Procope de Césarée

See also: Procope

Procope of Césarée (in Greek Προκόπιος Καισαρεύς / Prokópios Kaisareús ), in Palestine, is a Roman historian of the 6th century (towards 500 - 560), whose work constitutes a detailed account of the reign of the emperor Justinien.

It passes the essence of its life to Constantinople where it enters to the service of the large general of Justinien, Bélisaire, like symboulos then paredros , in 527, being used at the same time of secretary and right-hand man. It then accompanies it in the majority by its campaigns, in the East (527), in North Africa (533) and in Italy (536). Procope is in Constantinople at the time of the Sédition Nika (532) as well as at the time of the plague of 542, events of which it gives reports detailed as an eyewitness. It is in the years 550 that takes seat, probably, its literary activity, but one is unaware of which was the immediate reception of its works. One is unaware of also all the end of his life: its chronicle of the reign of Justinien stops in 560, and it is probable that its fortune suffered from the disgrace of Bélisaire.

The Welded (pi, 2479) known as of him:

“Illustrates of Césarée in Palestine. Rhetor and sophist. He wrote a Roman History, on the wars of the Patrice Bélisaire, the actions carried out to Rome and in Libya. He lived at the time of the Justinien emperor, was employed as a secretary of Bélisaire and accompanied it in all the wars and the events which he reported. He wrote also another book, the Anecdota , on the same events. The two works hold in eight volumes. The book of Procope called Anecdota contains abuses and mockeries on the Justinien emperor and his wife Théodora, and of the same on Bélisaire itself, and his wife. ”

Its first historical work, entitled Stories or Speech on the Wars ( Ἱστορίαι or Ὑπὲρ τῶν πολέμων λόγοι ) milked thus, in eight books, of the victorious campaigns of Bélisaire, respectively against the Persian S, the Vandals and the Goths. It would have been published in 552 and is supplemented in 554.
Its second work is probably due on the initiative of Justinien: heading On the monuments ( Περὶ κτισμάτων , De Ædificiis ), it is a treaty, in six books, monuments built on the order of Justinien in all the empire, classified by geographical order. Work remained probably unfinished, because the last part of it is made up of simple lists of places and of monuments which were to be temporary notes, it is of unequal quality, and must be read neither like a guide nor like an administrative document. The sources used are lost, but do not appear to be personal observations of the author. The exactitude of the information given on many sites was largely called into question by their confrontation with the archaeological and epigraphic data - in particular, Procope allots to Justinien many fortifications which go back in fact to Anastase I {{er}}. The book would have been published in 561.
the third work of Procope, probably a posthumous publication, sometimes saw its authenticity questioned: the “ Secret History ” ( Ἀνέκδοτα , Historia arcana ) is of a tone radically different from preceding works. It is about a diatribe ordurière, a compilation of the worst gossip and calumnies of the court against Justinien, Théodora, Bélisaire and his Antonina wife, who only had to circulate under the coat: the Greek title means “new things besides” (it is the origin of the word Anecdote). Certain passages are so coarse and so close to the pornography that there were a long time only Latin translations, sometimes expurgées: in the chapter devoted to Justinien of its famous and Fall Declines off the Roman Empire (chap. 40), the historian Edward Gibbon does not move back in front of the use of the accused passages but takes the precaution to quote them in Greek with Latin comments. He furnishes proof himself to his reader by writing in connection with Théodora that “its arts must be buckled in the darkness of an erudite language”!

The duplicity of Procope, at the same time author of the panegyric which is the De Ædificiis and of the violent one makes out whom represents the secret History much was discussed but remains difficult to explain without additional biographical elements.

In these various works, Procope shows of a traditional field crop and a good control of the languages (Latin, syriaque, Gothic, Persian in addition to its maternal Greek). Thucydide is its stylistic and literary model, and like him, he makes an effort with objectivity in his historical work.

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