Name: The Secret History
ISBN: 9780140441826

Procopius

A first century Byzantine historian offers portraits of the emperor Justinian, the empress Theodora, and Belisarius, a brilliant general and describes the injustices of Justinian's reign

The Secret History

Sarah Escorsa

Warning: this review is short. Because, YES, I can do short and almost-to-the-point when I really want to. It's just that I don't really want to very often.

You gotta give it to the Byzantines, these guys and gals really knew how to live: debauchery, greed, cruelty, a total lack of morals, corruption, duplicity, wickedness, mass slaughter, mean-spiritedness, spite, shrewdness...They really had the seven deadly sins more than covered. If you believe Procopius, that is. Considering he used to be Justinian's official court historian, and wrote The Secret History after he got the sack, you might not want to take everything he says here for granted. I mean, there is a slight possibility that his only reason for writing this book was good old retaliation. 



Despite this probably being nothing more than a bunch of delicious lies meant to demolish Justinian (the most useless, vile, impulsive, treacherous, homicidal, corrupted emperor ever), his lovely wife Theodora (basically a crazy, bloodthirsty, capricious whore/slut/bitch), his first councilor Belisarius (the lamest, most pathetic, cuckolded Roman general ever), and Belisarius' wife Antonina (a sex-crazed, utterly depraved, calculating whore/slut/bitch), it is still lots of fun to read. And had Procopius not asked for this delightful piece of slightly biased literature to be published only after his death (view spoiler)[
  
 (hide spoiler)], I'm pretty sure Justinian would have gone all libel suit on his lovely derrière. I mean, this kind of ruins his image of saint of the Eastern Orthodox Church. 

 

If some of you silly people are petrified and terrified at the thought of reading books like this one because it is History written by an Ancient Dude (insert sudden bouts of uncontrollable shuddering here), don't be. Petrified and terrified, I mean. This malicious bit of defamatory fun reads as easily as your average tabloid. So much so that even my 13-year-old niece could read it. Well, being my niece she is obviously superiorly intelligent and probably cleverer than most of you, but you know what I mean. Even total nitwits with half a grey cell should be able to understand what this book is about, so there's a good chance you will, too, my Little Barnacles! 

➽ And the moral of this non-review is: Ancient Historian Dudes cannot be trusted. 
➽ And the other moral of this non-review is: Justinian can't have been THAT bad. I mean, the guy even got a plague named after him, which obviously means he was super cool and extra awesome and stuff.
➽ And the other, other moral of this non-review is: Procopius, you rock. (view spoiler)[
  

  

  
 (hide spoiler)]

Michael Hessling

Wow. Super long, but I couldn't stop reading it.

The Secret History

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