<P> In 491, Anastasius I, an aged civil officer of Roman origin, became Emperor, but it was not until 497 that the forces of the new emperor effectively took the measure of Isaurian resistance . Anastasius revealed himself as an energetic reformer and an able administrator . He introduced a new coinage system of the copper follis, the coin used in most everyday transactions . He also reformed the tax system and permanently abolished the chrysargyron tax . The State Treasury contained the enormous sum of 320,000 lb (150,000 kg) of gold when Anastasius died in 518 . </P> <P> The Justinian dynasty was founded by Justin I, who though illiterate, rose through the ranks of the military to become Emperor in 518 . He was succeeded by his nephew Justinian I in 527, who may already have exerted effective control during Justin's reign . One of the most important figures of late antiquity and possibly the last Roman emperor to speak Latin as a first language, Justinian's rule constitutes a distinct epoch, marked by the ambitious but only partly realized renovatio imperii, or "restoration of the Empire". His wife Theodora was particularly influential . </P> <P> In 529, Justinian appointed a ten - man commission chaired by John the Cappadocian to revise Roman law and create a new codification of laws and jurists' extracts, known as the "Corpus Juris Civilis" or the Justinian Code . In 534, the Corpus was updated and, along with the enactments promulgated by Justinian after 534, formed the system of law used for most of the rest of the Byzantine era . The Corpus forms the basis of civil law of many modern states . </P> <P> In 532, attempting to secure his eastern frontier, Justinian signed a peace treaty with Khosrau I of Persia, agreeing to pay a large annual tribute to the Sassanids . In the same year, he survived a revolt in Constantinople (the Nika riots), which solidified his power but ended with the deaths of a reported 30,000 to 35,000 rioters on his orders . The western conquests began in 533, as Justinian sent his general Belisarius to reclaim the former province of Africa from the Vandals, who had been in control since 429 with their capital at Carthage . Their success came with surprising ease, but it was not until 548 that the major local tribes were subdued . In Ostrogothic Italy, the deaths of Theodoric, his nephew and heir Athalaric, and his daughter Amalasuntha had left her murderer, Theodahad (r . 534--536), on the throne despite his weakened authority . </P>

Chapter 34 the early stages of the byzantine empire