Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/815

Rh PROCOPIUS 791 grapher as an historian it is one of his merits to have perceived the importance of each science to the other and his descriptions of the peoples and places he himself visited are generally careful and thorough. Although a warmly patriotic Roman, he does full justice to the merits of the barbarian enemies of the empire, and particularly of the Ostrogoths ; although the subject of a despotic prince, he criticizes the civil and military administration of Justinian and his dealings with foreign peoples with a freedom which gives a favourable impression of the toler ance of the emperor. His chief defects are a somewhat pretentious and at the same time monotonous style, and a want of sympathy and intensity, which prevents him from giving full life and reality to the personages who figure in his narrative, or raising it to a level worthy of the great and terrible scenes which he has sometimes to describe. The De sEdificiis, or treatise on the Buildings of Jus tinian, contains an account of the chief public works executed during the reign of the emperor down to 558, in which year it seems to have been composed, particularly churches, palaces, hospitals, fortresses, roads, bridges and other river works. All these are of course ascribed to the personal action of the monarch. The treatise is a little longer than the average length of one single book of the eight books of the Histories. Its arrangement is geogra phical ; beginning from Constantinople, it describes works executed in the Mesopotamian provinces, in Armenia and the Caucasian countries, in Thrace and Macedonia, in Asia Minor and Syria, in Egypt and Africa as far as the Pillars of Hercules. If not written at the command of Justinian (as some have supposed), it is at any rate semi official, being evidently grounded on official information, and is full of gross flattery of the emperor and of the (then deceased) empress. In point of style it is greatly inferior to the Histories florid, pompous, and affected, and at the same time tedious. Its chief value lies in the geographi cal notices which it contains. The Anecdota, or Secret History, in length almost equal to the De jEdificiis, and somewhat shorter than the aver age length of a book of the Histories, purports to be a supplement to these, containing explanations and additions which the author could not place in the Histories for fear of Justinian and Theodora. It is a furious invective against these sovereigns, their characters, personal con duct, and government, with attacks on Belisarius and his wife Antonina, and on other official persons of note in the civil and military services of the empire attacks whose effect is weakened by the passion the author betrays. Frequent references to the Histories are interspersed, but the events of the wars are seldom referred to, the main topic being the personal and official misdeeds of the rulers as shown in domestic affairs. The ferocity and brutality - 1 this scandalous chronicle astonish us, for modern writings of the same order have usually been t 1 work of vulgar and anonymous scribblers, not of an able, accomplished, and highly placed man such as Procopius was. Hence ! its authenticity has been often called in question, and a few words are needed both on that question and on the further question of the credibility of its contents. It was unknown to Agathias and Evagrius, younger I contemporaries of Procopius who frequently mention his Histories, and is first referred to by Suidas (writing in the 10th century), who ascribes it to Procopius. Two MSS. (since lost) are mentioned as having been brought to Italy in the days of the Renaissance, but the first publication was made by Nicholas Alemanni, an official of the Vatican, who found a MS. in that library and edited it with copious and learned notes and a Latin translation (Lyons, 1623). Since his day several jurists (led thereto by jealousy for Justinian s reputation) and other scholars have denied it to be the work of Procopius, among whom it is sufficient to refer to the latest, J. H. Reinkens. 1 The external argument against its genuineness, drawn from its not being mentioned till four centuries after the death of Procopius, appears weak when we recollect that it was obviously not written to be published at the time, and may well have remained concealed for generations. The internal argument from the difference between the view of Justinian it presents and that given in the De JZdificiis will impress no one who has observed the almost patent insincerity of the latter book, and the censure, severe though carefully guarded, which the Histories frequently bestow on Justinian s policy. On the other hand the agreement in many points of fact between the Histories and the Anecdota, and the exactness of the references from the latter to the former, point to unity of author ship; while the similarity of opinions, ideas, beliefs, pre judices, and still more the similarities of literary manner, style, and language, supply an overwhelming body of evidence that the Anecdota are a genuine, and so far as his deep-seated feelings go the most genuine, work of Procopius. The question, which ought never to have been deemed doubtful, has been set at rest by the careful com parison of the use of words and phrases in the acknow ledged works of Procopius and in the Anecdota, which we owe to the industry of Dr Felix Dahn, and which is set forth in his excellent book mentioned at the close of this article. It is less easy to pronounce on the credibility of the picture which the Anecdota give of the court and government of Justinian. Plainly there are many exag gerations and some absurdities; yet, when we find some of the severest statements of the book confirmed by other annalists and others substantially tallying with or explain ing those made by Procopius himself in the Histories, we are led to conclude that there is a substantial basis of fact for the charges it brings. It is of course often difficult, sometimes impossible, to say what deductions must be made from the form these charges take; but after study ing the book closely one becomes rather less than more sceptical. In point of style, the Anecduta are inferior to the Histories, and have the air of being u:ifrnshed or at least unrevised. Their merit lies in the furious earnestness with which they are written, and which gives them a force and reality sometimes wanting in the more elaborate books written for publication. The character of a man who could revenge himself for having been obliged to bestow gross flattery on his sove reign by ferocious invective meant to be launched after his death inspires little respect. Otherwise Procopius is a favourable specimen of his age. He is patriotic, with a strong feeling for the greatness of the empire, its dignity, the preservation of its ancient order. He is a worshipper of the past, whose ideal is such a government as that of Trajan or Hadrian. His ethical standard is scarcely affected by Christianity, but is tL t of a Greek of classical times, with too great a tolerance of deceit when practised against barbarian enemies, and doubtless also with a de ficient sense of honour and personal independence. Yet his patriotism does not prevent him from doing justice to the valour of the Persians, or the still finer qualities of the Goths as he had learnt to know them in Italy. He is, however, frigid in sentiment as well as in style, and throws little geniality into his narratives and de scriptions. In his attitude towards the unseen world he is at once sceptical and superstitious sceptical in that he speaks with equal hesitation about the practices 1 Anecdota sintne scripta a Procopio Cassariensi inquiritur, Breslau, 1858.