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Or if you're listening on the Apple Podcasts app, you can subscribe within the app in just a few clicks. Some of those who have been with Justinian at the palace later night, men who were pure of spirit, thought they saw a strange demoniac form taking his place.

One man said that the emperor suddenly rose from his throne and walked about and indeed he was never

want to remain sitting for long and immediately Justinian's

head vanished while the rest of his body seemed to ebb and flow where at the beholder

stood aghast and fearful wondering if his eyes and the body again as strangely as it had left it. So Tom Holland that is the

historian Procopius talking of the Emperor Justinian the sixth century emperor

of what was then what they would have called the Roman Empire, what we often call the Byzantine Empire.

Do you think Justinian, two questions, do you think he was a demon and do you think his head was capable of leaving the body and reappearing on the body afterwards.

Well, I mean the two questions are kind of interconnected, aren't they?

Well, you could be a demon and not have that power, I suppose.

Well, I think it's unlikely. I think if you're a demon you can

definitely do that and there's a he goes on to say doesn't he that there's another

person who comes to Justinian looks into his face and the whole of the face melts and becomes a featureless

lump of flesh and then gradually the features come back on. That's right. The face

...