Like most notables of the Roman Empire in Byzantine times, the historian Procopius was not a Latin. He was born in Caesarea in Palestine about 500 AD, and apparently was one of those Samaritans whom h...

In what I have written on the Roman wars up to the present point, the story was arranged in chronological order and as completely as the times then permitted. What I shall write now follows a differen...

The father of Belisarius’s wife, a lady whom I have mentioned in my former books, was (and so was her grandfather) a charioteer, exhibiting that trade in Constantinople and Thessalonica. Her mother wa...

For soon Belisarius went off to war on Chosroes,8 and he took Photius with him; but Antonina remained behind, though this was contrary to her usual habit. She had always preferred to voyage wherever h...

On his return to Roman territory, Belisarius found his wife just arriving from Constantinople. He put her under guard in disgrace, and often was on the point of putting her to death; but each time he ...

Soon after this, a further disaster befell him. The plague, which I have described elsewhere, became epidemic at Constantinople, and the Emperor Justinian was taken grievously ill; it was even said he...

From his second expedition to Italy Belisarius brought back nothing but disgrace: for in the entire five years of the campaign he was unable to set foot on that land, as I have related in my former bo...

I come now to the tale of what sort of beings Justinian and Theodora were, and how they brought confusion on the Roman state. During the rule of Emperor Leo in Constantinople, three young farmers of I...

The people had since long previous time been divided, as I have explained elsewhere, into two factions, the Blues and the Greens.19 Justinian, by joining the former party, which had already shown favo...

Now this went on not only in Constantinople, but in every city: for like any other disease, the evil, starting there, spread throughout the entire Roman Empire. But the Emperor was undisturbed by the ...

He took a wife: and in what manner she was born and bred, and, wedded to this man, tore up the Roman Empire by the very roots, I shall now relate. Acacius was the keeper of wild beasts used in the amp...

Now as long as the former Empress was alive, Justinian was unable to find a way to make Theodora his wedded wife. In this one matter she opposed him as in nothing else: for the lady abhorred vice, bei...

As soon as Justinian came into power he turned everything upside down. Whatever had before been forbidden by law he now introduced into the government, while he revoked all established customs: as if ...

Now the wealth of those in Constantinople and each other city who were considered second in prosperity only to members of the Senate, was brutally confiscated, in the ways I have described, by Justini...

Justinian, while otherwise of such character as I have shown, did make himself easy of access and affable to his visitors; nobody of all those who sought audience with him was ever denied: even those ...

Everything was done the wrong way, and of the old customs none remained; a few instances will illustrate, and the rest must be silence, that this book may have an end. In the first place, Justinian, h...

Theodora too unceasingly hardened her heart in the practice of inhumanity. What she did, was never to please or obey anyone else; what she willed, she performed of her own accord and with all her migh...

How Theodora treated those who offended her will now be shown, though again I can give only a few instances, or obviously there would be no end to the demonstration. When Amasalontha23 decided to save...

I have told earlier in this narrative what she did to Belisarius, Photius and Buzes. There were two members of the Blue faction, Cilicians by birth, who with a mob of others offered violence to Callin...

That Justinian was not a man, but a demon, as I have said, in human form, one might prove by considering the enormity of the evils he brought upon mankind. For in the monstrousness of his actions the ...

How he seized all wealth I will next discuss: recalling first a vision which, at the beginning of Justinian’s rule, was revealed to one of illustrious rank in a dream. In this dream, he said, he seeme...

He also had contrived other ways of plundering his subjects (which I will now describe as well as I can) by which he robbed them, not all at once, but little by little of their entire fortunes. First ...

The Prefect in charge of the praetors each year handed over to the Emperor more than thirty centenaries in addition to the public taxes; this tribute was called the sky tax, to show, I suppose, that i...

Now when the Emperor and Theodora dismissed John of Cappadocia, they wished to appoint a successor to his office, and agreed to choose a still baser rogue; so they looked everywhere for such an instru...

I will now tell how he ruined the landowners everywhere; although it were a sufficient indication of their sufferings to refer to what I have just written about the officials who were sent to all the ...

I must not pass over his treatment of the soldiers, over whom he appointed paymasters with instructions to hold out as much of their money as they found possible, on the understanding that one twelfth...

I will next describe another way in which he robbed his subjects. Those who serve the Emperor and the magistrates in Constantinople, either as guards or as secretaries or whatnot, are inscribed last i...

How he ruined the beauty and appearance of Constantinople and every other city, we shall now see. First he determined to debase the standing of the lawyers. He deprived them of all court fees, by whic...

The deeds of Justinian were such that all eternity would not be long enough in which to describe them adequately. So a few examples will have to suffice to illuminate his whole character to future gen...

How he unhesitatingly abolished laws when money was in question will now be shown in a few words. There was one Priscus in the City of Emesa, who was a skilful forger of others’ handwriting, and a rar...

I will now show what a liar and hypocrite he was. This Liberius, whom I recently mentioned, he removed from office and in his stead appointed John, an Egyptian, surnamed Laxarion. When Pelagius, a par...

How much he cared for the interests of the State may be seen by what he did to the public couriers and the spies. For the preceding Roman emperors, so that they might most quickly and easily have news...

Belisarius, according to one learned guess, is a Latin transliteration of the Slavonic “Beli-Tsar,” or “White Prince.” Procopius elsewhere says Belisarius came from Germania, a village “on the border ...