Justinian the Just Emperor

​Was one of the most powerful rulers of Byzantium.

​He was known as the "Just Emperor"

​He didn't come from family with money. His parents were farmers.

​He didn't want to be a farmer he learned how to read and spent every minute studying.

​Justinian convinced his parents to allow him to go to school

​He studied very hard.

​When he finished school he joined the army.

​He spent all his energy and time helping the officers.

​A lot of people agreed that he would make a good emperor.

Justinian became emperor in the year 527

The Byzantium wasn't very big yet.

Justinian wanted the Roman Empire back and even bigger

He grew his army so that he could conquer more

​He was able to take some parts of Rome from the barbarians who were living there.

He was not able to recapture all the land. He did make the Byzantine empire bigger than it was.

​One issue Justinian had was that each country had their own laws.

​He started to get confused with all the different laws.

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​He decided to make one set of laws for everyone in his empire.

​He had hundreds of scholars help collect all the laws

​They finally came up with "The Code of Justinian."

​Everyone was supposed to follow these laws.