Document 1: Map of Constantinople during the reign of Justinian, 500s CE

!!!!!Document 2: Excerpt from Strayer, “Byzantine Christendom: Building on the Roman Past” in Ways of the World, p. 470 !Much that was late Roman - its roads, taxation system, military structure, centralized administration, imperial court, laws, Christian church - persisted in the east for many centuries…Constantinople was to be a “New Rome” and people referred to themselves as “Romans.” Fearing contamination by “barbarian” customs, emperors forbade the residents of Constantinople from wearing boots, trousers, clothing made from animal skins, and long hairstyles, all of which were associated with Germanic peoples, and insisted on Roman-style robes and sandals. !

Document 3: Excerpt from “Justinian’s Code.” In 528 CE Emperor Justinian began a review of the old Roman laws. The emperor chose ten men to review 1,600 books full of Roman law and create a simpler legal code. These men were able to create the Justinian Code with just over 4,000 laws. !Our law is partly written, partly unwritten, as among the Greeks. The written law consists of statutes, plebiscites, senatusconsults, enactments of the Emperors, edicts of the magistrates, and answers of those learned in the law. A statute is an enactment of the Roman people, which it used to make on the motion of a senatorial magistrate, as for instance a consul. A plebiscite is an enactment of the commonalty, such as was made on the motion of one of their own magistrates, as a tribune. The commonalty differs from the people as a species from its genus; for 'the people' includes the whole aggregate of citizens, among them patricians and senators, while the term 'commonalty' embraces only such citizens as are not patricians or senators. After the passing, however, of the statute called the lex Hortensia, plebiscites acquired for the first time the force of statutes. The unwritten law is that which usage has approved: for ancient customs, when approved by consent of those who follow them, are like statute. !!Document 4: Painting of chariot racing in the Hippodrome, Constantinople.

The Hippodrome was a large sports arena similar to arenas such as the Roman Coliseum where various spectacles took place. The most popular were the chariot races, which took place 60 days per year and drew crowds of up to 30,000 people. These races were an extremely important part of Byzantine culture and social interaction.

Document 5: Procopius, “A Secret History,” Chapter XI. Procopius [c.490/510-c.560s] is the most important source for information about the reign of the emperor Justinian. He wrote a number of official histories, including the Buildings and On the Wars. He also left a "Secret History" [Anecdota] which was a massive attack on the character of Justinian and his wife Theodora. Parts are so vitriolic, not to say pornographic, that for some time translations from Greek were only available into Latin ["the decent obscurity of an ancient tongue"]. !As soon as Justinian came into power he turned everything upside down. Whatever had before been forbidden by law he now introduced into the government, while he revoked all established customs: as if he had been given the robes of an Emperor on the condition he would turn everything topsy-turvy. Existing offices he abolished, and invented new ones for the management of public affairs. He did the same thing to the laws and to the regulations of the army; and his reason was not any improvement of justice or any advantage, but simply that everything might be new and named after himself And whatever was beyond his power to abolish, he renamed after himself anyway. !!!Document 6: Mosaic of Justinian’s wife, Theodora, who was born into a life of poverty and rose through the ranks from the life of a concubine to eventually become wife and co-ruler with her husband.

!As empress, she worked on the paper “On Pimps,” an attempt to stop pimps making their money from prostitutes. Well aware of the impossibility of marriage and a safe life for such women, she set up a house where they could live in peace. Theodora worked for women's marriage and dowry rights, anti-rape legislation, and was supportive of the many young girls who were sold into sexual slavery for the price of a pair of sandals. Her laws banished brothel-keepers from Constantinople and from all the major cities of the empire. She left behind a legacy of unprecedented increased rights for women in the empire. !

Document 7: Excerpt from Strayer, “Byzantine Christendom: Building on the Roman Past” in Ways of the World, p. 469 - 470 !Housing the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Greece, Syria, and Anatolia, the eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) was far wealthier, more urbanized, and more cosmopolitan than its western counterpart; it possessed a much more defensible capital in the heavily walled city of Constantinople; and it had a shorter frontier to guard. Byzantium also enjoyed access to the Black Sea and command of the eastern Mediterranean. With a stronger army, navy and merchant marine as well as clever diplomacy, its leaders were able to deflect the Germanic and Hun invaders who had overwhelmed the western Roman Empire. !!!!!Document 8: “The East-West Schism, 1054,” in Encyclopedia Britannica, 2014 !The relation of the Byzantine Church to the Roman may be described as one of growing estrangement from the 5th to the 11th century. In the early church three bishops stood forth prominently, principally from the political eminence of the cities in which they ruled—the bishops of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch. !The schism of 1054, also called East–West Schism, was the event that precipitated the final separation between the Eastern Christian churches (led by the patriarch of Constantinople, Michael Cerularius) and the Western Church (led by Pope Leo IX). The mutual excommunications by the Pope and the Patriarch that year became a watershed in church history. The excommunications were not lifted until 1965, when Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras, following their historic meeting in Jerusalem in 1964, presided over simultaneous ceremonies that revoked the excommunication decrees. !