Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages

by Dan Jones

The Plague of Justinian did not on its own transform the world. But it was a significant part of a larger story of transformation, reform, realignment, and a struggle for preeminence, which took place between the 520s, where our last chapter ended, and the 620s, where our next will begin. This was a formative hundred years for the rump of the Roman Empire; for relations between the Mediterranean east and west; for the cultural balance between the “Greek” and “Latin” spheres; for regional relations between the Roman and Persian empires; for lawmaking; for great religions; for urban planners; for great artists. During an age that was buffeted not only by the first world pandemic but also by a global climate shock, political realities and patterns of thought were set that would affect the Mediterranean world for nearly one thousand years. To understand all this, we must focus on the birth—or rebirth—of the eastern Roman Empire during the sixth century. This is the time when historians generally stop speaking of Rome and the Roman Empire and refer instead to Byzantium: the Greek-speaking inheritor state that served as a buffer between east and west, surviving for centuries until it was ravaged by crusaders and later consumed by the Ottomans—an event that heralded the end of the Middle Ages.