Procopius` view on the emperor Justinian

PROCOPIUS` VIEW OF THE EMPEROR JUSTINIAN Historians generally regard the Emperor Justinian as a better-than-average ruler of the Roman Empire , who diminished his claim to greatness by a misguided effort to reassert the full traditional power of the empire . However , in his Secret History Justinian '92s court secretary and historian Procopius of Caesarea paints a scathing picture of incompetence , rapacity , deceit , and evil that has few bounds . Indeed , this catalogue of wrongs is so wide-ranging that in the end , Procopius becomes less than a completely credible source as to the Emperor

Justinian

Procopius spends the fist quarter of his history largely dealing with the tribulations of the general Bellasarius , Procopius '92 first major patron , and only turns to Justinian directly in section 9 . When he does , Procopius quickly makes his attitude plain

Justinian , while still a youth , was the virtual ruler - '96 and the author of more and worse calamities to the Romans than any one man in all their previous history that has come down to us -- For he had no scruples : against murder or the seizing of other person '92s property and it was nothing to him to make away with myriads of men , even when they gave him no cause . He had no care for preserving established customs , but was always eager for new experiments , and , in short , was the greatest corrupter of all noble traditions

[T]his man not one of all the Romans could escape but as if he were a second pestilence sent from heaven , he fell on the nation and left no man quite untouched . For some he slew without reason , and some he released to struggle with penury , and their fate was worse than those who had perished 'a7 6

The catalogue of offenses that Procopius announces has virtually no bounds . Justinian murdered guests whom he had invited to his palace under a pledge of safe conduct , showing that he felt in no way bound by his own oath , no matter how sacred 'a7 6 ) He turned law and throughout the state upside down 'a7 7 ) He took no care to be the protector of the injured , but made himself the leader of the guilty 'a7 7 ) He was an evil spreading through the Roman Empire 'a7 8 ) He was '93at once villainous and amenable . never truthful with anyone . an unnatural mixture of folly and wickedness deceitful , devious , false , hypocritical , two-faced , cruel Procopius '92 View of the Emperor Justinian Page skilled in dissembling his thought . a liar always , not only offhand , but in writing '94 'a7 8

Procopius goes on detailing the wrongs of Justinian in a ceaseless catalogue of malfeasance . Justinian shattered all semblance of law and merely out of a joy in destroying the old and replacing it with his own rules 'a7 'a7 7 , 9 ) He seized the estates of loyal men while letting murderers and other criminals escape unpunished 'a7 8 He fomented civil strife when his only purpose lay in seeing blood run...