Peter Heather is known for his big books on ‘barbarians’ and the later Roman empire, and it is no surprise to find him turning to the subject of Justinian I's reconquest of the west. The book is part of the OUP series Ancient Warfare and Civilization, in which ‘leading historians offer compelling new narratives of the armed conflicts that shaped and reshaped the classical world’. The central question H. poses is whether the conquests of Justinian were worth it. He pursues this across an Introduction and eleven chapters, supported by maps (though a couple have issues of legibility), illustrations, endnotes and bibliography, as well as a timeline and a glossary.
The Introduction begins with the building of Justiniana Prima in the Balkans, a neat way to introduce Justinian himself. The key issue of whether Justinian's conquests were fatal for the Roman empire is established, and H. asserts that ‘this is fundamentally a book about the wars of Justinian: an attempt to provide narrative and analysis of their causes, course, and consequences’ (10). Here he acknowledges the Procopius problem — akin to the Thucydides problem. In ch. 1, H. establishes the ‘political and institutional backdrop’, an approach which, he remarks, is out of favour ‘under the influence of the Cultural Turn’ (18). He takes time to establish the ideology of the empire, in which military success was key. He also dwells on the issue of succession (which surfaces throughout the book), to which, in H.'s view, insufficient attention is paid (31). Ch. 2 considers the evolving nature of the later Roman army (there is ‘a military revolution’, 55), and how the army was funded.
With the context established, H. then turns to the narrative. Ch. 3 describes how Justinian came to be emperor, entailing consideration of the reigns of Anastasius and Justin I. Here Theodora, ‘a blonde’ (89), also surfaces. Ch. 4 tracks the early history of the reign (ecclesiastical affairs, legislation, Persia) culminating in the infamous Nika Riot and the decision to launch the expedition against the Vandals in North Africa. Ch. 5 details the campaign, and argues that it was the transformed nature of the Roman army that was primarily responsible for the success. Ch. 6 narrates the campaign against Ostrogothic Italy up to the capture of Ravenna by Belisarius in 540. Ch. 7 takes us through Justinian's legal, building and ecclesiastical activity in the wake of the dramatic victory. Ch. 8 turns to Persia again, and the renewed conflict under Chosroes. Ch. 9 returns to Africa and Italy, considering the further problems that were encountered, and ends with the victories of Narses. H. then gives us his verdicts on the consequences of Justinian's campaigns: ch. 10, taking in both the northern frontier and Spain, provides a balance sheet, and concludes that the campaigns were indeed worth it. Finally, ch. 11 considers whether the western campaigns actually weakened the eastern empire and led to its collapse. Again H. finds in favour of Justinian, and argues that it was external factors (the Avars and Arabs) that did for the Roman empire, though at the very end he poses the question whether the example of Justinian's spectacular military successes was responsible for subsequent emperors making poor decisions.
Such are H.'s answers to the central question he had posed. One may feel, however, that there is little to surprise here: Mark Whittow's 1996 assessment of the state of the empire around 600 in The Making of Orthodox Byzantium came to my mind. Furthermore, Heather offers a rather familiar account of the reign of Justinian. The campaigns are not his sole focus of interest, and all the usual suspects are encountered — Theodora, legislation, plague, church affairs, Hagia Sophia, to name but a few.
It is clear that the book is not primarily aimed at other academics but rather at a more general readership. The supplying of the glossary indicates this, as does the more informal style of writing: contractions abound, emperors are said to ‘peg out’, and we are assured that Totila ‘would have made one hell of a polo player’ (255). There is heavy use of historical parallels and allusions, some of which have a genuine point to make (Michael Gove surfaces more than once in relation to competition for power), while others seem just for colour (references to Trump and to Bill Clinton). H. even draws on his own experiences from working in the UK Treasury, in order to make a point about how government presents its actions in relation to the previous regime. Some of the illustrations are also suggestive of aiming at a popular audience; a nineteenth-century image of the eunuch Narses is included without any discussion (Fig. 4.1).
Another notable feature of the book is that some recent scholarship on the later Roman army is not utilised, such as work by David Parnell, Philip Rance and Michael Stewart, and the two volumes on War and Warfare in Late Antiquity edited by Alexander Sarantis and Neil Christie (2013). One imagines that the likely audience for H.'s book would have been interested in these also. There is the sense, too, that H. does not entirely solve the Procopius problem. It is revealing that Procopius is now receiving significant attention again: witness the volume Procopius of Caesarea: Literary and Historical Interpretations, edited by Christopher Lillington-Martin and Elodie Turquois (2018). Of course, H. did not set out to write a comprehensive history of the reign of Justinian; but his book reminds us that we still lack one.
