Three Political Voices from the Age of Justinian: Agapetus, Advice to the Emperor; Dialogue on Political Science; Paul the Silentiary, Description of Hagia Sophia

This translation, with commentary and introduction, brings together three important, if generally neglected, works that cast great light on politics and ideology in early Byzantium. Agapetus wrote, c. 527-30 CE, from a position sympathetic to the emperor Justinian, when he had still to consolidate his authority. He sets out what an emperor must do to acquire legitimacy, in terms of government as the imitation of God. The Dialogue, written anonymously towards the end of the same reign, comprises fragments from Books 4-5 of a philosophically sophisticated (and now lost) longer work, setting out requirements for the ideal polity, based on a similar concept of imperial rule, with extensive comment on matters of current political salience but from an implicitly hostile standpoint. Not only does the text reflect the nature of Neoplatonic political philosophy but it also delves into the inner realities of the time, and the political problems of Constantinople during the first half of the sixth century. The third text was written by Paul the Silentiary to mark the re-dedication of the Great Church Hagia Sophia, built thirty years earlier under Justinian's orders.