Procopius and the Monstrous Regiment of Women

Perhaps the best verdict ever passed on Procopius' The Secret History was that supplied by the author himself, who wrote of his fear that later generations would condemn him as "a narrator of myths...neither credible nor probable." And he is quite right: parts of it are so fantastic that they quite simply defy belief. It is perhaps best seen as a bad-tempered narrative, a corrective to his public adulation of the Emperor Justinian, that of necessity had to remain secret, pointing out the various failures of his reign, including the superficial nature of his western reconquests. Unfortunately he goes too far in his anger, mixing the critical with the fantastic.

But the real source of his animus can be traced to the great transitions in Roman society, transitions that saw the decline of traditional elites and the older self-reliant forms of urban government. For Procopius the source of this moral and political decay is to be found at the very heart of Justinian's government, particularly in the power and influence enjoyed by women like Antonina, wife of Belisarius, and, above all, the Theodora, both of whom, in defiance of all of the ancient traditions, had been admitted to senatorial rank.

It is in his descriptions of Theodora that Procopius is at his most scurrilous, his most vindictive, his most pornographic...and his most misogynist. And it is this-simple misogyny-that provides one of the most important keys for reading a work that was written as an intellectual safety valve for an angry and frustrated man. Theodora has become in his eyes the personification of all that is wrong with the Roman world. The irony is that his invective simply served to make her one of the most memorable figures in Byzantine history.

Returning to Heroes

Herbert Spencer, in reacting to Thomas Carlyle's statement to the effect that "the history of the world is but the biography of great men", pushed the pendulum in the other direction, saying that the individual is more shaped than shaping. The reaction is understandable, and the corrective necessary. There are few modern historians who take Carlyle's inflated accounts of Robespierre or Napoleon seriously, just as few have any patience with his over-ripe and flowery prose.

The unfortunate thing is that pendulum has remained for too long at the other extreme, held in position by those who followed in the steps of Ferdinand Braudel, E P Thompson and the like.

The altogether tiresome 'history from below school' has become just that-tiresome! In my experience academics are, once again, beginning to pay close attention to the actions and decisions taken by key players at key moments in time. What, for instance, if Constantine the Great, had been killed at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, would the history of the Roman Empire have proceeded along the same lines; would we now, perhaps, be investigating Christianity as just another vanished cult along with Mithraism? What shape would the modern world have if Mohammed-or Lenin-had never been born? Is it possible to imagine that the history of Europe would have taken the same course in the middle of the last century if Adolf Hitler had never emerged from the doss-houses of Vienna, or if Soso Dzhugashvili had become an Orthodox priest?

People who are interested in this issue might wish to have a look at Ian Kershaw's Fateful Choices, which touches on some of these themes. It is far, far easier to get students interested in the sex-life of Henry VIII, or Charles II, than it is in crop rotation and trade patterns! Make room always for the big ideas...and for the great people.