The Greed and Immorality of a Byzantine Emperor

The Byzantine scholar and nobleman Procopius (ca. 500–565) lived in a time of enormous uncertainty and turmoil. In his view, Byzantine society was on the verge of collapse, an opinion that was not so far-fetched given events in Rome in the previous century. The Secret History was Procopius’s effort to draw connections between the policies and personalities of Byzantium’s rulers and the rapid decline that he perceived. As you read this excerpt, consider what connections Procopius might have wanted readers to make between his descriptions of Justinian and Theodora and the problems and challenges his society faced. On what basis did he hold them responsible for Byzantium’s ills?

When Justinian ascended the throne it took him a very little while to bring everything into confusion. Things hitherto forbidden by law were one by one brought into public life, while established customs were swept away wholesale, as if he had been invested with the forms of majesty on condition that he would change all things to new forms. Long established offices were abolished, and new ones set up to run the nation’s business; the laws of the land and the organization of the army were treated in the same way, not because justice required it or the general interest urged him to it, but merely that everything might have a new look and might be associated with his name. If there was anything which he was not in a position to transform then and there, even so he would at least attach his own name to it.

Of the forcible seizure of property and the murder of his subjects he could never have enough: when he had looted innumerable houses of wealthy people he was constantly on the look-out for others, immediately squandering on one foreign tribe or another, or on crazy building schemes, all that he had amassed by his earlier looting. And when he had without any excuse got rid of thousands and thousands of people, or so it would seem, he promptly devised schemes for doing the same to others more numerous still. . . .

Until the “Nika” insurrection6 took place, they [Justinian and Theodora] were content to annex the estates of the well-to-do one at a time; but after it took place, as I related in an earlier volume, from then on they confiscated at a single stroke the possessions of nearly all the senators. On all movable property and on the most attractive landed estates they laid their hands just as they fancied; but they set aside properties liable to oppressive and crushing taxation, and with sham generosity sold them to their previous owners! These in consequence were throttled by the tax-collectors and reduced to penury by the never-ending interest on their debts, dragging out a miserable existence that was no more than a lingering death.

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. Proof of this could be found in many things, but especially in the power manifested in their doings. For the actions of demons are unmistakably different from those of human beings. In the long course of time there have doubtless been many men who by chance or by nature have inspired the utmost fear, and by their unaided efforts have ruined cities or countries or whatever it might be; but to bring destruction on all mankind and calamities on the whole world has been beyond the power of any but these two, who were, it is true, aided in their endeavors by chance, which collaborated in the ruin of mankind; for earthquakes, pestilences, and rivers that burst their banks brought widespread destruction at this time, as I shall explain shortly. Thus it was not by human but by some very different power that they wrought such havoc.

It is said that Justinian’s own mother told some of her close friends that he was not the son of her husband Sabbatius or of any man at all. For when she was about to conceive she was visited by a demon, who was invisible but gave her a distinct impression that he was really there with her like a man in bodily contact with a woman. Then he vanished like a dream.

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. One of them declared that he more than once rose suddenly from the imperial throne and walked round and round the room; for he was not in the habit of remaining seated for long. And Justinian’s head would momentarily disappear, while the rest of his body seemed to continue making these long circuits. The watcher himself, thinking that something had gone seriously wrong with his eyesight, stood for a long time distressed and quite at a loss. But later the head returned to the body, and he thought that what a moment before had been lacking was, contrary to expectation, filling out again. A second man said that he stood by the Emperor’s side as he sat, and saw his face suddenly transformed to a shapeless lump of flesh: neither eyebrows nor eyes were in their normal position, and it showed no other distinguishing feature at all; gradually, however, he saw the face return to its usual shape. I did not myself witness the events I am describing, but I heard about them from men who insist that they saw them at the time.

G. A. Williamson, trans., Procopius: The Secret History (London: Penguin Books, 1966, 1981), 94–95, 101–103.

READING AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS