The Price of Empire? Justinian I’s Use of Cash Subsidies in Foreign Policy, 527–565

Modern historians typically present the Emperor Justinian I (527–65) as successfully continuing the longstanding Roman practice of paying ‘subsidies’ to foreign powers when war was undesirable or unfeasible. Other perspectives explain the demand for Roman money in terms of cultural contexts such as Sasanian ideology or nomadic life. Neither approach satisfactorily explains both the dynamics of Justinian’s payments and the trenchant criticism from his subjects. In response, this thesis presents a comprehensive re-evaluation of primary evidence, including original Greek, Latin and Syriac texts. By considering a full range of examples with an approach informed by substantivist economic theory, it develops a synoptic account which demonstrates Justinian’s cash payments were situational, iterative and often demand-led. While our sources provide positive proof of rational calculation, such evidence is insufficient to explain subsidies through the concept of ‘grand strategy’. More significant was the tension generated by competition between the moralised discourses of ‘gift’, ‘tribute’ and ‘pay’. Historians have often sought to separate these discourses from the discussion, but ought to treat them as integral features of the phenomenon. Six case studies demonstrate this argument. Justinian’s approach to his rival ‘great power’, Sasanian Persia, was too complex to be explained by the narratives of ‘western reconquest’ or the ‘Caspian Gates’. The treatment of Eastern client states varied: Justinian introduced new payments to compete with Persia for influence over Arab and Caucasian kings but moved away from previous subsidy arrangements in Asia Minor and Nubia. Justinian often paid nomadic polities of the Eurasian steppe, but revisionist historiography wrongly doubts the existence of his annual subsidy to the Avars. Finally, it demonstrates that examples from Africa, Italy and the Danube frontier are too often discounted from discussion of foreign payments. Together these cases show the complexity, limits and nuance of how Justinian used cash payments.