La pensée politique à l’époque de Justinien (527-565) : l’Ekthesis d’Agapète et le Dialogue de science politique
The object of this thesis is to study two important texts of the political thought of the Age of Justinian by replacing them in the political context of the Age.  The two texts represent the point of view of two acceptation groups of Constantinople – groups that can participate in the election or the destitution of an emperor : the clergy and the elite of the senators and the high spheres of the bureaucracy.  What will emerge is a clash between two tendencies : on the one hand a christianised political hellenism (associated with the clergy) and on the other a roman vision mixed to neoplatonician metaphysics (associated with senators and the high spheres of the bureaucracy). The two tendencies/traditions ask different questions. The first one asks the questions of the orthodoxy of the emperor and of the necessity for him to follow the rules of christian ethics, as well as to show himself worthy of God, of whom he is the servant; the other, the question of the preservation of the roman heritage, particularly in regards of the role of the Senate and the importance of the law, and of the relation between imperial power and philosophy.
Empire byzantin Constantinople Justinian Agapetus the deacon Dialogue on political science Late Antiquity Byzantine Empire Constantinople