Ancient World Review

What Happened On Easter Island?

Anakena - One of the sites used in this study.

"Analysis of remains found on Rapa Nui, Chile (Easter Island) provides evidence contrary to the widely-held belief that the ancient civilization recklessly destroyed its environment [see below], according to new research co-conducted by faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York." Source: Science Daily (2017).

Next video has some good views of Ahu Tepeu on Easter Island, another site used in this study, but the voice-over is inaudible.

Analyzing "human, faunal and botanical remains from the archaeological sites Anakena and Ahu Tepeu on Rapa Nui, dating from c. 1400 AD to the historic period, and modern reference material," the team determined that the Easter Islanders "had extensive knowledge of how to overcome poor soil fertility, improve environmental conditions, and create a sustainable food supply. These activities demonstrate considerable adaptation and resilience to environmental challenges -- a finding that is inconsistent with an 'ecocide' narrative."

The Easter Island ecocide theory.

Comment: According to the ecocide theory, the population on Easter Island collapsed because deforestation (1) led to the erosion of fertile soil which in turn led to starvation, warfare and cannibalism. If this new research is accurate, however, it would appear that the Easter Islanders had a plentiful marine food supply and a system for sustainable agriculture even after the loss of their trees.

(1) According to Wikipedia, "By that time [the arrival of the Dutch in 1722], 21 species of trees and all species of land birds became extinct through some combination of overharvesting/overhunting, rat predation, and climate change. The island was largely deforested, and it did not have any trees more than 3 metres (10 feet) tall. Loss of large trees meant that residents were no longer able to build seaworthy vessels, significantly diminishing their fishing abilities."

The collapse of the Easter Island population is central to all of these different theories about what happened. According to the traditional story, their population declined from somewhere around 20,000 to the few thousand who were still living there when the Dutch arrived. Some believe that the islanders were decimated by diseases brought by the Europeans, which may have happened but doesn't explain the population loss before the European arrival. Others argue that "[t]he downfall of Easter Island may have had more to do with preexisting environmental conditions than degradation by humans." (Live Science (2015).

Just to complicate matters, it's possible that the population collapse never occurred at all. According to Ars Technica (2016), "new evidence from archaeological investigations has overturned a popular myth about the demise of the Rapa Nui civilization on the island. For centuries, observers believed that the Rapa Nui suffered a catastrophic population crash. But there is no scientific evidence to support this idea, say a group of researchers in the latest issue of the journal Antiquity. That story about environmental collapse and warfare you read about in Jared Diamond's bestseller Collapse? Totally wrong."

At this point, I'm not sure what to believe. According to this new study, the people of Rapa Nui were better at managing their environment than previously believed, but as far as I can tell no one is disputing the fact that they deforested their island. Chopping down all their trees to build canoes and rollers for their giant stone heads doesn't seem to fit with the claim that they "had extensive knowledge of how to overcome poor soil fertility, improve environmental conditions, and create a sustainable food supply." On the other hand, it's probably unrealistic to expect that they had any knowledge of soil erosion and forest management.

I'm no expert on the history of Easter Island, but the "facts" about what happened seem to be all over the place. Did the population actually collapse? Who knows? The estimates I've found for the size of the original population range from 10,000 to 20,000 and I'm not sure what they're based on. If the population didn't collapse, then all these theories about why it collapsed are rendered instantly moot.

Life on Rapa Nui wasn't a peaceful utopia, at least during certain periods. That seems clear enough. The toppled stone heads are cited as evidence that warfare occurred on the island, but the idea that the islanders destroyed themselves by warfare has been called into question and one source I've found even claims that they deliberately made sure their weapons were nonlethal. That seems kind of unlikely, but it doesn't really matter. One way or another, the real history is still obscure.

Easter Island is one of the most isolated islands in the world. It only covers about 64 square miles and even at its height (assuming the estimates are correct) it was home to only around 20,000 people. For all practical purposes, it was a closed system with limited resources. A culture like this would have been extremely vulnerable to climate changes such as low rainfall or anything that would effect fishing or the availability of other food sources. Periods of abundance would lead to population growth which would in turn put increased strain on available resources, leading to inevitable internecine conflict and population decline. Even under the best of circumstances, I would expect a population in this situation to stagnate and decline over time. Perhaps the question isn't why (or if) the culture on Easter Island collapsed, but how it managed to survive at all.

Related: Easter Island statues "walking theory" challenges ecocide story.

How Were Easter Island Statues Carved?

Video from 2014.

"Using basalt stone picks, the Easter Island Moai were carved from the solidified volcanic ash of Rano Raraku volcano. They are all monolithic; the carvings are created in one piece and an average weight of 20 tons and measuring 20 feet tall or more. One unfinished statue is 69 feet tall, estimated to weigh 270 tons. But why was this Moai, representing the pinnacle so far of the statue culture, unfinished? Was it simply too large to move? Had ambition over-taken reality? Or had something else happened? Once completed, the statues were then moved from the quarry to their intended site and erected on an 'ahu'." Source: The Bradshaw Foundation.

Note: I'm not sure about this, but I think the unfinished statue mentioned above is the same one shown in the video.

According to Wikipedia, "It is not known exactly which group in the communities were responsible for carving statues. Oral traditions suggest that the moai were carved either by a distinguished class of professional carvers who were comparable in status to high-ranking members of other Polynesian craft guilds, or, alternatively, by members of each clan. The oral histories show that the Rano Raraku quarry was subdivided into different territories for each clan."

Polynesians Didn't Beat Columbus To South America After All?

Video from 2010. Much of the evidence presented in this video has apparently been disproven by later research.

The theory that the ancient Polynesians reached South America before Columbus is based, in part, on chickens and sweet potatoes.

"Among the intriguing indications that contact might have been made between Polynesians and the native peoples of South America was the supposed pre-Columbian presence of non-native chickens, allegedly introduced to the continent by seafarers from South Pacific islands. More evidence comes from the ubiquity of the sweet potato, a South American native, in the South Pacific — it was already widespread throughout the islands by the time James Cook sailed into the region in 1770." Source: National Geographic 2014.

Since this National Geographic article was written, DNA research has apparently disproved the idea that the chickens studied in South America provided a link with Polynesia:

"Researchers sequenced mitochondrial DNA from 22 chicken bones found at Polynesian archaeological sites and 122 feathers from modern chickens living on islands across the South Pacific. They used an enzyme to remove any contamination by modern DNA that may have clouded the results of earlier studies. When the team compared the 'cleaned-up' DNA of Polynesian chickens with that of ancient and modern South American chickens, they found the two groups were genetically distinct." (National Geographic)

As for the sweet-potato connection, it doesn't hold up, either. According to Science Daily (2018), "New evidence shows that sweet potatoes arose before there were any humans around to eat them. The findings also suggest that the sweet potato crossed the ocean from America to Polynesia without any help from people. The discovery raises doubts about the existence of pre-Columbian contacts between Polynesia and the American continent."

Video from 2014. Whether they got there before Columbus or not, the Polynesians definitely had the capability to reach South America.

Comment: The "chickens and sweet potatoes" evidence may not hold up, but it still seems hard to believe that a seafaring people like the ancient Polynesians didn't have some contact with Pre-Columbian America. There seems to be a lot of plant evidence for early transoceanic contact and some studies have also found genetic links between Native Americans and Polynesia (Christian Science Monitor 2015).

According to a 2014 Science Magazine article, "Polynesians from Easter Island and natives of South America met and mingled long before Europeans voyaged the Pacific, according to a new genetic study of living Easter Islanders."

A later (2017) study, however, found that the people living on Easter Island before Columbus were genetically isolated:

"A study published Thursday in the journal Current Biology found only evidence of Polynesian DNA in human remains on the island that predate European contact in 1722." Source: New York Times (2017). According to the study, "We found no Native American admixture in pre- and post-European-contact individuals."

What's the truth? Who knows? The two DNA studies involving Easter Island directly contradict each other, so it would appear that DNA results aren't as conclusive as we've been led to believe. Whatever the case, though, it still seems highly likely, at least to me, that Polynesians reached the New World a long time ago. Considering their ability to make long sea voyages and spread from island to island across the ocean, I'd be amazed if some of them didn't make it all the way to South America. What kind of impact they had is another question.

Roman Legionaries In China? (UPDATE)

Comment: This theory is speculative, but the idea that Roman soldiers ended up in China isn't totally implausible. The general scenario of how it could have happened goes like this:

In 53 BC, the Roman politician and general Marcus Crassus (115-53 BC) was killed at the Battle of Carrhae when he led his army into a trap during his ill-advised invasion of Parthia, an empire which bordered on China:

"At its height, the Parthian Empire stretched from the northern reaches of the Euphrates, in what is now central-eastern Turkey, to eastern Iran. The empire, located on the Silk Road trade route between the Roman Empire in the Mediterranean Basin and the Han dynasty of China, became a center of trade and commerce." (Wikipedia)

This map shows the location of Parthia when it was part of the Median Empire around 600 BC. Parthia is in the upper part of the yellow region just to the right of the Caspian Sea.

Crassus' invasion of Parthia was a complete disaster:

"In a slaughter known as the battle of Carrhae the Romans lost nearly their entire army and Crassus was killed. [The story is that the Parthians captured Crassus, the richest man in Rome, and executed him by pouring molten gold down his throat.] The remaining 10,000 or so Roman legionaries were captured." Source: War History Online.

The Parthians apparently used their Roman prisoners as border guards along the eastern frontiers:

"The Parthians had a standard practice of employing captured soldiers as border guards. By transferring the 10,000 legionaries to the eastern borders they prevented any realistic chance of escape for the Romans who likely would have simply accepted their new lot in life. Record of the soldiers vanish for about 17 years when the battle of Zhizhi was fought as a Chinese army under Chen Tang assaulted a border town known today as Taraz, located in Kazakhstan near the border of Kyrgyzstan." (War History Online)

According to the story, some of these former Roman soldiers and Parthian border guards fought as mercenaries at the battle of Zhizhi. They were either captured or defected to the Chinese, who were impressed by their fighting abilities and -- like the Parthians -- stationed them in a border town to guard the frontier:

"Anywhere from 100 to 1,000 or more soldiers established themselves in this town that was known by the Chinese as Liqian/Li-Jien, which is pronounced as 'legion'." (War History Online) "...It seems these Romans lived peacefully in Liqian, and 2,000 years later we have DNA evidence that over 50% of the villagers in modern day Liqian have Caucasian ancestry including green and blue eyes, increased average height and other distinguishing characteristics such as distinctly Roman noses."

If this story is true, then these Roman soldiers who fought under Crassus at Carrhae (and their descendants) had an extremely wild and strange destiny, to say the least. But is the story true?

First of all, there's no doubt that the inhabitants of the region of Liqian, China, have some kind of European ancestry. According to Wikipedia, "The area of the former Liqian city is known for the distinctive physical appearance of its inhabitants. The population has higher frequencies of traits prevalent in Europe, such as aquiline noses, blonde or light-colored hair, blue or green eyes, and relatively fair skin tones."

Who were these Europeans and where did they come from? The idea that they were Roman soldiers or their descendants isn't all that farfetched, but it's still controversial:

"A hypothesis by the sinologist Homer H. Dubs, according to which Roman legionaries clashed with Han troops during the battle and were resettled afterwards in a Chinese village named Liqian, has been rejected by modern historians and geneticists on the grounds of a critical appraisal of the ancient sources and recent DNA testings of the village people. However, this hypothesis has been supported by prominent scholars like Lev Gumilev."

It's possible that the people of Liqian are descended from Caucasoid Indo-Europeans who were living in the region long before the Romans went to war with Parthia:

"People with normatively Caucasoid traits and/or who spoke Indo-European languages lived in areas that are now part of Gansu and Xinjiang centuries before the Romans, including the Yuezhi, Wusun, Basmyls, Tocharians, and some prehistoric Siberian populations." (Wikipedia)

You can always trust the experts to mess up a good story, but I've got to admit that some of these Chinese do look like they have Roman ancestry. The people in Liqian are trying to use their supposed relationship with the Romans to boost their tourism industry and who can blame them? Whether the story is true or not is a different matter altogether.

Who Built The Great Sphinx Of Giza?

"Who built the Sphinx? The most compelling evidence that the Sphinx was built for the Egyptian Pharaoh Khafre during his reign (2520-2494 BC) is in the architecture, geology, and archaeology of the Sphinx and its related monuments." Source: Ancient Egypt Research Association.

Khafre ruled during the 4th Dynasty of the Old Kingdom. He was the son of Pharoah Khufu, thought to have commissioned the building of the Great Pyramid of Giza. Khufu had another son, King Djedefre, but "until recently, experts thought that King Djedefre was a murderer and outcast who couldn't possibly have had the power to create the Great Sphinx," (Smithsonian Magazine (2013?)). The new evidence described in the above video "makes him a more likely candidate."

It's possible that the sphinx actually shows the face of Khufu, rather than Khafre or Djedefre.

There's also a possibility that the Sphinx predates the 4th Dynasty. This theory is controversial, but if true it would mean that the statue wasn't built by any of these pharaohs:

 "More recently, a new theory emerged that places the statue’s origins much further back, to some 9,000 years ago. Supporters of this hypothesis point to extensive erosion of the limestone near the top of the Great Sphinx, arguing that the last time the region experienced enough rainfall in the region to cause this type of erosion on limestone was 7000 B.C." Source: The History Channel (2015).

"More traditional Egyptologists reject this view for several reasons," according to NBC News (1999). "First, a Sphinx built earlier than 7000 B.C. would upset our understanding of ancient civilization, as there is no evidence of an Egyptian civilization this old."

One outlandish theory -- that the pyramids and the sphinx were built by refugees from Atlantis -- led to an interesting discovery.

The possibility that the Sphinx predates Egyptian civilization itself has led to all sorts of speculation that the statue was actually constructed by aliens. Why aliens would build a statue of a lion's body with or without a human head (the original may have been the head of a lion) has never really been explained as far as I know. Presumably, the statue had some kind of astronomical significance, but never mind that. The problem with the Ancient UFO crowd is that they immediately turn to aliens whenever they run into one of these ancient mysteries. Even if the Sphinx was built before the Egyptians came along -- which I doubt -- it would only prove, once again, that prehistoric people were a lot more advanced than we have been led to believe.

Related: 10 Bizarre Theories About The Pyramids That DON'T Involve Aliens

Why Was The Great Sphinx Of Giza Built?

"The Great Sphinx of Giza (... English: The Terrifying One; literally: Father of Dread)... is a limestone statue of a reclining sphinx, a mythical creature with the body of a lion and the head of a human. Facing directly from West to East, it stands on the Giza Plateau on the west bank of the Nile in Giza, Egypt. The face of the Sphinx is generally believed to represent the Pharaoh Khafre." (Wikipedia)

The Terrifying One may have a more complicated history, however. According to Colin Reader, an English geologist, it's possible that the Sphinx wasn't originally a statue of the pharaoh at all. It may have been a lion, a representation of the sun god. The pharaoh's out-of-proportion head may have been added later, turning the statue into a sphinx.

"Colin Reader has proposed that the Sphinx was the focus of solar worship in the Early Dynastic Period, before the Giza Plateau became a necropolis in the Old Kingdom (c. 2686–2134 BC). He ties this in with his conclusions that the Sphinx, the Sphinx temple, the Causeway and the Khafra mortuary temple are all part of a complex which predates Dynasty IV (c. 2613–2494 BC). The lion has long been a symbol associated with the sun in ancient Near Eastern civilizations." (Wikipedia)

"... In the New Kingdom, the Sphinx became more specifically associated with the sun god Hor-em-akhet ... or 'Horus-at-the-Horizon' ..."

Reader's controversial theories are based on the premise that the sphinx is far older than commonly believed. He apparently agrees with the water-erosion hypothesis, "a fringe claim contending that the main type of weathering evident on the enclosure walls of the Great Sphinx was caused by prolonged and extensive rainfall that would have predated the time of Djedefre and Khafre, the Pharaohs credited by most modern Egyptologists with building the Great Sphinx and Second Pyramid at Giza around 2500 BC." (Wikipedia) "Egyptologists, geologists and others have rejected the water erosion hypothesis and the idea of an older Sphinx, offering various alternative explanations for the cause and date of the erosion."

In the next video, Robert Schoch, an associate professor of Natural Sciences at Boston University, explains the water-erosion hypothesis on the Joe Rogan show.

The reason why the sphinx was built depends, in large part, on how old the statue is. Reader and Shoch's theories may be "fringe," but the truth is that we really don't know much about the sphinx to begin with:

"The Great Sphinx is one of the world's largest and oldest statues, but basic facts about it are still subject to debate, such as when it was built, by whom and for what purpose." (Wikipedia)

"... It is impossible to identify what name the creators called their statue, as the Great Sphinx does not appear in any known inscription of the Old Kingdom and there are no inscriptions anywhere describing its construction or its original purpose. In the New Kingdom, the Sphinx was revered as the solar deity Hor-em-akhet ... and the pharaoh Thutmose IV (1401–1391 or 1397–1388 BC) specifically referred to it as such in his 'Dream Stele'".

Six Mysterious Ancient Outbreaks

Video from 2019.

Note: According to a 2019 paper published in the scientific journal Cell, the earliest known outbreak of plague occurred around 5000 years ago in Sweden and may have been partly responsible for the Neolithic Decline, a rapid collapse in populations that occurred back in the Stone Age:

"Between 5,000 and 6,000 years ago, many Neolithic societies declined throughout western Eurasia due to a combination of factors that are still largely debated. Here, we report the discovery and genome reconstruction of Yersinia pestis, the etiological agent of plague, in Neolithic farmers in Sweden, pre-dating and basal to all modern and ancient known strains of this pathogen." -- "Emergence and Spread of Basal Lineages of Yersinia pestis during the Neolithic Decline."

Related: Six Devastating Plagues.

Ancient Inscription Reveals Lost (?) Civilization In Turkey That May Have Defeated King Midas

According to Wikipedia, Hartapu was a king of the Hittites. See end note.

"Last winter, a local farmer in southern Turkey stumbled upon a large stone half-submerged in an irrigation canal with mysterious inscriptions. The stone revealed the story of an ancient, lost civilization that may have defeated King Midas' kingdom of Phrygia [1] in the late eighth century B.C., according to new findings." Source: Live Science.

"...A symbol on the stone indicated that it was a message that came directly from its ruler, King Hartapu. One part of the stone read, 'The storm gods delivered the [opposing] kings to his majesty.'

"The lost kingdom likely existed between the ninth and seventh centuries B.C. and at its height, it likely covered around 300 acres (120 hectares). Though that sounds tiny compared with modern cities, it was actually one of the largest settlements to exist in ancient Turkey at the time."

[1] This isn't the legendary King Midas who died of starvation because everything he touched turned to gold. According to Wikipedia, the King Midas referred to in the Live Science article "ruled Phrygia in the late 8th century BC, up until the sacking of Gordium by the Cimmerians, when he is said to have committed suicide [by drinking bull's blood, according to some sources]. Most historians believe this Midas is the same person as the Mita, called king of the Mushki in Assyrian texts, who warred with Assyria and its Anatolian provinces during the same period."

Note: This article is confusing. According to Wikipedia, King Hartapu was "a late Hittite king who reigned in Tarhuntassa in the 8th Century BCE. He is known from Hieroglyphic Luwian inscriptions from Kizildağ, Mount Karadağ, and Burunkaya near Aksaray. His recently discovered monumental stele claimed victory over the kingdom of Phrygia, ruled around that time by King Midas." Maybe I'm missing something here, but if this is the same King Hartapu -- and it definitely seems so -- then the "lost civilization" referred to in the Live Science article is actually well known.

Bones Of Neolithic "Immigrants" Killed In Massacre Found In Spanish Cave

"The bones of nine Neolithic people found in a cave in northern Spain suggest they were killed and then beaten after death, in a massacre that may have been caused by their migration into the region more than 7,000 years ago. Archaeologists say the vicious attack has the hallmarks of a 'xenophobic' clash [see comment] between enemy groups." Source: Live Science.

"The team found the skeletons inside the cave at Els Trocs, on a mountain slope in the Bisaurri region of the Spanish Pyrenees range of mountains [next video]. Clusters of human remains show the cave was inhabited by different groups of people at least three times during the Neolithic period in southwest Europe.

"Now, archaeologists have examined the cave’s oldest remains, which date from about 5,300 B.C., and they’ve found that the individuals were brutally slaughtered and then mutilated."

Imagine how wild this region must have been back in the Paleolithic. For hunter-gatherers, protecting your territory would have been a matter of life and death.

Comment: The use of terms like "xenophobic" and "immigrants" in this article is a politically-correct anachronism. In reality there's no telling who these people were, where they came from or what led up to their massacre. One group of hunter-gatherers could have invaded the territory of another group or two groups sharing the same territory could have had a falling out for some reason. It's also possible that two factions of a single group turned against each other. Who knows? Later in the article, the experts admit that "there could have been many conceivable motives for the attack," including "escalating disputes over land, cattle, or even women." They say that territorialism was "perhaps the most likely one," but this is pure speculation.

Whatever the case, it sounds like these killings were particularly brutal and they may have been some kind of execution:

"Arrow wounds were found on the skulls of the five adults in the group, but not anywhere else on their skeletons, suggesting they’d all been deliberately shot in the head at close range. The bones also showed that all of the bodies — including those of four young children, between the ages of 3 and 7 — had been violently smashed with stones or clubs after their deaths."

Killings like this were fairly common back in the Stone Age. For example, the next video (2016) describes a prehistoric massacre site discovered in Kenya.

Closed-captions useful.

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.