Justantine, a Roman Emperor, had a dream of taking back Rome and reuniting the Empire.  He sent his troops out to take back Italy and they were successful in not only that but they also took back much of the Mediterranean.  He also looked at the laws and overruled out-of-date and unchristian laws.  Then he called this system Justinian's Code.  Just like all emperors, Justinian had enemies.  In 532 two of them joined together and tried to overthrow him.  He was a chicken and ran.  Luckily for him and the Empire his wife, Theodora, smacked some sense into him and told him to stay.  He obeyed and, with the help of his amazing wife, won the war.  They also ruled the empire with much authority and power.  Unfortunatley Justantine didn't last very long.  He died in 565 and the eastern empire crumbled with all the invasions 700 years later.  This ended the 1000-year Roman rule.

S.ocial Structure

Citizens could vote and hold public offices.  but had to pay taxes and men had to go to war when needed.  They were proud of their citizenship, and thought it was an honor to be a citizen of Rome.  Once they conquered people, they gave citizenship to special people.  This idea held the captured people to not revolt and take over the Empire.

     In the Byzatine Empire people spoke Greek instead of Latin.  They thought of themselves as Romans.

Patricians and plebeians

The broadest division was by ancestry, between patricians, those who could trace their ancestry to the first Senate established by Romulus,[1] and plebeians, all other citizens. Originally, all public offices were open only to patricians, and the classes could not intermarry. Contemporary politicians and writers (Coriolanus, for example) in the Kingdom and early Republic thought of plebeians as rabble barely capable of sentient thought. However, the plebeians, by withdrawing their labour, had the power to force change. A series of social struggles (see Conflict of the Orders) saw the plebs secede from the city on three occasions, the last in 297 BC, until their demands were met. They won the right to stand for office, the abolition of the intermarriage law, and the office of tribune of the plebs. This office, founded in 494 BC as a result of a plebeian secession, was the main legal bulwark against the powers of the patrician class. The tribunes originally had the power to protect any plebeian from a patrician magistrate. Later revolts forced the Senate to grant the tribunes additional powers, such as the right to veto legislation. A tribune's person was sacrosanct, and he was obliged to keep an open house at all times while in office.

Following these changes the distinction between patrician and plebeian status became less important. Over time, some patrician families fell on hard times, some plebeian families rose in status, and the composition of the ruling class changed. Some patricians, notably Publius Clodius Pulcher, petitioned to be assigned plebeian status, partly in order to run for the position of tribune but also partly to lessen the patrician tax burden. Rome's growing economic power as a trading nation left many patrician families from behind; those that could not adjust to the new commercial realities of Roman society often found themselves in the embarrassing position of having to marry their daughters to wealthier plebeians or even freedmen. A plebeian, such as Marius or Cicero, who was the first of his line to become consul, was known as a novus homo ("new man"), and he and his descendants became nobiles ("nobles"); however they remained plebeian. Some religious offices remained reserved for patricians, but otherwise the distinction was largely a matter of prestige.