Struggle for the Roman Inheritance: St. Emperor Justinian and King Theodoric

Abstract

The article shows the difference in relation to the classical Roman heritage between the Byzantine Vasileus of St. Justinian the Great and the King of the Ostrogoths Theodoric. This difference is manifested both in official rhetoric and in the legal work of these rulers. It was Theodoric’s unwillingness to actively introduce Roman legal elements into the legislation of his state that became one of the reasons for the failure to integrate the Italians (indigenous Latin population) into the structures of the Ostrogothic kingdom. Being a mirror reflection of the “Byzantine synthesis” (Roman law, Greek language, Orthodoxy), the state of Theodoric could not withstand competition with the true heir to ancient Rome.