but this is sufficiently explained by the impersonal tone which Procopius affects, in imitation of Thucydides. Brückner seems to be far from hitting the point when he says that Procopius "is not wont to hide his light under a bushel"; on the contrary, Procopius imitates the personal reserve of Thucydides. It is impossible, therefore, to attach importance to the negative argument "dass Prokop so ausserordentlich wenig rechtswissenschaftliche Kenntnisse entwickelt," or that he tells nothing of his own activity as legal assessor. I see no good ground for doubting that in the African and Gothic Wars Procopius was assessor of Belisarius in the full official sense of the term.
The dates of the composition of the historian's works have undergone an important revision by the investigation of J. Haury. This scholar has proved from two passages[1] that the greatest part of the Military History, bks. i.-vii., was written in A.D. 545, the year which offered a suitable terminus for the Persian and the Vandalic Wars.[2] The work was not published till A.D. 550, in which year a few additions were made,[3] but no alterations.[4]
The Secret History, Haury has shown, was written in A.D. 550, not, as usually supposed, in A.D. 558-9. Had it been written in A.D. 558-9 it is impossible to see why none of the events between A.D. 550 and A.D. 558 are used to support the author's indictment of .Justinian's government. The reason for supposing it to have been composed in A.D. 558-9 was the explicit statement that thirty-two years had elapsed since Justinian undertook the administration ((
Greek characters)). Haury has shown that the author counts not from the accession of Justinian but from that of Justin (A.D. 518), on the principle that Justin was a cipher, and completely in the hands of his nephew.[5]
The eighth book of the Military History, usually counted as the fourth of the Gothic War, was written in A.D. 553-4. The last work, the Edifices, was not published before A.D. 560; for it mentions the construction of the bridge over the Sangarius (vol. iii. p. 315), the date of which we know from Theophanes to have been A.D. 559-60 (under the circumstances, A.D. 560).[6] It is gratuitous to suppose that this is an interpolation. There is, however, another passage in the Edifices on which Dahn confidently based his view that the Secret History was composed after the Edifices. In mentioning the inundation of Edessa by the river Skirtos, Procopius (Secret Hist. p. 111) refers to his description in his earlier works. Now there is no such description in the Military History, but there is in the Edifices. Haury, however, has pointed to a passage in the Bell. Pers. (vol. i. p. 209) where there is clearly a considerable gap in our text.[7] and plausibly argues that the description referred to in the Secret History occupied this gap. In any case, Dahn's argument from the Skirtos is met by the counterargument from the Sangarios.[8]
8 I have briefly indicated Haury's argument, above, vol. i., Introduction, p. lviii., note. The events related from p. 44 to 67 (vol. iii., ed. Bonn) fall into the time of Justin, and the (Greek characters) in this section is Justin, not Justinian. This is especially clear on p. 65, where the (Greek characters) and Justinian act in a contrary sense in regard to Theodotus.
- ↑ The date of the imprisonment of John the Cappadocian, vol. i. p. 136, ed. Bonn, and the incident of the spear wound of Trajan, vol. ii. p. 167.
- ↑ By the five years' truce with Chosroes, vol. i. p. 281, and the murder of Gontharis, ib. p. 552. A speedy conclusion of the Gothic War was also looked for.
- ↑ To the Persica, vol. i. p. 281, 21, to end of bk. ii.; in the Vandalica, ib. p. 532, 533; in the Gothica, probably (vol. ii.) p. 340, 4, to end of bk. iii.
- ↑ Perhaps because it had been already privately published by recitation in a small circle of friends.
- ↑ 8
- ↑ Haury, Procopiana, i. p. 28.
- ↑ There is actually external evidence for the gap in Mss. cited by Haury in his second program (Procopiana, ii. p. 1).
- ↑ The other argument that the Edifices cannot have been written after May 7, 559, on which day the dome of St. Sophia fell in (Theoph. A.M. 6051), because Procopius could not have omitted to mention this incident, can be met by the reasonable assumption that Bk. i. (in which St. Sophia is described) was written earlier, and that Procopius did not feel himself obliged to insert before publication a disaster which did not redound to the greater glory of Justinian.
