Theodosius I, also called Theodosius the Great, was a Roman emperor from 379 to 395. During his reign, he succeeded in a crucial war against the Goths, as well as in two civil wars, and was instrumental in establishing the creed of Nicaea as the orthodox doctrine for Christianity. Theodosius was the last emperor to rule the entire Roman Empire before its administration was permanently split between the West and East.
The Corpus JurisCivilis is the modern name for a collection of fundamental works in jurisprudence, issued from 529 to 534 by order of Byzantine Emperor Justinian I. It is also sometimes referred to metonymically after one of its parts, the Code of Justinian.
Theodosius II was Roman emperor from 402 to 450. He was proclaimed augustus as an infant and ruled as the Eastern Empire's sole emperor after the death of his father, Arcadius, in 408. His reign was marked by the promulgation of the Theodosian law code and the construction of the Theodosian Walls of Constantinople. He also presided over the outbreak of two great Christological controversies, Nestorianism and Eutychianism.
The Breviary of Alaric is a collection of Roman law, compiled by Roman jurists and issued by referendary Anianus on the order of Alaric II, King of the Visigoths, with the approval of his bishops and nobles. It was promulgated on 2 February 506, the 22nd year of his reign. It applied, not to the Visigothic nobles who lived under their own law, which had been formulated by Euric, but to the Hispano-Roman and Gallo-Roman population, living under Visigoth rule south of the Loire and, in Book 16, to the members of the trinitarian Catholic Church; the Visigoths were Arian and maintained their own clergy.
Joannes or John was Western Roman emperor from 423 to 425.
Late antiquity is sometimes defined as spanning from the end of classical antiquity to the local start of the Middle Ages, from around the late 3rd century up to the 7th or 8th century in Europe and adjacent areas bordering the Mediterranean Basin depending on location. The popularisation of this periodization in English has generally been credited to historian Peter Brown, who proposed a period between 150-750 AD. The Oxford Centre for Late Antiquity defines it as "the period between approximately 250 and 750 AD". Precise boundaries for the period are a continuing matter of debate. In the West, its end was earlier, with the start of the Early Middle Ages typically placed in the 6th century, or even earlier on the edges of the Western Roman Empire.
A cestus or caestus is a battle glove that was sometimes used in Roman gladiatorial events. It was based on a Greek original, which employed straps called himantes and sphirae, hard leather strips that enclosed and protected the fist and lower arm. Some cestuses were fitted with studs or spikes to inflict potentially lethal injuries. Cestus fighters seem to have had no form of body armour, apart from the cestus itself. Contemporary depictions show the cestus worn in pairs.
Byzantine law was essentially a continuation of Roman law with increased Orthodox Christian and Hellenistic influence. Most sources define Byzantine law as the Roman legal traditions starting after the reign of Justinian I in the 6th century and ending with the Fall of Constantinople in the 15th century. Although future Byzantine codes and constitutions derived largely from Justinian's Corpus Juris Civilis, their main objectives were idealistic and ceremonial rather than practical. Following Hellenistic and Near-Eastern political systems, legislations were tools to idealize and display the sacred role and responsibility of the emperor as the holy monarch chosen by God and the incarnation of law "nómos émpsychos", thus having philosophical and religious purposes that idealized perfect Byzantine kingship.
Gamaliel VI was the last nasi of the ancient Sanhedrin.
Anthemius was a statesman of the Later Roman Empire. He is notable as a praetorian prefect of the East in the later reign of Arcadius and the first years of Theodosius II, during which time he led the government of the Eastern Roman Empire on behalf of the child emperor and supervised the construction of the first set of the Theodosian Walls.
The Codex Gregorianus is the title of a collection of constitutions of Roman emperors over a century and a half from the 130s to 290s AD. It is believed to have been produced around 291–294 but the exact date is unknown.
The Codex Hermogenianus is the title of a collection of constitutions of the Roman emperors of the first tetrarchy, mostly from the years 293–94. Most of the work is now lost. The work became a standard reference in late antiquity, until it was superseded by the Breviary of Alaric and the Codex Justinianeus.
Fred Heinrich Blume, or Fred H. Blume, as he referred to himself, was a German-born American attorney and judge. He served as a justice of the Wyoming Supreme Court for 42 years, from 1922 to 1963, and by himself translated from Latin into English the Codex Justinianus and the Novels, two parts of the Corpus Juris Civilis.
Simon Corcoran is a British ancient historian and lecturer in ancient history within the School of History, Classics and Archaeology, Newcastle University.
The Edict of Thessalonica, issued on 27 February AD 380 by Theodosius I, made Nicene Christianity the state church of the Roman Empire. It condemned other Christian creeds such as Arianism as heresies of "foolish madmen," and authorized their punishment.
The Novellae Constitutiones, or Justinian's Novels, are now considered one of the four major units of Roman law initiated by Roman emperor Justinian I in the course of his long reign. The other three pieces are: the Codex Justinianus, the Digest, and the Institutes. Justinian's quaestor Tribonian was primarily responsible for compiling these last three. Together, the four parts are known as the Corpus Juris Civilis. Whereas the Code, Digest, and Institutes were designed by Justinian as coherent works, the Novels are diverse laws enacted after 534 that never were officially compiled during his reign.
Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire began during the reign of Constantine the Great in the military colony of Aelia Capitolina (Jerusalem), when he destroyed a pagan temple for the purpose of constructing a Christian church. Rome had periodically confiscated church properties, and Constantine was vigorous in reclaiming them whenever these issues were brought to his attention. Christian historians alleged that Hadrian had constructed a temple to Venus on the site of the crucifixion of Jesus on Golgotha hill in order to suppress Christian veneration there. Constantine used that to justify the temple's destruction, saying he was simply reclaiming the property. Using the vocabulary of reclamation, Constantine acquired several more sites of Christian significance in the Holy Land.
The religious policies of Constantius II were a mixture of toleration for some pagan practices and repression for other pagan practices. He also sought to advance the Arian or Semi-Arianian heresy within Christianity. These policies may be contrasted with the religious policies of his father, Constantine the Great, whose Catholic orthodoxy was espoused in the Nicene Creed and who largely tolerated paganism in the Roman Empire. Constantius also sought to repress Judaeism.
Clyde Pharr was an American classics professor at Ohio Wesleyan University, Southwestern Presbyterian University, Vanderbilt University, and, finally, at the University of Texas at Austin.
The Code of Justinian is one part of the Corpus Juris Civilis, the codification of Roman law ordered early in the 6th century AD by Justinian I, who was Eastern Roman emperor in Constantinople. Two other units, the Digest and the Institutes, were created during his reign. The fourth part, the Novellae Constitutiones, was compiled unofficially after his death but is now also thought of as part of the Corpus Juris Civilis.
