Description
This volume aims to encourage dialogue and collaboration between international scholars by presenting new literary and historical interpretations of the sixth-century writer Procopius of Caesarea, the major historian of Justinian’s reign. Although scholarship on Procopius has flourished since 2004, when the last monograph in English on Procopius was published, there has not been a collection of essays on the subject since 2000. Work on Procopius since 2004 has been surveyed by Geoffrey Greatrex in his international bibliography; Peter Sarris has revised the 1966 Penguin Classics translation of, and introduced, Procopius’ Secret History (2007); and Anthony Kaldellis has edited, translated and introduced Procopius’ Secret History, with related texts (2010), and revised and modernised H.B. Dewing’s Loeb translation of Procopius’ Wars as The Wars of Justinian in 2014.
This volume capitalises on the renaissance in Procopius-related studies by showcasing recent work on Procopius in all its diversity and vibrancy. It offers approaches that shed new light on Procopius’ texts by comparing them with a variety of relevant textual sources. In particular, the volume pays close attention to the text and examines what it achieves as a literary work and what it says as an historical product.
Table of Contents
Introduction
I. Revisiting Procopius
1. Writing about Procopius – then and now
Averil Cameron
2. The Greatness of Procopius
Michael Whitby
3. The wor(l)ds of Procopius
Peter Van Nuffelen
II. Literary Tropes
4. How to interpret Procopius’ preface to the Wars
Franco Basso and Geoffrey Greatrex
5. Narrator and Participant in Procopius’ Wars
Alan Ross
III. Persian Wars
6. Exploring the structure of Persian Wars: amplification in Procopius’ narrative
Lyvia Vasconcelos Baptista
7. Procopius and Boethius: Christian Philosophy in the Persian Wars
James Murray
IV. Characterisation
8. Procopius and the Characterization of Bessas: Where History Meets Historiography
Conor Whately
9. Reinventing Theoderic in Procopius’ Gothic War
Charles Pazdernik
V. Military and Legal History Comparisons
10. Procopius, πάρεδρος / quaestor, Codex Justinianus, I.27 and Belisarius’ strategy in the
Mediterranean
Christopher Lillington-Martin
11. Justinian’s Laws and Procopius’ Wars
Marion Kruse
12. Comparing Procopius and Malalas
Ian Colvin
VI. Social History Comparisons
13. Roman or Barbarian? Ethnic Identities and Political Loyalties in the Balkans according to Procopius
Alexander Sarantis
14. Landownership and Rural Society in the Writings of Procopius
Peter Sarris
VII. Receptions
15. Scaliger’s Lie? A Note on "Project Procopius"
Federico Montinaro
VIII. The Aftermath
16. Epilogue
Anthony Kaldellis
Bibliography
