Talk:Justinian I

GA Pass

I am glad to report that this article nomination for good article status has been promoted. This is how the article, as of May 9, 2008, compares against the six good article criteria:

1. Well written?: Pass

2. Factually accurate?: Pass

3. Broad in coverage?: Pass

4. Neutral point of view?: Pass

5. Article stability? Pass

6. Images?: Pass

If you feel that this review is in error, feel free to take it to Good article reassessment. Thank you to all of the editors who worked hard to bring it to this status, and congratulations. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Climie.ca (talk • contribs)

RE/BE/ERE?

The change from "Eastern Roman Emperor" to "Byzantine Emperor" by the alphabetically challenged 74.72.11.32 (yes, that is his/her WP name :-) in the very first sentence seems gratuitous.

The primary readers of this WP article are, I suspect, not professional historians. Justinian accomplished several notable projects and he represents an important evolutionary figure in his empire's history.

• But to most readers, Justinian is singularly significant for reorganizing Roman law, reconquering the (Mediterranean portions of the) western lands of the Roman Empire, and thereby exporting that law westward.
• He did so from the RE's traditional eastern capital.

So one might sensibly first regard him as an emperor of the RE, or perhaps more precisely of the ERE.

But how does identifying him as "Byzantine" help such readers? To me, this change illuminates very little, and it obscures the most important connection of the time: Justinian thought of himself and his empire as Roman, as did virtually everyone else in both his empire and the reconquered lands. 24.63.96.35 (talk) 03:06, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Agreed.--79.111.92.19 (talk) 15:40, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

• Perfect! --deguef (talk) 20:34, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Someone changed this again recently, from ERE to BE (July 2020). I changed it back. My change is justified since both Justinian's predecessor Justin I and his successor Justin II are identified as ERE, not BE. It would, indeed, be better to have a consistent policy regarding this. If we name all post-476 Emperors as Byzantine, that is debatable but would be better than the alternating titles we have now. A better cut-off might be the rule of Emperor Heraclius, after whom the Empire was largely restricted to its medieval territories in Anatolia and the Balkans, as opposed to a Mediterranean-wide empire. Diegojosesalva (talk) 20:10, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

I changed the description in the top paragraph from "Byzantine" back to "Eastern Roman", to align with what Wikipedia currently uses for all other ERE/BE emperors until after Heraclius. There is no reason why Justinian should be an exception to that convention. Heraclius makes a lot more sense as the dividing line, if we have to draw it somewhere. Diegojosesalva (talk) 18:29, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. I agree with this rendition. LVDP01 (talk) 19:04, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Justinian's Greek name Part II

Okay, so it is settled that Greek was the dominant language of the Eastern Empire. I am wondering about the transliteration of Φλάβιος Πέτρος Σαββάτιος as Flávios Pétros Sabbátios, which implies a fricative /v/ pronunciation of β ('v' as in victor) for flavius but a stop consonant /b/ pronunciation ('b' as in boy) for Σαββάτιος. Although maybe not everyone here comes from a historical linguistic background, is it being claimed that the Latin-derived word was pronounced /v/ (having changed from /w/) but the Greek β remained /b/ when it is probable that β had become /v/ by the Early Byzantine period, see Koine Greek phonology?Iotacist (talk) 05:30, 19 March 2017 (UTC)Iotacist

Yes, that was settled over 1,500 years ago. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.111.19.34 (talk) 17:09, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Justinian’s reconquest - preplanned or not?

Ian Hughes claims in his book on Belisarius that the motivation for the reconquest was the internal chaos in the victim nations not some kind of grand plan Justinian made beforehand. Peter Heather in his book on the empire’s recovery under Justinian states that Justinian was probably partly responsible for causing Byzantine-Persian relation to sour. It seems illogical for someone to provoke their most powerful neighbour with the intention of soon moving their resources to the other end of his empire. The hasty peace with Khosrow can be explained by saying he wanted to focus on freeing Hilderic but the rest seems still seems illogical. In the article the claim that Justinian considered it his duty as a Christian emperor to restore the empire to its ancient borders is unsourced. Dorromikhal (talk) 01:24, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Unsourced material can be immediately deleted - you can tag it an notify the editor that a source is required in 24/48/72 hours, whatever. I sometimes give seasoned editors time to perhaps correct an oversight.50.111.14.1 (talk) 20:12, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Map Using the Wrong Language

In the section titled "War in Italy, first phase, 535–540", the map titled "Justinian's conquests" is not in English. Neither the small descriptive texts under some of the territory names, nor the map key, is written in English. I don't know enough about the language to translate it, and I'm not confident about my knowledge in Copyright law, so I cannot (Or should not) correct it.

Section of the article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justinian_I#War_in_Italy,_first_phase,_535%E2%80%93540

The map: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Emp%C3%A8ri_Bizantin_-_R%C3%A8ine_de_Justinian.png — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.142.233.38 (talk) 09:06, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

I completely agree with you. I am trying to research and I can’t understand the maps. Poppyway (talk) 17:37, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

GA Reassessment

Justinian I

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • GAN review not found

Result: Delisted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 11:37, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

This 2008 promotion has 9 citation needed tags, as well as other untagged statements lacking citations. Real4jyy (talk) 08:14, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Hi, I will work on this article. What is your expected timeline for this? 10-20 days? Matarisvan (talk) 15:39, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

hey, nice to see you're planning to work on this article. I'm not an expert on the period, but I was confused by the following: he came from a peasant family ... The name Iustinianus, which he took later, is indicative of adoption by his uncle Justin. ... His mother was Vigilantia, the sister of Justin. Justin, who was commander of one of the imperial guard units (the Excubitors) before he became emperor. I think it should be clarified - how it was possible that commander of the guard became an emperor? Was there a military coup? Or he was from the previous emperor's family? And were this commander and his nephew really from a peasant family? Artem.G (talk) 21:28, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Artem.G, I just concluded another GA reassessment and have started working on this one. Give me some time and I will resolve the queries you have. Matarisvan (talk) 03:10, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

I have provided many of the citations, and will continue looking for ones where they are still needed. Chronicler Frank (talk) 06:05, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

This collection of randomly selected texts from several sources (including primary sources) could hardly be described as a coherent article. For instance, section "Legislative activities" contains sentences about elements of his legislation without explaining why they are emphasised, and section "Natural disasters" does not explain their effect on Justinian's reign. Borsoka (talk) 02:02, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Borsoka, good to see you here! I understand you are quite well read on Crusader and other nobility, so I hope you could help me out here. I have just started working on this article, with my sole edit yet only seeking to improve source formatting. I will work on the issues you have raised and hope I can get them resolved soon. Matarisvan (talk) 03:12, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Latter-day Miaphysitism

I'll just ping @Soidling because they're the first editor I can think of who would very likely know the lay of the land here. It's a given that the present citation to a primary is almost unacceptably weak, but is this due in the article pending better secondary sourcing? From my relatively elementary understanding of Justinian's life, it seems the claim that he developed definitively Miaphysite beliefs in later writings to be borderline fringe at best. Remsense 🌈 论 16:13, 25 July 2025 (UTC)

Tauresium

Is there consensus that Tauresium where Justinian was born, is located in Tauresium in North Macedonia? The relevant sources should be added, because the sources now existing in the text support near Naissus (which is in Serbia instead). Aetolorhode (talk) 10:02, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

Still, not any recent source added. Aetolorhode (talk) 13:23, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

I will have a look at the sources in the following days. A.Cython(talk) 17:16, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

why do we call justinian or any emperor of the east "byzantine", why do we have to use a term that de-romanizes the roman empire? justinian would've been deeply annoyed if you called him byzantine. No hostility, im just posing a question

My source is literally any text from before the 16th century regarding the empire on constantinople. ALL of the emperors thought that their state was the roman empire and their subjects "romans", after Heraclius even though the empire was greek, him and his successors were "Βασιλιάς και αυτοκράτορας των Ρωμαίων" not "Βασιλιάς και αυτοκράτορας των Βυζαντινών". Scurvybubble242 (talk) 20:48, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

Natural disasters section

Is the natural disasters section supposed to just be natural disasters that happened at the same time of Justinian's reign? I think there could be more elaboration in that section about how they affected his reign. WoodenRaft (talk) 05:14, 10 October 2026 (UTC)