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Rome Resurgent: War and Empire in the Age of Justinian by Peter Heather

2018; Classical Association of Canada; Volume: 72; Issue: 3-4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/phx.2018.0024

1929-4883

David Alan Parnell,

Historical and Religious Studies of Rome

398 PHOENIX Rome Resurgent: War and Empire in the Age of Justinian. By Peter Heather. New York: Oxford University Press. 2018. Pp. xiii, 393. ROME RESURGENT is an important and bold book that addresses military and strategic questions at the heart of late Roman and early Byzantine studies. The author, Peter Heather, is a historian of immense accomplishment and well respected for his prior publications. In Rome Resurgent, he looks further east and chronologically later than he did earlier in his career, in which he has focused mostly on the western Roman empire and its neighbors in a slightly earlier period. He brings to the study of Justinian’s reign sober analysis of both the emperor’s intent and the results of his policies. The book is divided into an introduction and eleven chapters. The introduction establishes the parameters of the study by asking how the reign of Justinian (527–565 c.e.) fits into the narrative of east Roman decline in the seventh century. Did his policies and wars start the process of collapse? Heather also uses the introduction to assess the value of Procopius of Caesarea, the most important source of Justinian’s reign. The first three chapters set the stage for Justinian. Chapters One and Two are workmanlike descriptions of the imperial office and the army and administration of government respectively. They succeed in introducing these subjects, but do not add much new to what historians already believe. Chapter Three covers the immediate historical background of Justinian by addressing the reigns of Zeno (69–72), Anastasius (73–83), and Justin i (83–95). Anastasius is presented as a vacillating failure (83), while Justin is described as aggressively maneuvering to become emperor, and then decisively establishing policies that would shape the beginning of Justinian’s reign, namely strongly Chalcedonian religious belief and aggressive relations with Persia (87, 93). Chapter Four analyzes the first six or so years of Justinian’s reign, focusing on the emperor’s decision to codify Roman law, which is presented as a “propaganda coup” (101). The Nika Riot, according to Heather, left Justinian’s government “on the brink” (114), and so the Vandal campaign was not the result of a grand plan or design but was “the last desperate gamble of a bankrupt regime” (121). Chapters Five and Six are the heart of the book, in which Heather describes the general Belisarius’ campaigns against the Vandals and Ostrogoths respectively. Heather neatly combines strategic and tactical analysis, particularly in Chapter Five on the Vandal war. Following the primary sources, Heather argues that Justinian did not originally envision conquest of Ostrogothic Italy but instead hoped to negotiate for advantage with its rulers (147–153). Chapter Seven represents a break in the military narrative. Heather takes this opportunity to address Justinian’s building program and religious policies. There is an especially well-written section on the importance to Justinian’s regime of religious processions and theatrical worship services (189–202). Chapters Eight and Nine cover the remainder of Justinian’s wars, with the former focusing on war with the Persians and the latter addressing the mutinies in newly conquered North Africa in the 530s and 540s (238–251) and the renewed war with the Ostrogoths under Totila (251–268). The final two chapters deliver on Heather’s promise, originally sketched out in the introduction, to consider the significance of Justinian’s wars and policies. In Chapter Ten, Heather analyzes the cost of the wars and the productiveness of the lands Justinian’s armies conquered, and determines that Africa, Sicily, and South Italy were worth the investment by the imperial government, while North Italy and Justinian’s brief venture BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 399 in Spain were not (298–300). While much of this analysis is speculative, Heather’s argument is convincing. In Chapter Eleven, Heather argues that there was no direct line of cause and effect from Justinian to the losses of the seventh century, when first Persians and then Arabs took over much of the empire’s eastern territories (321). Heather concludes that Justinian ’s policy was not based on what was rational for the empire overall, but on “the demands of internal political agendas and...