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Justinian was born around 482 to a Latin-speaking peasant family in Tauresium, in modern North Macedonia. His uncle Justin walked to Constantinople to escape poverty, rose to command the Excubitors and, though illiterate, seized the throne in 518 with military backing and bribes. Justin had his nephew educated in law and theology; Justinian became co-emperor in 527 and sole ruler later that year. He pressed his uncle to change the marriage laws so he could wed Theodora, a former pantomime actress and courtesan from the Hippodrome. In 532 the rival Blues and Greens chariot factions united in the Nika riots, burned much of the city and tried to crown the senator Hypatius. Justinian prepared to flee until Theodora declared that royal purple makes a fine burial shroud; Belisarius and Mundus then sealed the Hippodrome and killed some 30,000 people.

He rebuilt with the Hagia Sophia, designed by Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of Tralles and completed in 537, reportedly declaring Solomon, I have outdone thee. Tribonian condensed centuries of Roman law into the Corpus Juris Civilis. Belisarius swiftly conquered the Vandals, but the Gothic War in Italy dragged on for nearly two decades while Justinian paid gold to the Persians. In 541 bubonic plague arrived on grain ships from Egypt; Justinian caught it and survived, but labor and tax revenue collapsed. Theodora died in 548, and he lived nearly 20 more years before dying in his sleep in November 565 at 82 or 83.

• Procopius’s Secret History claimed servants saw Justinian walking the palace at night without a head.
• His laws returned dowries to widows and classed the killing of a slave as murder, yet blamed homosexual acts for earthquakes and ordered mutilation.
• Two monks smuggled silkworm eggs from Central Asia in hollowed canes, breaking the Persian silk monopoly.
• Under John the Cappadocian, annual revenue rose from five million to six million solidi.
• Dante placed Justinian in paradise on the sphere of Mercury, the realm of souls driven by desire for glory.