Justinian spent everything to make the empire big again. Two centuries later it was a third of that size, spoke Greek, paid its soldiers in land instead of coin — and could actually be defended. Drag the year, click a province, and watch the trade-off: the empire is hardest to defend at the exact moment it is largest.
the age of Justinian
527drag, or use arrow keys
5006307608901025
Who holds what in 527 — click any province
heldcontested or raidedlost or not yet taken
Schematic, not a map to scale — the blocks are arranged geographically so you can watch the shape of the state change.
Pick a provinceClick a block above and this panel explains what happened to it, and when.
Territory held
Annual revenue
Defensibility
People in Constantinople
Defensibility across five centuries
Language of government
How soldiers are paid
The ruler is called
Provincial life
How to read this. Territory, revenue and defensibility are teaching indexes built from the figures and judgments in the chapter, not measured statistics. Defensibility asks a single question: how much money and manpower does the state have for each kilometre of frontier it must actually hold?