The Duality Of Procopius Of Caesarea

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Procopius of Caesarea was a famous scholar in his time period, and produced three important historical works, which were History of the Wars, Secret History and The Buildings of Justinian. The duality of Procopius of Caesarea for the reign of Justinian the Great depends on his historiographic interpretations about Justinian the Great, and it is totally related to what Justinian did for his empire and what kind of a man he was during his time period because “he was the last Roman emperor, and very important to his period. While Procopius of Caesarea, who was a famous historian in his time period, was declaring, mentioning, and giving clues to his audience about the duality of Justinian the Great, he produced historical works and put his objective …show more content…

He praised the victories and wrote about the information about both sides. His interpretations about the wars are still reasonable. Procopius gives us a full picture of what Justinian the Great did in the war and how he fought till 560 A.D., and his style while performing narrative history is accepted clear and true. He also describes emperors, warriors, actions and places in his historical work, and gives details about them. For example, he put in his book how Vittigis gave his speech after losing Naples in 536 A.D. because Belisarius had captured Naples. With his description of the event like the king gives a speech to his people, he was indirectly praising the emperor and his achievements. As seen, Procopius praised the Roman warriors and, of course, Justinian the Great because of their heroic wars. The satirical praises are acceptable, but some historians have questions and doubts about the connection between the historical events that Procopius stated in his books. According to Kaldellis, there was a number of unrelated and unconnected sections in Procopius’ writings, Kaldellis accepts that this is vague and will not give solid information about relations between the historical events. In the book of Buildings, Procopius praises the conquests of new places by the emperor and his warriors. In the Buildings he mentions that the praise for the honorable works will …show more content…

This was a dilemma for him, but he did. According to Kaldellis, Procopius used his praises for empowering the religious in the Buildings, and he mentioned in the Secret History that the emperor’s passionate belief in the religious had him done a number of crimes. Those crimes were against his people, so he criticized about them in the Secret History. He also criticized Belisarius, and Antonina, who was Belisarius’ wife, and he stated that their wives were holding the power of the reign. In the Secret History Procopius criticized them as if he was taking revenge on them. This was the duality of his interpretations about the emperor and others. In my opinion, this was related to moral and governing ethics that Procopius wanted to expect them without any faults. Moreover, he described them as unreliable, performing double standard, disobeying laws, and bribe taker. According to Kaldellis, Procopius just wanted to deliver what best fit the regime. So, it does not look that Procopius took revenge on Justinian the Great, and he just declared a reality about the regime. In a tyrannical regime, of course, the emperor, his relatives, and his government would get benefits from the power of their regime. So, Procopius just wanted the emperor to be fair and perfect to govern his empire. Otherwise, Procopius could have used his negative criticism against Justinian the Great and others. He

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