The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Secret History of the Court of Justinian
by Procopius

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Title: The Secret History of the Court of Justinian

Author: Procopius

Release Date: July 16, 2004 [EBook #12916]
[Date last updated: June 6, 2005]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE COURT OF JUSTINIAN

PROCOPIUS

_LITERALLY AND COMPLETELY TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK FOR THE FIRST TIME

ATHENS: PRIVATELY PRINTED FOR THE ATHENIAN SOCIETY: MDCCCXCVI_

PREFACE

Procopius, the most important of the Byzantine historians, was born at
Caesarea in Palestine towards the beginning of the sixth century of
the Christian era. After having for some time practised as a
"Rhetorician," that is, advocate or jurist, in his native land, he
seems to have migrated early to Byzantium or Constantinople. There he
gave lessons in elocution, and acted as counsel in several law-cases.
His talents soon attracted attention, and he was promoted to official
duties in the service of the State. He was commissioned to accompany
the famous Belisarius during his command of the army in the East, in
the capacity of Counsellor or Assessor: it is not easy to define
exactly the meaning of the Greek term, and the functions it embraced.
The term "Judge-Advocate" has been suggested[1], a legal adviser who
had a measure of judicial as well as administrative power. From his
vivid description of the early years of Justinian's reign, we may
conclude that he spent some considerable time at the Byzantine court
before setting out for the East, at any rate, until the year 532, when
Belisarius returned to the capital: he would thus have been an
eye-witness of the "Nika" sedition, which, had it not been for the
courage and firmness displayed by Theodora, would probably have
resulted in the fl