task to be constantly awake and to undergo hardships and to labour for no other purpose than to contrive constantly and every day more grievous calamities for his subjects”.8 Justinian’s nocturnal habits are a further subject of Procopius’ vitriol in the Secret History. He claims to report the gossip of palace insiders that “some of those who were present with the emperor at very late hours of the night presumably and held conferences with him, obviously in the palace, men whose souls were pure, seemed to see a sort of phantom spirit unfamiliar to them in place of him”.9 Procopius is probably referring here to the testimony of local bishops and theologians who kept the emperor engaged in late night theological discussions. “For one of these asserted”, so Procopius continues, “that he would rise suddenly from the imperial throne and walk up and down there...and the head of Justinian would disappear suddenly, but the rest of his body seemed to keep making these same long circuits...Later, however, when his head had returned to the body he thought to his surprise that he could fill out that which a moment before had been lacking.” Procopius admits that this gruesome reportage is only hearsay and then proceeds to add that someone else who stood beside the emperor saw his face become just a mass of flesh before the facial features reappeared.10 Next he adds the story of a monk who came to see Justinian but refused to proceed to his audience because he saw not an emperor seated on the throne but “the Lord of the Demons”.11 “And how could this man fail to be some wicked demon”, Procopius concludes, “he who never had a sufficiency of food or drink or sleep but walked about the palace at unreasonable hours of the night”.12 There is yet more. Procopius goes so far as to report the gossip that Justinian’s mother once confided that her son was not the offspring of her husband Sabbatius but of a demon. When she was conceiving Justinian, she believed she was having intercourse with a demon who quickly disappeared, as in a dream.13 The demonic emperor became a recurrent explanatory motif for Procopius.14 It is even cited to explain natural disasters.15 Subsequently, Procopius’ relentless and demonic characterisation of the ascetic and sleepless Justinian has seeped, however unconsciously, into most of the modern literature on the emperor. Discounting the rhetoric of demonology, Justinian becomes the ageing and incurable insomniac, bad-tempered, despotic and out of touch because of lack of sleep. For Justinian’s critical contemporaries and occasional courtiers such as Procopius sleeplessness would appear to be an unnatural imperial vice. 6 As argued by A. Kaldellis, “Identifying Dissident Circles in Sixth-Century Byzantium: The Friendship of Prokopios and Ioannes Lydos”, Florilegium 21 (2004), 11. 7 Procopius, Hist. Arc. 13.28. 8 Procopius, Hist. Arc. 13.32; cf. Aed. 1.7.5. 9 Procopius, Hist. Arc. 12:25. 10 Procopius, Hist. Arc. 12.23. 11 Procopius, Hist. Arc. 12.26. 12 Procopius, Hist. Arc. 12.27. 13 Procopius, Hist. Arc. 12.18–19. 14 Relevant commentary and elucidation in Averil Cameron, Procopius (London 1985), 56–57 and D. Brodka, Die Geschichtsphilosophie in der spätantiken Historiographie (Frankfurt 2004), 35–39. 15 Procopius, Hist. Arc. 18.1–4, 36, 37. .