Emperor Justinian and Theodora: The Black Death and the Christian Roman Empire

We left off our story in the last episode with the Nika riots, which nearly toppled Emperor Justinian from the throne a mere five years into his reign.

These riots had been out of control for days.

There was violence.

There were fires being lit across the city.

And no matter what he did, Justinian was unable to get a handle on the situation.

Soon there were calls for a new emperor.

Things got so bad that Justinian was considering fleeing the city of Constantinople by ship.

And then his wife, Empress Theodora, stepped in, and she gave a speech that changed the course of events.

She said that it was better to stay and fight than to live in shameful exile.

And famously, she said that the imperial purple makes a fine burial shroud.

In other words, better to die emperor and empress than to live as nobodies somewhere else.

In response, Emperor Justinian commits to staying, whatever the cost, and he sends armed soldiers into the Hippodrome to confront the crowd who are busy proclaiming a new emperor.

In the ensuing massacre, estimates are that over 30,000 people lost their lives.

And in the wake of this slaughter, silence descends across the city.

It's peace of a sort, the peace of the terrified and of the dead.

Justinian has managed to hold onto his throne, but he knows that he's going to have to do something very differently if he's going to keep it.

The riots had been a near thing, and Justinian would need to fortify his legitimacy in the eyes of his subjects to avoid other disasters just like this.

Today's story is very much about how Justinian and Theodora go about doing that and building the legacy that has burned their names into the historical record for centuries thereafter.

And religion is a large part of this story, but we're gonna get to that a little bit later.