JUSTIN I., the elder, Roman emperor of the East from 518 to 527, was originally a Dacian peasant; but, enlisting under Leo I. he rose by his size and strength to be commander of the imperial guards of Anastasius. On the death of that emperor in 518, the wily Dacian, aged sixty-eight, used for his own election to the throne a sum of money that he had received for the support of another candidate. Though ignorant even of the rudiments of letters, Justin was sufficiently acute, and he was sensible enough to entrust the administration of state to his wise and faithful quaestor Proclus, though his own experience dictated several improvements in military affairs. An orthodox churchman himself, he effected in 519 a reconciliation of the Eastern and Western Churches, after a schism of thirty-five years (see Hormisdas). The assassination of the orthodox general Vitalian, and the virulence of the bloody conflicts of the “blue” and “green” factions that convulsed the capital towards the end of Justin’s reign, are attributed to the jealousy and intrigues of the emperor’s nephew and successor Justinian. In 522 a war broke out with Persia, in which Belisarius made his first historical appearance; it continued for some years without any definite results. In 522 also Justin ceded to Theodoric, the Gothic king of Italy, the right of naming the consuls, and in 525 he received from that Arian monarch a deputation, of which the pope, John I., was compelled to be the leader, to deprecate an edict issued by Justin in 523 against all heretics. On April 1, 527, Justin, at the request of the senate, assumed Justinian as his colleague, and on the 1st of the following August he died. Justin bestowed much care on the repairing of public buildings throughout his empire, and contributed ...

JUSTIN II., the younger, Roman emperor of the East from 565 to 578, was the nephew and successor of Justinian I. He availed himself of his influence as master of the palace, and as husband of Sophia, the niece of the late empress Theodora, to secure a peaceful election. The first few days of his reign—when he paid his uncle’s debts, administered justice in person, and proclaimed universal religious toleration—gave bright promise, realization of which was prevented either by his feebleness or his caprice. The most important event of his reign was the invasion of Italy by the Lombards, who, entering in 568 under Alboin, in a few years made themselves masters of nearly the entire country. The common story that they were invited by the superseded and insulted exarch Narses, besides being inherently improbable, has but slender historical foundation. Modern historians see in the event only an evidence of the indifference of the Byzantine court to Italy, whence little revenue could be drawn. Justin’s arrogance had insulted the embassies from the Persians and Avars, who had come to him in the first year of his reign; and in 572 war broke out with the former, and in 573 with the latter. Although he formed alliances with the Turks of Central Asia and with the Ethiopians of Arabia in the one case, and with the Austrasian Franks in the other, the emperor’s arms were unsuccessful in both wars. The temporary fits of insanity into which he fell warned him to name a colleague. Passing over his own relatives, he raised, on the advice of Sophia, the brave general Tiberius to be Caesar in December 574, and withdrew for his remaining years into retirement. Tiberius was advanced to the dignity of Augustus on September 26, 578, and Justin died on the 5th of the following month.