Fight for URBS: Justinian and the Roman Senatorial Aristocracy

Abstract

The article considers the goals and results of the stay of Roman senators, who fled after the capture of Rome by the Goths in 546, in Constantinople. The study is based on the reports of Procopius of Caesarea, Liber Pontificalis and acts of the Fifth Ecumenical Council. After they had lost the patronage of the Gothic authorities and began to fear for their property due to hostilities in Italy, Roman aristocrats were looking for a way to maintain their former dominant position in the city. Going to Constantinople, the senators hoped to convince the Byzantine emperor to oppose the Goths and regain control of Rome, which would allow them to take back their privileged status. However, Emperor Justinian I tried to use their arrival for his own purposes. The ruler was busy with religious problems. He made an agreement with senators, according to which they pledged to take part in the 5th Ecumenical Council and to support the emperor’s position in the dispute over the Three Chapters. In return, the aristocrats received the promise of the speedy liberation of Italy from the barbarians. Using a comparative and historical-anthropological approach, the author traces the influence of military operations in Italy and the forced resettlement of some senators to the East on the extinction of the Roman senatorial order. Senators’ hopes for the restoration of the emperor’s individual rule in Rome turned out to be in vain. Having conquered the Apennine peninsula, Justinian retained control of the former capital. As a result, the senators finally lost their previous power in Rome and the Roman senatorial order fell into decay. After the publication of Pragmatica sanctio, aristocrats acted as mediators, first between the emperor and the church, and then between the church authorities and the laity privately. © 2020, Perm State University. All rights reserved.