# Procopius

**Procopius of Caesarea** (Greek: **Προκόπιος ο Καισαρεύς**, c. 500 – c. 565) was a prominent Eastern Roman scholar. He took part in the wars of the Emperor Justinian I, and was the major historian of the 6th century AD, writing the *Wars of Justinian*, the *Buildings of Justinian* and the celebrated *Secret History*. He is commonly held to be the last major historian of the ancient world.

## Writings

The writings of Procopius are the primary source of information for the rule of the Roman emperor Justinian. Procopius was the author of a history in eight books of the wars fought by Justinian I, with information on Justinian's public works throughout the empire, and a book known as the *Secret History* (Greek: *Anekdota*) that claims to report the scandals that Procopius could not include in his published history.

A number of historical novels based on Procopius' works (along with other sources) have been written, of which the best, *Count Belisarius*, was written by poet and novelist Robert Graves in 1938.

* Greatrex, Geoffrey: *Recent work on Procopius and the composition of Wars VIII*; in: Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 27 (2003), 45-67.
* Treadgold, Warren: *The Early Byzantine Historians*, Basingstoke 2007, 176-226.

## List of selected works

* *Procopii Caesariensis opera omnia*. Edited by J. Haury; revised by G. Wirth. 3 vols. Leipzig: Teubner, 1976-64. Greek text.
* *Procopius*. Edited by H. B. Dewing. 7 vols. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press and London, Hutchinson, 1914–40. Greek text and English translation.
* Procopius, *The Secret History*, translated by G.A. Williamson. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1966. A readable and accessible English translation of the *Anecdota*.

## Other websites

### Texts of Procopius

* Complete Works, Greek text (Migne Patrologia Graeca) with analytical indexes
* The Secret History Archived 2013-10-11 at the Wayback Machine, English translation (Atwater, 1927) at the Internet Medieval Sourcebook
* The Secret History, English translation (Dewing, 1935) at LacusCurtius
* The Buildings, English translation (Dewing, 1935) at LacusCurtius
* The Buildings, Book IV Archived 2008-05-17 at the Wayback Machine Greek text with commentaries, index nominum, etc. at Sorin Olteanu's LTDM Project
* Works by Procopius at Project Gutenberg
* Dewing's Loeb edition of the Wars, books 1 and 2 at the Internet Archive
* Dewing's Loeb edition of the Wars, books 3 and 4 at the Internet Archive
* Complete Works 1, Greek ed. by Karl Wilhelm Dindorf, Latin trans. by Claude Maltret in *Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae Pars II Vol. 1*, 1833. (*Persian Wars I-II, Vandal Wars I-II*)
* Complete Works 2, Greek ed. by Karl Wilhelm Dindorf, Latin trans. by Claude Maltret in *Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae Pars II Vol. 2*, 1833. (*Gothic Wars I-IV*)
* Complete Works 3, Greek ed. by Karl Wilhelm Dindorf, Latin trans. by Claude Maltret in *Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae Pars II Vol. 3*, 1838. (*Secret History, Buildings of Justinan*)

*This article is based on an earlier version Archived 2001-08-22 at the Wayback Machine by James Allan Evans, originally posted at Nupedia.*