Procopius of Caesarea: Literary and Historical Interpretations

317 Pages·2017·2.349 MB·English

by  Christopher Lillington-Martin, Elodie Turquois

Procopius of Caesarea: Literary
and Historical Interpretations
This volume aims to encourage dialogue and collaboration between inter-
national 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 inter-
national bibliography; Peter Sarris has revised the 1966 Penguin C lassics
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.
Christopher Lillington-Martin undertook postgraduate research, specialis-
ing 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.
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Procopius of Caesarea:
Literary and Historical
Interpretations
Edited by
Christopher Lillington-Martin
and Elodie Turquois
First published 2018
by Routledge
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© 2018 selection and editorial matter, Christopher Lillington-
Martin and Elodie Turquois; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Christopher Lillington-Martin and Elodie Turquois
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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ISBN: 978-1-4724-6604-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-60228-8 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by codeMantra
Contents
List of illustrations viii
Notes on contributors ix
Acknowledgements xiii
List of abbreviations xv
Introduction 1
CHRISTOPHER LILLINGTON-MARTIN
WITH ELODIE TURqUOIS
ParT I
revisiting Procopius 11
1 Writing about Procopius then and now 13
AVERIL CAMERON
2 The greatness of Procopius 26
MICHAEL WHITBY
3 The wor(l)ds of Procopius 40
PETER VAN NUFFELEN
ParT II
Literary tropes 57
4 How to interpret Procopius’ preface to the Wars 59
FRANCO BASSO AND GEOFFREY GREATREX
5 Narrator and participant in Procopius’ Wars 73
ALAN J. ROSS
vi Contents
ParT III
Persian wars 91
6 Exploring the structure of Persian War: amplification
in Procopius’ narrative 93
LYVIA VASCONCELOS BAPTISTA
7 Procopius and Boethius: Christian philosophy in the Persian Wars 104
JAMES MURRAY
ParT IV
Characterisation 121
8 Procopius and the characterization of Bessas: where history
meets historiography 123
CONOR WHATELY
9 reinventing Theoderic in Procopius’ Gothic War 137
CHARLES PAzDERNIK
ParT V
Military and legal history comparisons 155
10 Procopius, πάρεδρος / quaestor, Codex Justinianus, 1.27 and
Belisarius’ strategy in the Mediterranean 157
CHRISTOPHER LILLINGTON-MARTIN
11 Justinian’s laws and Procopius’ Wars 186
MARION KRUSE
12 Comparing Procopius and Malalas 201
IAN COLVIN
ParT VI
Social history comparisons 215
13 roman or barbarian? ethnic identities and political loyalties in
the Balkans according to Procopius 217
ALEXANDER SARANTIS
14 Landownership and rural society in the writings of Procopius 238
PETER SARRIS
Contents vii
ParT VII
receptions 251
15 Scaliger’s lie? a note on “Project Procopius” 253
FEDERICO MONTINARO
ParT VIII
The aftermath 259
16 Epilogue 261
ANTHONY KALDELLIS
Bibliography 271
Index 293
Illustrations
Figure
15.1 Leiden University Library, SCA 56b, folio 30r
© Universiteit Leiden. 256
Maps
10.1 Codex Justinianus 1.27.2: stipulated military control of
North Africa and Sardinia from 534. 170
10.2 Procopius Wars, 4.5.1–11, records Belisarius’ additional
conquests including Ibiza, Mallorca, Menorca and Corsica
(attempted at Lilybaeum) with his chosen commanders
positioned to support each other in the Western
Mediterranean, 534. 171
13.1 Cities, forts, roads and geographical features in the Balkans. 218
13.2 The Balkan provinces. 219
13.3 Approximate locations of barbarian groups north of the
Balkans, ca. 536–65. 225
Contributors
Lyvia Vasconcelos Baptista is Professor of Ancient and Medieval History
at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande Norte, Natal, Brazil. She wrote
her doctoral thesis on Procopius’ Persian Wars (Porto Alegre, 2013). Her
current research deals with Byzantine historians and urban space in
Constantinople, from the fourth to the sixth century AD.
Franco Basso teaches in the Classics Faculty, University of Cambridge, and
is interested in Greek and Roman historians and their reception.
Dame averil Cameron was Warden of Keble College, Oxford, and subse-
quently held a Leverhulme Emeritus Fellowship. Her latest books are
Dialoguing in Late Antiquity (2014), Byzantine Matters (2014) and Arguing
it Out: Discussion in Twelfth-Century Byzantium (2016).
Ian Colvin is a Research Associate at Cambridge University with the School
Classics Project and is the Director of the archaeological excavations
at Nokalakevi in the Caucasus. His research interests include the East
Roman frontier in Late Antiquity, the late antique classicising historians
and the history of the South Caucasus. Recent publications include an
article on Procopius and Agathias’ sources and contributions to the BAR
volume on excavations at Nokalakevi. He is working on Procopius and
Justinian’s wars in Lazika.
Geoffrey Greatrex is Professor in the Department of Classics and R eligious
Studies at the University of Ottawa, where he has taught since 2001.
He wrote his doctoral thesis on Book I of Procopius’ Persian Wars and is
now preparing a commentary on both books for Cambridge University
Press. He is the co-author of The Chronicle of Pseudo- Zachariah Rhetor:
Church and War in Late Antiquity (2011) and a co-editor of the recently
published conference proceedings, Shifting Genres in Late Antiquity
(2015).
anthony Kaldellis is Professor of Classics at The Ohio State University. He
has written on many aspects of Byzantine history, literature and culture.
His work has focused on the reception of the classical tradition, including