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The study of fortifications and military structures of the Black Sea and the regions abutting it during the reign of Justinian I (527-565) has been studied in a relatively extensive degree by scholars especially in the last past decades and it will long continue to be in the future, thanks to the international hue of the subject. While a big number of general works concerning the littoral defensive system of the Black Sea territory has been published, it is reasonable to claim that only a few of them use the results of the works of the contemporary archaeological excavations on the matter, combining initially the ancient -Greek and Roman- written evidence and subsequently the epigraphic sources1. Even if the recent archaeological research has made an important contribution, a holistic and critical approach of the subject, based on the results of a comparative research of the available data, still needs to be done. In fact, no single monograph has been written on the Byzantine fortifications and defensive systems along the entire length of the coast, since most of the scholars tend to work on specific areas. Different questions and different cities have been studied separately and a considerable amount of factual material has been accumulated, but it has not been compared and synthesised. The majority of the scientific studies done until now, cope each other either with the administrative division of the coastal sea that took place in the transition period from the Late Roman to Early Byzantine times or with the modern division of the coast between Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Russia, Ukraine and Georgia. Moreover, studies of Byzantine architecture have concentrated almost exclusively on ecclesiastical buildings, despite the fact that the largest percentage of surviving Byzantine structures are the fortifications, ranging from extensive land walls to small keeps, most of which remain unidentified, dateless, unbeknown and, often, even worse, unpublished. The purpose of this paper is to fill this scholarly need: a closer examination of the available historical and archaeological data for the great architectural and 1 The study of Byzantine fortifications in the Black Sea provinces has evolved during the second half of the twentieth century due to the precautionary excavations of many ancient sites, which are superposed by modern cities, influencing consequently the quantity of the archaeological evidence. Page | iv fortifying undertakings across the reign of Justinian, with particular reference to the territories of the Black Sea, which became the focus of imperial attention throughout this period. For all these reasons, comparing all the available data on the time of the construction date and summarizing some of the most important results of excavations and publications of the recent years, I will try to draw a picture of the key historical events of the sixth century and to give a convincing representation of the extensive Justinian’s fortification complex system, based on a coordination of historical documents and inscriptions with a visual analysis of the surviving constructions. Despite the fact that too many sites remain unsurveyed and poorly documented, one can only hope that this study will instigate a more comprehensive examination of the monuments in the future.