Turkey / Byzantium: Justin II (520-578), Byzantine emperor, from the book Icones imperatorvm romanorvm (Icons of Roman Emperors), Antwerp, c. 1645. Justin was the nephew of Emperor Justinian I and had supposedly been named his heir on the emperor's deathbed. Justin's early rule relied completely on the support of the aristocratic party, and faced with an empty treasury, he stopped paying off potential enemies as his uncle had done, leading to Avar invasions across the Danube river.