Justinian I was born a Latin-speaking peasant in the Balkans and became the most ambitious emperor in Byzantine history. He reconquered North Africa, Italy, and southern Spain, codified Roman law into the legal system the Western world still uses, and built the Hagia Sophia — the most extraordinary building of the ancient world. Then plague killed a third of his population and undid nearly everything he had built.

This episode traces Justinian from his peasant origins through the Nika riots that nearly overthrew him, the reconquest campaigns, the Justinian Code, and the plague that turned his golden age into a catastrophe.

• Justinian’s peasant origins and his uncle Justin’s unlikely rise that brought him to power
• The Nika riots and Empress Theodora’s famous refusal to flee that saved the throne
• The reconquest of the Western Mediterranean and the construction of the Hagia Sophia
• The Justinian Plague that killed millions and undermined every achievement of his reign