The Byzantine Secrets of Procopius

By Judith Herrin | Published in History Today Volume: 38 Issue: 8 1988

Judith Herrin considers the Jekyll-and-Hyde output of Justinian's court historian, alternately respectful official chronicler and tabloid-style exposer of imperial scandal.

How many and how great are the benefits which are wont to accrue to states through History, which transmits to future generations the memory of those who have gone before and resists the steady effort of time to bury events in oblivion... Wherefore our concern must be solely this – that all the deeds of the past shall be clearly set forth, and by what man, whosoever he might be, they were wrought ... Indeed it is through this very service that many men of later times strive after virtue by emulating the honours of those who have preceeded them and ... are quite likely to shun the basest practices.

This classic statement on the role of history was written by Procopius in the sixth-century AD at the opening of his treatise On Buildings, in praise of the Emperor Justinian. With its insistence that good examples inspire and guide the young, it would seem to fit the present Secretary of State for Education's idea of the role of history in education today.

Indeed, the aim of Procopius' major work, A History of the Wars in eight books, is presented in clear pedagogic terms:

This article is available to History Today online subscribers only. If you are a subscriber, please log in.

Please choose one of these options to access this article:

Purchase a online subscription and receive unlimited access to our archive for one week, one month or a year

Purchase a print and website subscription, giving you one year's access to all our content and 12 editions of History Today magazine.

If you are already a print subscriber, purchase the online archive upgrade for a year's worth of access at a reduced price

Call our Subscriptions department on +44 (0)20 3219 7813 for more information.

If you are logged in but still cannot access the article, please contact us

Tags: Byzantine Empire,Medieval (4th-15thC),

If you enjoyed this article, you might like these:

This Month's Magazine

Subscribe to our weekly e-newsletter:

From The Current Issue

History Today App

From The Archive

Lords of the Northern Forest

The Hudson's Bay Company was one of the central forces moulding the development of the vast tracts of land that today are Canada - but as Barry Gough explains here, the circumstances of its launch in 1670 also reveal much about the commercial forces, personalities and rivalries of Restoration England.