Procopius of Caesarea: Literary and Historical Interpretations

This volume aims to encourage dialogue and collaboration between international scholars by presenting new literary and historical interpretations of the sixth-century writer Procopius of Caesarea, the major historian of Justinian?s reign. Although scholarship on Procopius has flourished since 2004, when the last monograph in English on Procopius was published, there has not been a collection of essays on the subject since 2000. Work on Procopius since 2004 has been surveyed by Geoffrey Greatrex in his international bibliography; Peter Sarris has revised the 1966 Penguin Classics translation of, and introduced, Procopius? Secret History (2007); and Anthony Kaldellis has edited, translated and introduced Procopius? Secret History, with related texts (2010), and revised and modernised H.B. Dewing?s Loeb translation of Procopius? Wars as The Wars of Justinian in 2014.

This volume capitalises on the renaissance in Procopius-related studies by showcasing recent work on Procopius in all its diversity and vibrancy. It offers approaches that shed new light on Procopius? texts by comparing them with a variety of relevant textual sources. In particular, the volume pays close attention to the text and examines what it achieves as a literary work and what it says as an historical product.

Introduction

I. Revisiting Procopius

1. Writing about Procopius – then and now

Averil Cameron

2. The Greatness of Procopius

Michael Whitby

3. The wor(l)ds of Procopius

Peter Van Nuffelen

II. Literary Tropes

4. How to interpret Procopius’ preface to the Wars

Franco Basso and Geoffrey Greatrex

5. Narrator and Participant in Procopius’ Wars

Alan Ross

III. Persian Wars

6. Exploring the structure of Persian Wars: amplification in Procopius’ narrative

Lyvia Vasconcelos Baptista

7. Procopius and Boethius: Christian Philosophy in the Persian Wars

James Murray

IV. Characterisation

8. Procopius and the Characterization of Bessas: Where History Meets Historiography

Conor Whately

9. Reinventing Theoderic in Procopius’ Gothic War

Charles Pazdernik

V. Military and Legal History Comparisons

10. Procopius, πάρεδρος / quaestor, Codex Justinianus, I.27 and Belisarius’ strategy in the

Mediterranean

Christopher Lillington-Martin

11. Justinian’s Laws and Procopius’ Wars

Marion Kruse

12. Comparing Procopius and Malalas

Ian Colvin

VI. Social History Comparisons

13. Roman or Barbarian? Ethnic Identities and Political Loyalties in the Balkans according to Procopius

Alexander Sarantis

14. Landownership and Rural Society in the Writings of Procopius

Peter Sarris

VII. Receptions

15. Scaliger’s Lie? A Note on "Project Procopius"

Federico Montinaro

VIII. The Aftermath

16. Epilogue

Anthony Kaldellis

Bibliography

Christopher Lillington-Martin undertook postgraduate research, specialising in Late Antiquity, at Oxford and Reading Universities after studying at Wales (Swansea), Barcelona and Bristol Universities. He has published Procopius-related research on Dara and Rome, Belisarius and the Goths. He participates in late antique archaeology projects (e.g. Pollentia, Mallorca), is a member of the Oxford Centre for Late Antiquity, Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and a Visitor of Pembroke College, Cambridge.

Elodie Turquois completed a DPhil in Classical Languages and Literature at St Hugh’s College, Oxford, in 2013 after receiving an undergraduate degree in Classics at the Sorbonne in Paris. Her dissertation was a typology of the material and the visual across all of Procopius’ works. Her work focuses on the representation of material culture in literature, literary theory and reception, rhetoric and technical writing.