Procopius - The Secret History

Of the literary forms and traditions that the modern world owes to the ancient Greeks, perhaps none has done quite so much to shape contemporary intellectual attitudes as the writing of history. To seek to understand the causes and origins of the world around us, to explain the evolution of that world in rational terms and to appreciate and empathize with the complexity and frailty of the human condition, irrespective of the race, creed, or class of the individuals concerned, are key characteristics of the modern Western mind that stem directly from the Greek historiographical perspective. History, in short, was one of the great glories of Greek culture, and of all the historians to have written in Greek, Procopius of Caesarea stands out as one of the greatest.

Procopius is our primary literary source for the reign of the sixth-century Byzantine (or Eastern Roman) Emperor Justinian I (52765), whose period of rule stands out from the pages of Roman and Byzantine history for its energy, ambition and forcefulness. From his imperial capital at Constantinople (Byzantium), Justinian sought to restore Roman rule to the provinces of Africa, Italy and Spain, which had been lost in the fifth century to military usurpers and barbarian invaders. At the same time, he faced a belligerent foe to the east in the form of the ancient empire of Sasanian Persia. At home, Justinian set about the codification and reordering of the inherited tradition of Roman law and the restructuring of provincial government. Religious affairs also demanded his attention, as the imperial Church increasingly found itself wracked by bitter disputes over the nature of the relationship between the Human and the Divine in the person of Christ.

In spite of the vast detail of historical evidence concerning Justinians reign to be found in the legal compilations which he ordered to be produced, the large number of documentary sources that survive from his period of rule (albeit mostly preserved in the sands of Egypt) and the rich vein of archeological evidence, Justinian is nevertheless known to us chiefly through the writings of Procopius, who, by contrast, emerges as a relatively shadowy figure. Of Palestinian origin, he was born in the city of Caesarea, presumably around the turn of the sixth century. He clearly received an excellent education in the Greek classics, although where we do not know. The quality of his education would suggest that he was probably born into a relatively wealthy family. In addition to Greek he is likely to have had a fair amount of Latin and presumably some Aramaic or Syriac (the indigenous language of the region). He is usually described in the sources as a jurist or legal advocate a rhetor. The first post we know that Procopius held was as assessor (military legal secretary) to the general Belisarius, whom he accompanied on campaign against the Persians between 527 and 531. In the year 5334, Procopius again travelled alongside Belisarius as the latter led the Byzantine reconquest of Vandal North Africa. Procopius remained in North Africa under the general Solomon from 534 to 536, in which year he once more joined Belisarius, this time on his Italian campaign. Procopius remained in Italy until at least 540, by which point he would have spent a good thirteen or fourteen years on the military front line, witnessing direct active service. In the year 5423 he found himself in Constantinople, where he witnessed at first hand the advent of bubonic plague the first onslaught of this disease in the history of the Mediterranean. Thereafter his movements are unknown. In the early 560s we do hear of a Procopius who served as Urban Prefect of Constantinople, but whether he is to be identified with Procopius the historian is far from clear.

Procopius account of the battle of Dara between Belisarius and the Persians in 530 is the first eye-witness account of a battle written by a Roman author since Ammianus Marcellinus in the fourth century.