Ancient World Review

Book Review: The Secret History By Procopius

Some books are dangerous. For various reasons, they're dangerous to read or to possess and their authors sometimes take huge risks to write them. Books can be dangerous because of the knowledge they contain, e.g., the medieval grimoires of black magic, and some books, like the illegal English translations of the Bible before the English Reformation, are dangerous simply because they exist. Back in the medieval world, the people who wrote or read these books were often persecuted and sometimes executed in grisly ways.

Some books are dangerous because they expose the crimes and moral degeneracy of the powerful. The Secret History by Procopius is a good example of this kind of forbidden book. At the time it was written, it was probably the most dangerous book in the western world. If not, it was certainly dangerous to its author, who would have almost certainly been put to death after prolonged torture if his masters, the rulers of Byzantium found out what he was writing about them.

"Having dutifully written the official war history of Justinian's reign, Procopius turned around and revealed in The Secret History the other faces of the leading men and women of Byzantium in the sixth century. Justinian, the great law-giver, appears as a hateful tyrant, wedded to an ex-prostitute, Theodora; and Belisarius, the brilliant general whose secretary Procopius had been, is seen as the pliable dupe of his wife Antonina, a woman as corrupt and scheming as Theodora herself." -- Procopius, The Secret History, Penguin Classics.

Procopius goes relatively easy on the general Belisarius, who comes off as a hapless cuckold easily manipulated by the treacherous Antonina. Most of The Secret History is devoted to a detailed survey of the lurid crimes and personalities of the emperor Justinian and his wife Theodora, the absolute rulers of the Christian Byzantine empire. Both of these admittedly accomplished monsters are now considered saints by the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Procopius describes Justinian and Theodora as literal demons in human form, bloodthirsty psychopaths who committed bestial murders, betrayed their loyal friends and supporters, seized businesses and property in order to enrich themselves and corrupted the state for their own benefit as a matter of routine. The emperor was "dissembling, crafty, hypocritical, secretive by temperament, two faced..." Theodora was a deranged, power-mad slut, cruel and scheming, a former dancing girl and whore, intelligent but "malicious in the extreme."

Procopius writes: "In view of all this, I, like most of my contemporaries, never once felt that these two were human beings: they were a pair of blood-thirsty demons and what the poets call 'plaguers of mortal men'. For they plotted together to find the easiest and swiftest means of destroying all races of men and all their works, assumed human shape, became man-demons, and in this way convulsed the whole world." -- The Secret History, p.102.

In The Secret History, Justinian and Theodora are like the shape-shifting reptilians of modern conspiracy theories. According to Procopius, "some of those who were in the Emperor's company late at night, conversing with him (evidently in the palace) -- men of the highest possible character -- thought that they saw a strange demonic form in his place." -- Ibid, p.103. One of these witnesses claimed to see Justinian's head disappear while he paced around the room.

"A second man said that he stood by the Emperor's side as he sat, and saw his face suddenly transformed into a shapeless lump of flesh: neither eyebrows nor eyes were in their normal position, and it showed no other distinguishing features at all; gradually, however, he saw the face return to its usual shape." -- Ibid, p.103.

The Secret History is a classic example of what we would now call a political hit piece. After discussing the relationship between Belisarius and Antonina, Procopius goes on to describe in vivid detail "Justinian's Misgovernment," "The Crimes of Theodora," "The Destruction Wrought By The Demon Emperor," "The Ruin Of Various Classes Of The Community," and how "Everyone And Everything [was] Sacrificed To the Emperor's Greed," just to quote the chapter headings.

Note: I'm not sure if the chapter headings are used in the original manuscript. The book was apparently given the title "The Secret History" by later scholars.

Is The Secret History authentic? The book is so unlike Procopius's other works -- his history of Justinian's wars and his pandering description of the emperor's admittedly fantastic building projects -- that some scholars have wondered if The Secret History was actually written by Procopius at all. However, according to the introduction to the Penguin Classics edition, written by the translator, G.A. Williamson, the book is most likely authentic.

The question is why Procopius would have written such a vicious attack in the first place. It was an extremely dangerous thing to do, to say the least, and he couldn't have published it while the emperor and his wife were still alive and in power. Williamson argues that no one would have forged the book for the same reason. If they couldn't publish it, what would be the point? Furthermore, nothing in The Secret History contradicts the information in Procopius's other books and he most likely thought he could get it published after Justinian died. One way or another, Procopius must have taken extraordinary measures to safeguard the manuscript while he was working on it.

I can only imagine what Justinian and Theodora would have done to Procopius if they had discovered what he was writing about them. They would have executed him, naturally, but how? Considering their well-deserved reputation for cruelty, whatever method they used wouldn't have been gentle or quick. I like to imagine Procopius working on his manuscript by candlelight in a locked chamber in the middle of the night, constantly on the alert for approaching footsteps. He must have hidden the scrolls somewhere safe--under a loose floorboard, maybe, or behind a stone in the wall. If you're writing a book that could get you blinded, flayed and burned alive, you're not going to just leave it lying around on your desk.

Theodora died, maybe of cancer, in 548 AD, Justinian about 20 years later. The Secret History is thought to have been written around the same time that Procopius wrote books 1-7 of his history of the wars, according to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD, 3rd ed. revised). "The Secret History covers roughly the same years as the first seven books of the History of Justinian's Wars and appears to have been written after they were published," according to Wikipedia. "Current consensus generally dates it to 550 or 558, or maybe even as late as 562." Justinian died in 565, so Procopius had to keep the Secret History secret for several years at least.

The Secret History "is a virulent, uncritical, and often scurrilous attack on the whole policy of Justinian and on the characters of the emperor and his consort, which can only have been circulated clandestinely so long as Justinian was alive. It provides a kind of subtext to the History of the Wars, and reveals Procopius as a diehard, if occasionally almost paranoiac, adherent of the aristocratic opposition..." (OCD)

Were Justinian and Theodora as bad as Procopius says they were? Probably. They were highly intelligent and competent in many ways, but never forget that these "saints" also massacred thousands of their own subjects at the Hippodrome during the Nika riots. Procopius may have been "uncritical" and "paranoid," but The Secret History is one of the most entertaining books I've ever read about the period. Highly recommended.

The Decline Of The Byzantine Empire

"After ten centuries of wars, defeats, and victories, the Byzantine Empire came to an end when Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks in May 1453. The city’s fall sent shock waves throughout Christendom. It is widely quoted as the event that marked the end of the European Middle Ages." Source: Encyclopedia Britannica.

The Byzantine Empire had been in decline for a long time before Constantinople was finally captured by Mehmed II (The Conqueror).

"The fall of Constantinople was a huge blow for the Christian world but, although Pope Nicholas V called for a crusade to regain the city for Christendom, no concerted military response was made. Now styled 'the Conqueror,' Mehmed declared the city his new capital and claimed to be the rightful successor to the Roman Empire." (Encyclopedia Britannica)

As corrupt and crazy as its rulers were, the fall of the Byzantine Empire was a calamity for the western world and Constantinople, at one point the largest and wealthiest city in Christian Europe, has remained in the hands of the Muslims ever since.

"The modern Turkish name for the city, İstanbul, derives from the Greek phrase eis tin polin (εἰς τὴν πόλιν), meaning 'into the city' or 'to the city'. This name was used in Turkish alongside Kostantiniyye, the more formal adaptation of the original Constantinople, during the period of Ottoman rule, while western languages mostly continued to refer to the city as Constantinople until the early 20th century. In 1928, the Turkish alphabet was changed from Arabic script to Latin script. After that, as part of the 1920s Turkification movement, Turkey started to urge other countries to use Turkish names for Turkish cities, instead of other transliterations to Latin script that had been used in the Ottoman times. In time the city came to be known as Istanbul and its variations in most world languages.^" Source: Wikipedia.

The Greek Orthodox Church still refers to the city as Constantinople, a stubborn and commendable tribute to the past. If the Islamization of Europe continues at its present pace, we may soon reach a point where all European cities have been given new names.

Related: Economic Factors in the Decline of the Byzantine Empire. (Entire article can be read online for free, but membership is required.)

Insane In Byzantium

I've been reading A Short History of Byzantium by John Julius Norwich. I haven't finished it yet, so this isn't a review, just some first impressions. I didn't know much about the Byzantines before I started this book and all I can say at this point is that they were seriously deranged. The spread of Christianity through the pagan world seems to have produced a wave of psychosis in the eastern half of the former Roman empire.

The Byzantine rulers were insane. Constantinople was always more Greek/Asiatic than Roman and the Byzantine emperors were heavily influenced by Muslim and Oriental customs in general. They were sadistically cruel, for one thing. They would blind their political enemies, cut off their tongues and noses, castrate them, burn them at the stake. Castration was used--sometimes on their own children or the sons of their rivals--to prevent them from taking power in the future (emperors had to be able to produce children). These weren't isolated events, either. This kind of thing happened all the time. The book's an endless litany of horrendous executions and maimings committed as a matter of routine by pious Christians.

The new religion didn't moderate their behavior at all; in fact, it just gave them more reasons to commit murder and mayhem. When they weren't torturing children or losing wars they might have won if they hadn't executed or exiled their best generals, the Byzantines would fight with each other and the pope in Rome about the true nature of Christ and other burning issues in Christian theology. Was Jesus more spirit than man? Were icons a form of idolatry? Idiotic doctrinal disputes like these divided and weakened East and West, still nominally parts of the same empire, and both sides would stage rigged conferences to try to resolve them in their own favor.

A common belief about Christianity is that it tempered the violent spirit of the pagans and was a force for peace, mercy, justice and moderation in the classical world. Nothing could be further from the truth. I can't decide if Christianity drove the Byzantines insane or if it simply had no effect on their already despotic behavior, but I suspect that there was something particularly toxic about the combination of Christianity, Oriental culture and dynastic politics.

Some of the Byzantine emperors were more effective than others, but for the most part they were unfit to rule and some of them were literally crazy, little more than brutal, dimwitted psychopaths with crosses hanging around their necks. In many cases, they were so hated and oppressive that they made the Muslims look tolerant and enlightened, and a lot of their subjects must have secretly wished they were still living under the old Roman emperors. Pagan Rome had plenty of political and social violence, not to mention its civil wars and dynastic conspiracies and murders, but the old Romans never came close to the level of sadistic violence routinely practiced in Christian Byzantium.

According to most histories of the fall of Rome, the empire continued for another thousand years in the east after the fall of the western half of the empire, but there was nothing particularly Roman about the Byzantines. They kept the forms and institutions of the Romans, but their empire was fundamentally Greek and Oriental, a good example of what Spengler called the Magian Culture (1) that grew up in the shadow of the classical world. For all practical purposes, Rome died as a culture with the barbarian invasions and the rise of Christianity. Byzantium was Rome's crazy mutant offspring.

A Short History of Byzantium is a fantastic book, full of sex, murder, war, betrayal and intrigue set against a background of foreign invasions, plagues, mass slaughter, religious riots and general chaos. Highly recommended.

(1) The Magian Culture included "Muslims, Jews and [early] Christians, as well as their Persian and Semitic forebears," according to Wikipedia. Spengler believed that the Magian Culture was completely separate and distinct from the classical cultures of ancient Greece and Rome, but that it had never been able to develop naturally, being forced to take on the outward forms of the dominant classical civilizations of the time, a process Spengler called pseudomorphosis.

Romulus Augustulus - The "Last Roman Emperor" In The West

"Romulus Augustulus, known as the last Roman emperor (AD 475-6), was a usurper who was not recognized in Constantinople. He owes his diminutive name (1) to the fact that he was still a child when raised to the throne by his father Orestes. Orestes was overthrown by Odoacer, who deposed Romulus, but spared him because of his youth and pensioned him off to Campania ... he may have survived into the reign of Theodoric." -- Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd ed. revised).

(1) "He is mostly known by his nickname 'Romulus Augustulus,' though he ruled officially as Romulus Augustus. The Latin suffix -ulus is a diminutive; hence, Augustulus effectively means 'Little Augustus'." (Wikipedia).

Comment: The fall of the western Roman empire was a process rather than a specific event that can be pinned down to any particular date. Calling Romulus Augustulus "the last Roman emperor" is basically just a matter of convention or convenience. The poor kid was a figurehead installed and controlled by his father, Orestes, an ambitious Roman/Pannonian general and politician who was never considered to be a legitimate ruler of the West and only managed to hang onto control for a year or so before he was defeated in battle and executed.

Romulus Augustulus was an emperor in name only and by the time he came to "power," the empire was no longer Roman in any real sense of the term. Germanic tribes had overrun Gaul over a half-century earlier (Alaric sacked Rome in 410). The Vandals had conquered Roman Africa in 439. The city of Rome had lost its political importance decades before Romulus became his father's puppet, the capital having moved first to Milan and then to Ravenna. For all practical purposes, Rome had collapsed a long time before Romulus was even born.

The Varangian Guard

"The term Varangian comes from the Norse var, meaning 'pledge,' and denotes one of [a] band of men who pledged themselves to work together for profit. Usually this meant in trade, but the oath of loyalty to each other certainly had more than commercial meaning, for they were bound to fight for each other’s safety as members of [a] merchant band. The term also refers to men who hired themselves into the service of an overlord for a set period of time, as the Norsemen did for the lords of Novgorod and Kiev in Russia. Thus, the term Varangian does not necessarily mean 'Viking' or 'Scandinavian,' although most of them were from that part of the world. Generally, however, it refers to the Scandinavian Russian Empire led by the city states of Kiev and Novgorod." Source: Weapons and Warfare.

The Varangian Guard In Byzantium

"The Varangian Guard in Byzantium is one of the very few mercenary units whose history can be counted in centuries. The length of their service and the number of battles in which they fought is perhaps only surpassed by the Swiss in the pay of the French. But while the Swiss had only to journey into neighboring France, in times when there were already well-established and regular postal routes and diplomatic missions, the Norsemen had to travel far beyond the boundaries of their known world. From the point of view of the Byzantines, these Norsemen came from a distant land, Thule, told of only in myths and legends." Source: Soldiers of Misfortune.

Note: The history of the Varangian Guard in Byzantium is typically Byzantine, far too complex to try to describe in detail here. The basic story goes like this:

Faced with a dangerous revolt, Basil II, the Byzantine ruler, sought to form an alliance with Prince Vladimir I of Kiev. Basil hired a group of 6000 Rus' warriors (Norsemen) from Vladimir to put down the revolt and later turned them into a more formal military body. According to Wikipedia, "The Rus' recruitments were instrumental in ending the rebellion, and they were later organized into the Varangian Guard."

At the same time, Basil also arranged (with some difficulty) for Vladimir to marry his sister, Anna Porphyrogenita. "This marriage had important long-term implications, marking the beginning of the process by which the Grand Duchy of Moscow many centuries later would proclaim itself 'The Third Rome' and claim the political and cultural heritage of the Byzantine Empire." (Wikipedia)

The Varangian Guard was a critical force in Byzantine politics. "The Byzantine Empire was a virtual breeding ground of intrigue, and the emperors seemed always to be under threat of overthrow or assassination. By hiring foreign troops and paying them very well, the rulers hoped to avoid the problems of subversion and infiltration by local political factions." (Weapons and Warfare)

Sometimes this worked. Sometimes it didn't. The Varangians had to be adaptable:

"If an individual came to the throne, it was through God’s will. If he was removed, violently or otherwise, that was also God’s will. Thus, the Varangians had to accept an ever-changing political situation and be prepared to fight to the death for one emperor but immediately support his successor against whom they may have fought hours earlier." (Ibid)

The Varangian Guard distinguished themselves in battle over the decades -- and suffered some major defeats in the process. They were virtually wiped out in 1204 when the Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople (1). By that time, the Guard had become almost entirely Anglo-Saxon (2) and "were mostly ethnically assimilated by the Byzantine Greeks." (Wikipedia)

(1) The Sack of Constantinople doesn't exactly fit in with the idea that the Crusades were just an effort by Christian Europe to defend itself against Islamic invasions.

(2) The Anglo-Saxons were the traditional enemies of the Norsemen who originally composed the Varangian Guard. 

Harald Hardrada: The Third King Of 1066

"Harald Sigurdsson (Old Norse: Haraldr Sigurðarson; c. 1015 – 25 September 1066), given the epithet Hardråde (Old Norse: harðráði, roughly translated as ^'stern counsel' or 'hard ruler') in the sagas, was King of Norway (as Harald III) from 1046 to 1066. In addition, he unsuccessfully claimed the Danish throne until 1064 and the English throne in 1066. Prior to becoming king, Harald had spent around fifteen years in exile as a mercenary and military commander in Kievan Rus' and of the Varangian Guard in the Byzantine Empire." Source: Wikipedia.

Note: Harald Hardrada is probably the most famous soldier to have fought in the Varangian Guard.

Was The Byzantine Empire Roman?

Documentary from 2013.

"The Byzantine Empire was the continuation of the Roman Empire [see comment]  in the Greek-speaking, eastern part of the Mediterranean. Christian in nature, it was perennially at war with the Muslims, Flourishing during the reign of the Macedonian emperors, its demise was the consequence of attacks by Seljuk Turks, Crusaders, and Ottoman Turks." Source: Ancient History Encyclopedia.

Comment: The Byzantine Empire is usually refered to as the "Roman empire in the East," but I've never thought there was anything particularly Roman about the Byzantines. Romans weren't Greek-speaking Christians; they were pagans who spoke Latin. If you ask me, the real Roman empire had already ceased to exist for all practical purposes by the time Italy and the western provinces were overrun by Germanic tribes in the fifth century AD. The Byzantines retained Roman institutions, but they were essentially an Oriental kingdom, a kind of hybrid of western and eastern traditions.

According to this view, the Roman Empire collapsed as a culture long before it was conquered militarily. When Rome fell in the West, that was the end of it. Parts of its territory still remained, however, most of it in the East, but it's hard to see these surviving territories as Roman.

The picture is very complicated, naturally. There were similarities and differences beween the Roman and Byzantine empires. It would be surprising if nothing had carried over from the old world. As a general rule, civilizations aren't suddenly obliterated, leaving no trace behind. Collapse doesn't work that way. Kingdoms and empires rise and fall and evolve into new political systems, usually after a period of chaos and warfare. Zombie civilizations are common in history -- nations that still exist long after their cultures have died or changed out of all recognition. Christian Rome and the Roman Byzantine Empire are both good examples, I think, of zombie empires.

The Byzantine empire was a "continuation" of the Roman Empire in the sense that it was once part of the Roman empire with all of its legal and political institutions, but it was Roman in name only. The main difference, I think, was religious. Paganism had been outlawed and driven underground, replaced by Christianity, an essentially Oriental religion.

Here's a modern analogy. Let's say that the United States becomes a Muslim caliphate, but keeps all of its current institutions in place. There's a White House, a Congress, a Supreme Court, and so on. People still vote, but all the candidates are Muslims. The county courthouse still looks the same, but Christianity is illegal and the courts enforce Shariah Law. Then the western half of the country is invaded and overrun by savage barbarians who settle down and take over the existing legislative machinery. The eastern half of the country still survives as an independent nation, but is it American? The answer is obvious.

Related: Continuity and change in the Byzantine Empire.

The Fourth Crusade & The Sack Of Constantinople

"On April 12th, 1204, an army of perhaps 20,000 men and a fleet of about 200 ships crewed by Venetian sailors and warriors, broke in and began to loot the greatest metropolis in the Christian world." Source: History Today.

Comment: A lot of people see the crusades as a noble effort to keep the Muslims out of Europe. Others see the crusades primarily as religious wars designed to recapture the so-called Holy Land from infidels. Some of the crusaders went to war for these reasons, no doubt, but I've always thought that the real motive behind the crusades -- the search for plunder --can be seen in the Fourth Crusade's sack of Constantinople (not to mention the thriving business in forged "holy relics" that started after the Holy Land was recaptured).

Call me a cynic, but the crusades in general strike me as being a kind of medieval gold rush conducted by mobs of killers who justified their carnage in the name of religion -- and dropped the act whenever they saw a chance to grab some land, gold and glory. Medieval knights were more like Tony Soprano than the chivalrous knights of the legends. They had their share of religious superstitions, but I really doubt if they went to war for purely religious reasons. Luckily, though, it turned out that there was no conflict between murder and being a good Christian. The "religion of peace" has always been very flexible in that regard.

Attila The Hun: One Of History's Monsters?

Comment: Was Attila a monster? I guess that depends on your point of view. He probably wouldn't make Esquire's Best People In The World List, but I think calling him a "monster" is inaccurate because the word implies that there was something inhuman about him, that he was unusually cruel and wicked. Attila may have been a thug, extortionist and mass-murderer, but he had plenty of company then and now. Piling up corpses in the pursuit of glory, plunder and conquest isn't exactly unusual in the pages of history. If anything, it could be called all too human.

The Huns were very successful for a while, but like so many warrior cultures who carved out empires for themselves in a bloody, ultraviolent world, they couldn't hang on to what they had conquered. Despite all the mayhem they caused, their lasting contribution was probably the role they played in the collapse of the western Roman empire.

Ironically, the Germanic tribes might not have overrun the Roman frontier the way they did (or at least when they did) if the Romans hadn't been so successful at keeping the barbarians out in earlier times. Frustrated in their search for new land to the west, the Ostrogoths, in particular, started to expand to the east where they collided with the Huns in the region north of the Caspian and Black seas.

"In 372, the eastward expansion of the Ostrogoths provoked an explosive reaction from the Huns of the Volga steppe," according to The New Penguin Atlas of Medieval History, p. 12. "The Ostrogothic cavalry was humiliated by the faster-moving Huns, whose mounted archers destroyed every force ... sent against them." The Huns then advanced all the way to the Danube, driving the Germanic tribes before them. Fleeing from the terrifying barbarian hordes, many of the Germans ended up flooding across the frontier into Roman Gaul. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Attila came along later, a charismatic killer who united the Huns and raised hell with the Byzantine Empire. His forces spread terror and destruction wherever they went, but his record in battle wasn't all that great when you look at the big picture. He invaded Italy, causing a lot of damage, but he couldn't take Rome. His campaign against Persia failed. He was defeated when he tried to conquer Gaul. He never gave up, though, and might have had more success if he hadn't died in 453 AD.

The Huns' role in the fall of the western Roman empire was indirect. They would probably have expanded into the West in any case, but as it turned out it was the Ostrogoths who stirred them up by intruding into their territory and pulling the trigger on the Romans in the process. The Huns were savage barbarians who slaughtered a huge number of people, but they were too wild to stay unified for long in the absence of warlords strong enough to hold them all together. Led by killers like Attila, the so-called "Empire of the Huns" rose to great heights, only to fall apart soon after his death, leaving behind a legacy of smouldering cities, rotting corpses and the ruins of ancient civilizations.