Erected on the site of pagan temples and three previous St. Sophias, the first of which was begun by Constantine, this fourth church was started by Justinian in 532 and completed twenty years later.

Actually an underground cistern, its roof supported by rows and rows of pillars, it was built by Justinian in the Sixth Century to supply the palace with water.

Moreover, Justin II was moving away from the foreign policy of Justinian, and believed in dealing more strictly with bordering states and peoples.

In particular the so-called Plague of Justinian had ravaged the region and conflict remained endemic, with the Three-Chapter Controversy sparking religious opposition and administration at a standstill after the able governor of the peninsula, Narses, was recalled.

Anthemius of Tralles ( c. 474 – before 558 ; ) was a Greek professor of Geometry in Constantinople ( present-day Istanbul in Turkey ) and architect, who collaborated with Isidore of Miletus to build the church of Hagia Sophia by the order of Justinian I. Anthemius came from an educated family, one of five sons of Stephanus of Tralles, a physician.

The regnal year of the emperor was also used to identify years, especially in the Byzantine Empire after 537 when Justinian required its use.

The city was sacked by the Samaritans in 529, but rebuilt by the Byzantine emperor Justinian I. Bethlehem was conquered by the Arab Caliphate of ' Umar ibn al-Khattāb in 637, who guaranteed safety for the city's religious shrines.

During the Samaritan revolt of 529, Bethlehem was sacked and its walls and the Church of the Nativity destroyed, but they were rebuilt on the orders of the Emperor Justinian I.

One of the first and throughout its history one of the most significant treatises of the common law, Bracton ’ s De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae ( On the Laws and Customs of England ), was heavily influenced by the division of the law in Justinian ’ s Institutes.

The region was then ruled by the Ostrogoths up to 535, when Justinian I added the territory to the Byzantine Empire.

The emperor Justinian I ( 527 – 565 ) was known for his successes in war, for his legal reforms and for his public works.

Justinian was also concerned with other aspects of the city's built environment, legislating against the abuse of laws prohibiting building within of the sea front, in order to protect the view.

However, the social fabric of Constantinople was also damaged by the onset of Plague of Justinian between 541 – 542 AD.

In its preparation, centuries of material was examined, scrutinized for authenticity by leading experts, and harmonized as much as possible with opposing canons and even other codes, from the Codex of Justinian to the Napoleonic Code.

In the 6th century, the Neoplatonist philosopher Simplicius, who was persecuted for his pagan beliefs during the reign of Justinian, wrote an extant commentary on the Enchiridion.

Isidore of Miletus was one of the two main Byzantine Greek architects ( Anthemius of Tralles was the other ) that Emperor Justinian I commissioned to design the church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople from 532-537A. D.

Isidore of Miletus was a renowned scientist and mathematician before Emperor Justinian I hired him, “ Isidorus taught stereometry and physics at the universities, first of Alexandria then of Constantinople, and wrote a commentary on an older treatise on vaulting .” Emperor Justinian I appointed his architects to rebuild the Hagia Sophia following his victory over protesters within the capital city of his Roman Empire, Constantinople.

Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of Tralles originally planned on a main hall of the Hagia Sophia that measured 230 feet by 250 feet, making it the largest church in Constantinople, but the original dome was nearly 20 feet lower than it was constructed, “ Justinian suppressed these riots and took the opportunity of marking his victory by erecting in 532-7 the new Hagia Sophia, one of the largest, most lavish, and most expensive buildings of all time .” Although Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of Tralles were not formally educated in architecture, they were scientists that could organize the logistics of drawing thousands of laborers and unprecedented loads of rare raw materials from around the Roman Empire to create the Hagia Sophia for Emperor Justinian I.

Imprisoned, the deposed king appealed to Justinian.

* March 29 – Pope Vigilius succeeds Silverius as the 59th pope, when the latter is deposed by Belisarius at the order of Justinian I.

* Byzantine Empire: The deposed Byzantine emperor Justinian II flees from his exile at Cherson to the Khazars.

Tervel is first mentioned in the Byzantine sources in 704, when he was approached by the deposed and exiled Byzantine emperor Justinian II.

With the help of the Blue charioteers faction, the Patriarch Kallinikos, and his own military prowess, Leontios soon deposed Justinian and seized the throne himself.

A considerable number of Monophysite bishops from all parts of the East, including Theodosius of Alexandria, Anthimus the deposed patriarch of Constantinople, Constantius of Laodicea, John of Egypt, Peter and others, who had come to Constantinople in the hope of mitigating the displeasure of the emperor and increasing the sympathies of Theodora, were held by Justinian in one of the imperial fortresses under house arrest.

Among its more famous " inmates " were Pope Clement I and Pope Martin I, and the deposed Byzantine Emperor Justinian II.

In 704, the deposed emperor Justinian II settled in Phanagoria ( then governed by the Khazar tudun Balgatzin ) with his wife Theodora, a sister of the Khazar Khagan Busir Glavan, before returning to Constantinople by way of Bulgaria.

Theodora died in 548, perhaps of cancer, at a relatively young age ; Justinian outlived her by almost twenty years.

An older Justinian ; mosaic in Basilica of Sant ' Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna ( possibly a modified portrait of Theodoric the Great | Theodoric ).

In 552, Justinian dispatched a force of 2, 000 men ; according to the historian Jordanes, this army was led by the octogenarian Liberius.

Though many delegates emerged in the East subservient to Justinian, many, especially the Monophysites, remained unsatisfied ; all the more bitter for him because during his last years he took an even greater interest in theological matters.

Justinian was a prolific builder ; the historian Procopius bears witness to his activities in this area.

In order to bypass the Persian landroute, Justinian established friendly relations with the Abyssinians, whom he wanted to act as trade mediators by transporting Indian silk to the Empire ; the Abyssinians, however, were unable to compete with the Persian merchants in India.

Even though Byzantine emperors maintained a claim over the territory, and no barbarian king in the west dared to elevate himself to the position of Emperor of the West, Byzantine control of most of the West could not be sustained ; the reconquest of the Italian peninsula and Mediterranean periphery by Justinian was the sole, and temporary, exception.

However, this dating was disputed by Hypatius of Ephesus, who met the monophysite party during the 532 meeting with Emperor Justinian I ; Hypatius denied its authenticity on the grounds that none of the Fathers or Councils ever cited or referred to it.

The Code and the Institutes of Justinian were known in Western Europe, and along with the earlier code of Theodosius II, served as models for a few of the Germanic law codes ; however, the Digest portion was largely ignored for several centuries until around 1070, when a manuscript of the Digest was rediscovered in Italy.

Biovar Antiqua is thought to correspond to the Plague of Justinian ; it is not known whether this biovar also corresponds to earlier or smaller epidemics of bubonic plague, or whether these were even truly bubonic plague.

* Pope Vigilius arrives in Constantinople to meet with Justinian I ; future pope Pelagius is sent by Totila to negotiate with Justinian.

* Annotated Justinian Code English translation ( from the Mommsen and Krueger edition ) by Fred H. Blume, 1943 ; revised by Timothy Kearley, 2005-2009 ( greatly preferable to Scott's translation )

Justinian hoped that this would contribute to a reunion between the Chalcedonians and monophysites in the eastern provinces of the Empire ; various attempts at reconciliation between the monophysite and orthodox parties were made by many emperors over the four centuries following the Council of Ephesus, none of them succeeding, and some, attempts at reconciliation, such as this — the condemnation of the Three Chapters — causing further schisms and heresies to arise in the process, such as the aforementioned schism of the Three Chapters, and the heresies of monoenergism and monotheletism — the propositions, respectively, that Christ had only one function, operation, or energy ( purposefully formulated in an equivocal and vague manner, and promulgated between 610 and 622 by the Emperor Heraclius under the advisement of Patriarch Sergius I of Constantinople ) and that Christ only had one will ( promulgated in 638 by the same ).

In 543 Emperor Justinian issued a decree which condemned the various heresies of Origen ; this decree was sent for signature both to the Oriental patriarchs and to Vigilius.

The rebels then seized the capital and proclaimed Bardanes as Emperor Philippicus ; Justinian had been on his way to Armenia, and was unable to return to Constantinople in time to defend it.

Relying on the support of the Monothelite party, he made some pretensions to the throne on the outbreak of the first great rebellion against Emperor Justinian II ; these led to his relegation to Cephalonia by Tiberius Apsimarus, and subsequently to his banishment, by order of Justinian, to Cherson.

Probably also the property of the Platonist school, which in the time of Proclus was valued at more than 1000 gold pieces, was confiscated ; at least, Justinian deprived the physicians and teachers of the liberal arts of the provision-money which had been assigned to them by previous emperors, and confiscated funds which the citizens had provided for spectacles and other civic purposes.

The monastery was built by order of Emperor Justinian I ( reigned 527-565 ), enclosing the Chapel of the Burning Bush ordered to be built by Helena, the mother of Constantine I, at the site where Moses is supposed to have seen the burning bush ; the living bush on the grounds is purportedly the original.

In 536, Justinian I made it the seat of the Quaestura exercitus ruled by a prefect of Scythia or quaestor Justinianus and including Lower Moesia, Scythia, Caria, the Aegean Islands and Cyprus ; later, the military camp outside Odessus was the seat of another senior Roman commander, magister militum per Thracias.

The St David's lifeboat, located at St Justinian, has saved an estimated 360 people since the first lifeboat was located there in 1869 ; and four lifeboatmen have died while saving others.

He was also the author of rhetorical exercises on philosophical themes ; of a Quadrivium ( arithmetic, music, geometry, astronomy ), valuable for the history of music and astronomy in the Middle Ages ; a general sketch of Aristotelian philosophy ; a paraphrase of the speeches and letters of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite ; poems, including an autobiography ; and a description of the square of the Augustaeum, and the column erected by Justinian in the church of Hagia Sophia to commemorate his victories over the Persians.