justinian the great

Restoration of Justinian’s Basilica Cistern

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Exciting news emerged this week from the world of Archaeology pertaining Mosaic_of_Iustinianus_I_-_Basilica_San_Vitale_(Ravenna)to the Emperor Justinian the Great and one of the greatest Roman feats of engineering and architecture still standing (albeit underground).
 
Anyone who has ever visited Istanbul has surely visited the Basilica Cistern, known in Turkish as the “Yerebatan Sarnıcı”. Located across the street and 645x400-basilica-cistern-set-for-comprehensive-restoration-1483481203740 underground from the Hagia Sophia in the heart of what once was Constantinople – capital of the Roman Empire for one thousand years and before that it was the Greek colony of Byzantium – the Cistern is an architectural marvel completed by the Emperor Justinian the Great (though it was likely begun during the reign of his uncle, the Emperor Justin).
 
The cistern was built to hold water that might keep the city’s thirst quenched in the event of siege or drought – though it was one of many that littered the city it was far and away the most important. But to call it a reservoir is to do it a grave injustice. It is a work of grace and beauty, built underneath the city streets in the heart of Constantinople. To enter it is to enter a magical space, in some ways (to me at least) it feels as ethereal and transcendent as the grand basilica above. The roof that towers above is supported by 336 columns rising 30 plus feet into the air, reflected in the water that still partially fills the room. A number of those columns contain recycled elements, including 0x0-basilica-cistern-set-for-comprehensive-restoration-1483481201380masonry that the Romans recovered from the more ancient Greek city of Byzantium like the absolutely breathtaking Medusa heads that form the base of two columns (see picture to the right).
 
To walk into the Cistern is to step 2,000 years back in time to the last era of the Romans when they still possessed the technological expertise, capital, and desire to build truly monumental works. Imagine that this place (pictures below) was never built to be seen, to entertain visitors, to awe tourists – it was simply built to hold water! Could we build something so regal today even if we tried? Its hard to contemplate. One cannot look at such a thing and wonder about, and to be awed by, the civilization that was capable of creating it.
 
So, the news this week is that Turkey will embark upon an ambitious restoration of the Cistern (along with the Milion that rests above it – the mile-marker from which all distances in the Empire were measured since Old Rome was lost to the Goths). One cannot help but wish them well and hope that the restoration is done with tact.
 
For more on the restoration see here. 
 

Justinian’s “Flat-Pack” Church, Raised from the Seabed

~ matthewjordanstorm ~ 1 Comment

“We hope it will be easier [to assemble] than an Ikea wardrobe.”
– Dr Alexander Sturgis, Oxford University

A prefabricated church, built in Justinian’s Constantinople and lost at sea off the coast of Sicily 1,500 years ago will soon be reassembled in Oxford University’s Ashmolean Museum.

Justinian had such buildings constructed with interlocking pieces that might be be readily shipped and assembled in distant locations – the image above shows the ruins of one such Justinian construct from Libya.  They were transported by specially designed cargo vessels across his restored Roman Empire, and this particular church spent nearly fifteen hundred years on the Mediterranean seabed before it was discovered in the 1960’s.  While many pieces still lie submerged, Oxford will mount the structure with what they have to give museum-goers an opportunity to ‘visit’ a vestige of Justinian’s Rome.

For me, the sheer brilliance of the lego-like, prefabricated concept that Roman engineers invented fifteen centuries ago is an absolute marvel.  Cutting edge architectural magazines like Dwell now expound the pre-fab ‘trend’!   Just imagine Justinian’s ships plying Mare Nostrum fifteen centuries ago with civilization in their holds, exporting tangible proof of Rome’s continued strength long after the West had fallen away.

Click here for an article in the UK Telegraph (loaded with factual inaccuracies but fascinating nonetheless).

Happy Anniversary – Justinian “the Great”

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On August 1st 527, the old warrior and Roman Emperor, Justin I died in the Imperial capital of Constantinople.

Justin had risen to the throne in 518.  He had previously held the position of Commander of the Excubitors, the elite palace guard, and upon the death of the Emperor Anastasius, Justin was nominated to the purple with the considerable help of his brilliant young nephew, Pietrus Sabbatius.

As Justin’s health failed he named his nephew (now re-christened “Justinian” in honor of his uncle) as co-Emperor in April of 527.

And when Justin died on August 1st, Justinian became sole Emperor, a position that he would hold until his death in November of 565.

So began the Age of Justinian (though he also exerted tremendous influence behind the throne while his Uncle reigned) – a period which continues to impact the world that we live in today.

He would be the last Roman Emperor to speak Latin as his first language, and the last Caesar to rule over an Empire that included the city of Rome in its domains.  Justinian would count many other “lasts”, and many “firsts” amongst his accomplishments though for me what continues to resonate is that as Justinian ascends, the world stands on a razor’s edge, with the Ancient World on one side and the Dark Ages on the other.  Upon his death the passage to the Dark Ages was irrevocably made.

Roman Glass in Ancient Japan

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Roman Glass in Japan

ROMAN GLASS has been found in a recently opened Japanese tomb dating to the 5th century, as per an article in this week’s Asahi Shimbum (courtesy of Adrian Murdoch’s fine blog).

Read the original article on this stunning discovery here: http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201411130064

map japan

The ornamental glass (a beautiful cobalt blue plate and a delicate golden bowl seen above) is believed to have made it’s way to Japan through Sassanid Persia.  Scientific analysis suggests that both items were created by Roman artisans working within the Empire at some point in the 3rd century.  While it’s unknown precisely when and how they made their way to Japan, they were buried along with the denizen of tumulus #126, within a cluster of ancient graves dating to the late 5th century.

Niizawa Senzuka burial mounds

So what does it have to do with the Age of Justinian, this turbulent time when the light of Rome still shined in the East as darkness fell in the West?

In these fragile pieces of blue and gold glass, fantastically preserved, we have an example of how far Rome reached even in an era in which common wisdom says Rome had already “fallen”.

The truth, as found in this burial mound in Nara Prefecture suggests something very different.

While Roman trade with Japan was indeed rare, the Romans (and their trading partners and sometimes enemies, the Persians) traded actively with the East. Most of this trade centered around silk that could only be sourced from China at this time. Roman gold moved east, and Chinese silk moved West. That river of gold sustained the Persians.

But there would come a day, not long after our blue glass plate was buried in Japan, when an exceptional man, a missionary, took an extraordinary risk by smuggling silk worms out of the Forbidden City in a hollow-tipped cane. When he arrived at the Emperor Justinian’s court in Constantinople he irrevocably changed the course of history….

– Matthew J. Storm

The Conundrum – Rome Entering the Dark

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Many books of fiction, academic studies, dry histories, shoddy blogs, shoddier movies and cheap soaps have been devoted to  that abstraction called ROME.

They devote themselves to the common questions we have been told that matter most, the “serious” questions.

Who were the Romans?

Where did they come from?

How did they achieve dominance over the classical world?

And most importantly in the eyes of many – what caused “THE FALL”.

The latter question is one that interested me as well, a great deal, until I understood a basic historical fact – a truly heretical historical fact.  That fact stunned me, blew me away really, fascinated me from the get-go and it hasn’t let go of me since.

ROME DID NOT FALL.

Or put more specifically, when Romulus Augustulus abdicated in favor of the Goth warlord Odoacer, he formally ended the Western Roman Empire.  Yet this apocryphal collapse was really just a historical asterisk.  Why?  How could I be so flip with the seminal event of modern western civilization.

The year was 476.  The “end” came in 476.

But the reality is that for another thousand years – until 1453 – a Roman Emperor continued to rule in the ancient Byzantium, the capital of the Roman Empire since Constantine the Great moved the capital of the Empire from Roman to the newly christened Constantinople in 330CE.

It is accurate to say that the Western Empire ceased to exist in 476, while in truth it had ceased to exist several decades before as an independent entity.  It is equally true, stunningly accurate, to assert that the Eastern Empire lived until it fell to Mehmed “the Conqueror” in 1453, on the eve of Columbus’ trip to the new world.

Assuming that what I have just abruptly foisted upon you is true, it begs the following questions.  I trust they will pique your interest as they have held me hostage since childhood,

– Why do Western school children know nothing of this “other Rome”?

– What is the missing history, these thousand years that is not taught?

– What debt do we owe to this Rome – how would our world be different if Rome hadn’t continued in the East?

– Who were these “other” Romans?  How did they perceive the falling darkness, the barbarian invasions, the retreat of classical civilization?

– How did they navigate the Dark Ages?  How did civilization survive in their hands when the West lived in darkness, ignorance, brutish squalor?

– What was the role of this forgotten Rome in the reawakening of the West in the Renaissance?

These are the basic questions that have kept me occupied for many years – they are obviously far greater than I.  But I’ve delved into these things in a very small way, pursuing my obsession and attempting to share a germ of this fascinating world with others in the form of my novel, FROM AFRICANUS, and it’s sequel, AVENGING AFRICANUS that will be released in the summer of 2014.

Please stay tuned, share your thoughts, your passion, and curiosity, for the forgotten Rome.  Not to say that the story of the Republic and early Empire isn’t worthy – it is most worthy of study and discussion but it’s not neglected.   The same can’t be said of the Rome of Justinian the Great.