Biographies & Autobiographies, Presidents & Heads of State

The Secret History

Name: The Secret History
Author: Procopius
ISBN: 9780140455281

by Procopius, G. A. Williamson (Translator), Peter Sarris (Translator), Peter Sarris (Introduction), Peter Sarris

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Overview

Having dutifully written the official war history of Justinian's reign, Procopius turned round and revealed in The Secret History the other faces of the leading men and women of Byzantium in the sixth century. Justinian, the great law-giver, appears as a hateful tyrant, wedded to an ex-prostitute, Theodora; and Belisarius, the brilliant general whose secretary Procopius had been, is seen as the pliable dupe of his wife Antonina, a woman as corrupt and scheming as Theodora herself.

Synopsis

A scathing indictment of the emperor Justinian and his 6th-century Byzantine court by the greatest historian of the period

About the Author, Procopius

G.A. Williamson was born in 1895 and was a Classical Exhibitioner at Worcester College, Oxford, graduating with a First Class Honours degree. He was Senior Classics Master at Norwich School from 1922 to 1960. He also translated Josephus: The Jewish War (1959) and Procopius: The Secret History (1966) for the Penguin Classics. He died in 1982.