To read the Secret History continue on to the
Table of
Contents.
Introduction
The following is Richard Atwater's
translation of the Secret History. Like all texts in the
Isidore-of-Seville
Classical Library, each
section is accompanied by commentary, contributed by knowledgeable
and interested readers. You are invited to contribute your
scholarship and ideas to this commentary. A few sections, such as
the infamous geese
scene where aidoiôn
is translated as "calyx of this passion flower," are being
retranslated by the editor, SurfWatch be damned.
This text and the preliminary
commentary were prepared in tandem with the web-directory
Justinian,
Theodora and Procopius on the Web,
which contains annotated links to over 200 web documents related to
Byzantium in the 6th century, including introductions better than the
one that follows.
The Secret
History
Like Thucydides and so many others,
Procopius wrote the Secret History for posterity. Unlike them,
he apparently wrote only for posterity, as general publication
during his lifetime would have led to certain disgrace and probable
death. In his account, the young future empress was a shameless and
insatiable performing prostitute, the emperor a genocidal tyrant;
both were, incidentally and quite literally, fiends. It is a strange,
vicious, and, at points, borderline-pornographic work.
If Procopius had been just a
malcontent with a pen, we might dismiss the Secret History as
mere scurrilous pamphleteering. But Procopius was one of the
sixth-century's great administrators and intellectuals, secretary to
Justinian's top general, and author of the definitive history of
Justinian's wars of reconquest. In his Wars and particularly
in his account of Justinian's building program, Procopius cast the
emperor, his empress Theodora and other figures of the court in a
favorable light.
Not surprisingly, scholarship has
long been absorbed in squaring Procopius' attitudes in the three
works. Did he change his mind? Are there hints of his true feelings
in the Wars and Buildings? Is the work a clever
forgery? (Almost all now think it genuine.) Others have found the
Secret History a mine of information about palace intrigue,
common life in Constantinople and contemporary attitudes toward sex
and power.
Text and
Translation
The text presented here is by Richard
Atwater, author of the children's book Mr. Popper's Penguins
(I couldn't make this stuff up!). It was first published in 1927 and
reprinted in 1963 by the University of Michigan with "indications
that the copyright had expired" (in fact, the reprint hardly mentions
Atwater). This text was scanned into text my Paul Halsall
(homepage)
in 1996 for the Internet History Sourcebook. I can be reached at
timspalding@mediaone.net.
- Tim Spalding
