Customer Reviews

Procopius, Vol. 6: The Anecdota or Secret History (Loeb Classical Library, No. 290) (English and Greek Edition)

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Since there are so many of these darn things the review shall be divided into three sections. First, a brief description of the Loeb series of books and their advantages/disadvantages. Second shall be my thoughts on the author himself, his accuracy, as well as his style and the style of his translator. This is of course only my opinion and should be treated as such. The final part shall review what this particular book actually covers.

The Loeb series date back to the turn of the last century. They are designed for people with at least some knowledge of Greek or Latin. They are a sort of compromise between a straight English translation and an annotated copy of the original text. On the left page is printed the text in Greek or Latin depending on the language of the writer and on the right side is the text in English. For somebody who knows even a little Greek or Latin these texts are invaluable. You can try to read the text in the original language knowing that you can correct yourself by looking on the next page or you can read the text in translation and check the translation with the original for more detail. While some of the translations are excellent mostly they are merely serviceable since they are designed more as an aid to translation rather than a translation in themselves. Most of them follow the Greek or Latin very closely. These books are also very small, maybe just over a quarter the size of your average hardcover book. This means that you'll need to buy more than just one book to read a complete work. They are also somewhat pricey considering their size. The Loeb Collection is very large but most of the more famous works can be found in better (and cheaper) translations elsewhere. If you want to read a rarer book or read one in the original language then you can't do better than the Loeb Editions.

Procopius was the last great Classical historian and a personal favorite of mine. His works were written in the middle of the 6th Century during the reign of Justinian when the Empire was once again on the rise. His books are about the wars to reconquer the Western Empire which had fallen in 476. As an author Procopius is highly readable. His works cover a very interesting period and do so with great skill. He is from the Sallustan school of history writing and divides his work into sections based on similar topics instead of following a strictly chronological approach. This makes his books both easier to follow and more entertaining for the reader. While his books are technically focused on the wars they cover much more than that including politics and economic matters. Procopius is also the author of two other very different books. One a very boring panegyric on the building works of Justinian and the other called the 'Anecdota' or 'Secret History' which is basically a collection of every possible slander he could make against Justinian, his wife Theodora, and just about everybody else he'd ever met. As you might gather from those two different books Procopius suffers on accuracy issues. While he doesn't seem to have told direct lies (except in his secret history) his lies of omission are likely to be serious. Unfortunately he is our main source for that era which makes it hard to check him against other sources. Still, even if he fudges facts a little to obscure some points he is unlikely to have completely changed the events described. The translation is quite good.

This volume contains Procopius' Secret History. This is the most infamous of his works and an extremely interesting piece of propaganda. We'll never know why he wrote it but the most likely explanation seems to be that he grew disillusioned with the people in charge of the Empire and decided to write a bitter and angry rant against them. The sections describing Theodora's sexual appetites are particularly revolting. It makes an interesting contrast with his other, more positive books. Some of these rumors are likely to be based on facts which makes this book important to study but picking the book apart for facts is a difficult and easily futile task.

Procopius was sent by Justinian in 527 A.D. to assist the great general Belisarius as secretary and privy councillor during the expedition against the Persians. With this in mind, it would appear that Procopius' intimate relations with Belisarius, his wife Antonia, the Empress Theodora, and the Emperor Justinian, would keep his treatment of them within the bounds of believability, remaining free from both partialty and the general gossip of the times. Indeed, in certain aspects this is true; however, many times his hightened exaggerations seem a bit fictitious and superfluous. Procopius constantly hurls insults upon these Byzantine dignitaries as if he was the sole judge of their character; and he rarely ever has anything good to say about anybody or anything. In order to test the reliability of Procopius' "Secret History," it must be compared with other chronicles of his time, which are quite scanty, and many times erroneous and misleading. Despite all this, it must be noted that the great Edward Gibbon, a fair judge himself, said that Procopius was "the gravest historian of the times." The book is interesting, and at the same time a bit too personal. A wise suggestion would be to pick up his other works first; they will prove much more useful.