The Byzantine Secrets of Procopius
Judith Herrin considers the Jekyll-and-Hyde output of Justinian's court historian, alternately respectful official chronicler and tabloid-style exposer of imperial scandal.
How many and how great are the benefits which are wont to accrue to states through History, which transmits to future generations the memory of those who have gone before and resists the steady effort of time to bury events in oblivion... Wherefore our concern must be solely this – that all the deeds of the past shall be clearly set forth, and by what man, whosoever he might be, they were wrought ... Indeed it is through this very service that many men of later times strive after virtue by emulating the honours of those who have preceeded them and ... are quite likely to shun the basest practices.
Indeed, the aim of Procopius' major work, A History of the Wars in eight books, is presented in clear pedagogic terms:
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