Historical Figure MBTIThe Age of Justinian
~518 – 565
Byzantium's golden age — Justinian's codification of Roman law and reconquest of the West, Theodora's rise from courtesan to empress, and the raising of Hagia Sophia.
A thousand years after the Republic fell, one emperor tried to make Rome whole again. Justinian — a Balkan peasant's nephew who rose behind his soldier-uncle Justin I — never led an army, but from his desk in Constantinople he did three things that outlasted his empire. He had the jurist Tribonian distill a thousand years of Roman law into one code, the taproot of half the world's legal systems; he sent his brilliant, distrusted general Belisarius to reconquer Africa and Italy from the barbarians; and after a riot burned the city, he raised Anthemius of Tralles's Hagia Sophia, the greatest dome in the world — "Solomon, I have surpassed thee." A plague that killed a third of his people, and his own paranoia, broke the dream before it could hold.
And beside him ruled the most improbable empress in Roman history. Theodora had been a bear-keeper's daughter and an actress — the lowest of the low — before Justinian changed the law to marry her and made her his equal. In 532, when the mob of the Hippodrome rose in the Nika revolt and the emperor's council urged flight, it was Theodora who refused to run — "the purple makes a glorious winding-sheet" — and saved the throne. Around the pair swirled a court worthy of the historian Procopius, who chronicled their glory in public and shredded them in a Secret History he hid until he died. This is the last golden age of the Roman world — and the first great age of Byzantium.
13 figures · sorted by birth year
Hypatius
notableISFJ
The reluctant nobleman the Nika mob crowned against his will, and Justinian executed for it — the passive, dutiful ISFJ.
Anthemius of Tralles
notableINTP
The mathematician who reasoned the impossible dome of Hagia Sophia into being — the inventive theorist INTP.
Justin I
notableISTJ
The illiterate peasant-soldier who walked to Constantinople with nothing and rose over fifty years to wear the purple — the dutiful ISTJ.
Antonina
notableESTP
Belisarius's worldly, scheming wife and Theodora's ally, who followed armies and toppled ministers — the unshockable operator ESTP.
Procopius
renownINTP
The court historian who praised Justinian in public and called him a demon in a Secret History he hid until death — the ironic analyst INTP.
Theodora
iconicENTJ
The bear-keeper's daughter who rose from the brothel to empress and saved the throne when Justinian would have fled — the iron-willed ENTJ.
Totila
notableESTP
The Gothic king who took a lost cause and nearly won Italy back through nerve, speed, and mercy — the bold opportunist ESTP.
Khosrow I
renownINTJ
The great Persian shah, Justinian's philosopher-rival to the east and the model of the just king for a thousand years — the reformer INTJ.
John the Cappadocian
notableESTJ
The rapacious tax-master who funded the reconquest and was hated for it, until Theodora destroyed him — the ruthless-efficient ESTJ.
Tribonian
notableINTP
The brilliant, crypto-pagan jurist who distilled a thousand years of Roman law into one coherent code — the systematizing INTP.
Narses
renownISTJ
The eunuch chamberlain who, at seventy-five, took an army to Italy and finished the war Belisarius began — the patient, methodical ISTJ.
Belisarius
renownISTP
Justinian's peerless general, who reconquered Africa and Italy with tiny armies and stayed loyal to an emperor who never trusted him — the improvising ISTP.
Justinian I
iconicINTJ
The sleepless emperor who codified Roman law, reconquered the lost West, and raised Hagia Sophia — the visionary systematizer INTJ.
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