![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() In each of thirty chapters short chapters, he selects a character or event to illustrate. Secret History is not a history per se, but a series of stories meant to illustrate the “true reasons” behind certain events and to illustrate characters in a way that Procopius hopes will serve to fill in the vagaries of his previously published history. In effect, they would have done to him with the sword what he did, especially to Theodora, with his pen. It is not without reason that Procopius, in explaining why he waited until so late in life to release this history, noted that there were those who “would have put me to a horrible death” if they found out he wrote it. It is in places so graphic that great historians like Gibbon refused to translate entire passages, preferring to let Procopius’ revelations remain hidden in Attic Greek where only the learned would have access to them. Secret History is so calculated, so brutal, and so seemingly out-of-character for the long-time courtier and chronicler that for centuries many wondered if Procopius really wrote it. ![]() Recommendations welcome.Īs full as the world is of “tell-all” books and “insider” stories, there has quite possibly never been a literary character assassination quite like the one historian Procopius pulled on the famous royal couple of Constantinople, Justinian and Theodora. One of a series of history books every American should have in his library. ![]()
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