Although the age of Justinian is the most interesting and important in the whole series of the Byzantine annals, no comprehensive work has hitherto been devoted to the subject. The valuable and erudite "Vita Justiniani" of Ludewig is more of a law book than of a biography, and less of a circumstantial history than of either. The somewhat strange medley published by Isambert under the title "Vie de Justinien" is scarcely a complete chronology of the events, and might be called a manual of the sources rather than a history of the times.[1] Excellent accounts, however, of Justinian are to be found in some general histories of the Byzantine Empire as well as in several biographical dictionaries, whilst monographs of greater or lesser extent exist under the names of Perrinus, Invernizi, and Padovani, etc., but any student of the period would decide that it deserves to be treated at much greater length than has been devoted to it in any of these books. In the present work the design has been to place before the reader not only a record of events, but a presentment of the people amongst whom, and of the stage upon which those events occurred. I have also attempted to correlate the aspects of the ancient and the modern world in relation to science and progress.
W. G. H.
London,
February, 1905.
- ↑ To these must now be added Diehl's beautifully illustrated work, Justinien et la civilization Byzantine au VI^e siècle, Paris, 1901. The leading motive is that of art, and it is replete with interesting details, but the conception is too narrow to allow of its fully representing the age to a modern reader.
