Focus on continuity and change: Byzantine state-building

"The ‘grand design’ view of Justinian’s reign sees all his actions as the deliberate restoration of the ancient Roman empire, though a Roman empire raised to new heights of glory as a Christian empire confessing the orthodox faith. According to this view, reconquest restored something like the traditional geographical area of the empire; law reform encapsulated the vision of a Christian Roman empire, governed by God’s vicegerent, the emperor; the capital’s splendid buildings, not least the churches, celebrated the Christian court of New Rome, with the defensive buildings described by Procopius in the later books of his Buildings serving to preserve in perpetuity the newly reconquered Roman world."