Anthony Kaldellis: evaluation

Transcript context

…Yeah, yeah, exactly. The controversy. And through all the systems of social mobility that we’ve been talking about, Justin ended up emperor. Because of his military background, he just rose through the ranks. He was in the right place at the right time, became emperor, and then he gradually positioned his nephew, Justinian, whose background we do not know. Literally, we do not know anything that Justinian did before the age of something like 38 when he appears on the historical record. Same background. We know where he came from, but we don’t know what he was doing, although, like, was he an active soldier for decades? We don’t know. Probably not. He comes equipped with, like, a knowledge of something like Roman law and some Christian theology. That seems to be, like, what he knew. And then Justin positions him to become his successor eventually, kind of reluctantly, but he does. Justinian also marries Theodora, who’s a woman who’s a former sex worker, which is a controversial choice. By this point, he’s a senator and is holding all of these top generalships, and then he becomes emperor. She was also very influential, yes?…

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