The Secret History (Classics)

by Geoffrey Arthur Williamson (Translator), Procopius Caesariensis (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1981

  $5.88

  'The Secret History' is a highly opinionated and unflattering account of the Byzantine Emperor Belisarius, and an insight into Byzantine culture.

• New

  paperback
  

  $13.27

  A trusted member of the Byzantine establishment, Procopius was the Empire's official chronicler, and his History of the Wars of Justinian proclaimed the strength and wisdom of the Emperor's reign. Yet all the while the dutiful scribe was working on a very different - and dangerous - history to be published only once its author was safely in his grave. The Secret History portrays the 'great lawgiver' Justinian as a rampant king of corruption and tyranny, the Empress Theodora as a sorceress and whore, and the brilliant general Belisarius as the pliable dupe of his scheming wife Antonina. Magnificently hyperbolic and highly opinionated, The Secret History is a work of explosive energy, depicting holy Byzantium as a hell of murder and misrule.