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OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
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six books of the Imperial edifices. He had dexterously chosen a subject of apparent splendour, in which he could loudly celebrate the genius, the magnificence, and the piety of a prince who, both as a conqueror and legislator, had surpassed the puerile virtues of Themistocles and Cyrus.[1] Disappointment might urge the flatterer to secret revenge; and the first glance of favour might again tempt him to suspend and suppress a libel,[2] in which the Roman Cyrus is degraded into an odious and contemptible tyrant, in which both the emperor and his consort Theodora are seriously represented as two dæmons, who had assumed an human form for the destruction of mankind.[3] Such base inconsistency must doubtless sully the reputation, and detract from the credit, of Procopius; yet, after the venom of his malignity has been suffered to exhale, the residue of the anecdotes, even the most disgraceful facts, some of which had been tenderly hinted in his public history, are established by their internal evidence, or the authentic monuments of the times.[4] From these various materials, I shall now proceed to describe the reign of Justinian, which will deserve and occupy an ample space. Division of the reign of Justinian The present chapter will explain the elevation and character of Theodora, the factions of the circus, and the peaceful administration of the sovereign of the East. In the three succeeding chapters I shall relate the wars of Justinian which achieved the conquest of Africa and Italy; and I shall follow the victories of Belisarius and Narses, without disguising the vanity of their triumphs, or the hostile virtue of the Persian and Gothic heroes. The series of this and the following volume will embrace the jurisprudence and theology of the emperor; the controversies and sects which
- ↑ Κύρου παιδεία (says he, Præfat. ad l. de Ædificiis, περὶ κτισμάτων) is no more than Κύρου παιδιά — a pun! In these five books, Procopius affects a Christian as well as a courtly style. [It is highly probable that the task of writing the Edifices was set the historian by the Emperor. Cp. Appendix 1.]
- ↑ Procopius discloses himself (Præfat. ad Anecdot. c. 1, 2, 5), and the anecdotes are reckoned as the ixth book by Suidas (tom. iii. p. 186, edit. Kuster). The silence of Evagrius is a poor objection. Baronius (A.D. 548, No. 24) regrets the loss of this secret history: it was then in the Vatican library, in his own custody, and was first published sixteen years after his death, with the learned, but partial, notes of Nicholas Alemannus (Lugd. 1623). [Cp. Appendix 1.]
- ↑ Justinian an ass — the perfect likeness of Domitian (Anecdot. c. 8) — Theodora's lovers driven from her bed by rival dæmons — her marriage foretold with a great dæmon — a monk saw the prince of the dæmons instead of Justinian, on the throne — the servants who watched beheld a face without features, a body walking without an head, &c. &c. Procopius declares his own and his friends' belief in these diabolical stories (c. 12).
- ↑ Montesquieu (Considerations sur la Grandeur et la Décadence des Romains, c. xx.) gives credit to these anecdotes, as connected, 1, with the weakness of the empire, and 2, with the instability of Justinian's laws.
