page_title: Justinian I
section_title: Military activities
hierarchical_section_title: Justinian I / Reign / Military activities
context_page_description: Justinian I, also known as Justinian the Great, was the Eastern Roman emperor from 527 to 565.
  His reign is marked by the ambitious but only partly realized renovatio imperii, or "restoration of the Empire". Because of his restoration activities, Justinian has sometimes been known as the "Last Roman" in mid-20th century historiography. This ambition was expressed by the partial recovery of the territories of the defunct Western Roman Empire. His general, Belisarius, swiftly conquered the Vandal Kingdom in North Africa. Subsequently, Belisarius, Narses, and other generals conquered the Ostrogothic kingdom, restoring Dalmatia, Sicily, Italy, and Rome to the empire after more than half a century of rule by the Ostrogoths. The prefect Liberius reclaimed the south of the Iberian peninsula, establishing the province of Spania. These campaigns re-established Roman control over the western Mediterranean, increasing the Empire's annual revenue by over a million solidi. During his reign, Justinian also subdued the Tzani, a people on the east coast of the Black Sea that had never been under Roman rule before.
context_section_description: One of the most spectacular features of Justinian's reign was the recovery of large stretches of land around the Western Mediterranean basin that had slipped out of Imperial control in the 5th century. As a Christian Roman emperor, Justinian considered it his divine duty to restore the Roman Empire to its ancient boundaries. Although he never personally took part in military campaigns, he boasted of his successes in the prefaces to his laws and had them commemorated in art. The re-conquests were in large part carried out by his general Belisarius.
caption: Reconstruction of the Column of Justinian, after Cornelius Gurlitt, 1912. The column was erected in the Augustaeum in Constantinople in 543 in honour of his military victories.
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