Man, I thought personal attacks against other users were against the guidelines.

A follower of the Edward Gibbon school of Byzantine bashing.

" Justinian’s reign destroyed the Roman world." and "his ambitions enfeebled the state he tried to restore and the future he bequeathed to Europe was one of poverty and schism."

Seems like a pretty harsh assessment. Empires acquire territory, that's why they're called empires. If you get kicked out of some place you try to take it back.

  The Eastern Empire continued on for another 900 years or so which is pretty good for a "destroyed" world.  Europe? As in France, Spain, Italy, the British Isles?  Justinian bequeathed poverty and schism to that Europe?  

I think it's far more complicated than this article portrays.

Procopius piles on to the point that one reflexively doubts him.

Yes, all of the dirt about corruption or sexual license kind of gets overwhelmed by the claims about Justinian's head flying around independent of his body, or that he depopulated Africa, or that he was personally responsible for pretty much every earthquake and plague in the known world, etc. And of course there's the fact that he also wrote an incredibly glowing official history of Justinian. If he lied in one, it seems pretty easy to assume he lied in the other.

Is there any way to actually read this? Pay wall.

The 'web' link worked for me.

There is no web link. It's a pay wall. Did you not get that?

[edit]

I was able to read it using the Tor Browser. There's a quota on the number of articles before it activates the pay wall.

This comment comes across as snarky.

You should be happy you're behind a computer screen.

I apologize, I did not intend any offense. What wording would you have found more appropriate?

Apologies, I guess I overreacted. I do that sometimes.

The user was referring to a hacker news feature. Under the main link, there is one titled ‘web’ that searches the web for the aeticle. This sometimes bypasses paywalls.

Commenting as I read your other comment; you may have misinterpreted OP m

outline.com/<original url>