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The Dates of Procopius' Works: a Recapitulation of the Evidence Evans, J a S Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Fall 1996; 37, 3; Proquest Pg

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The Dates of Procopius' Works: a Recapitulation of the Evidence Evans, J a S Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Fall 1996; 37, 3; Proquest Pg The dates of Procopius' works: A recapitulation of the evidence Evans, J A S Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Fall 1996; 37, 3; ProQuest pg. 301 The Dates of Procopius' Works: A Recapitulation of the Evidence ]. A. S. Evans UARTER CENTURY AGO, the dates when Procopius of Cae­ sarea published his works in the reign of Justinian N.were considered more or less settled. 1 They were all thought to have appeared in the first five years or so of the 550s. The first seven books of the History of the Wars of Jus tin ian (hereafter Wars) were published in 550/551. The first two books of this work, which treat the wars on the eastern frontier, bring the narrative up to 549. The third and fourth books, on the African war, end for practical purposes in 545, but a brief addendum brings the story up more or less to mid­ century. Books five to seven, on the war in Italy against the Ostrogoths, end with a Slavic inroad into the Balkans made in the winter of 550-551, penetrating as far as the Long Wall or "Anastasi an Wall," which extended from the Sea of Marmora to the Black Sea west of Constantinople. Book eight of the Wars, which was added later, begins with a preface that implies that the first seven books were published together more or less at the same time. So if the inference is to be taken literally, then the terminus post quem for Wars 1-7 is 551. Thus the conclusion seemed firm that Procopius was revising his notes in the 540s and published in 550-551. In fact, much of his Wars must have reached the state in which we have it by 545. There is internal evidence that Procopius' account of the great siege of Rome by the Ostrogoths, which lasted from February 537 to mid-March 538, reached its present form by 1 The following abbreviations will be used: CAMERON (1967)=A. Cameron, Procopius: History of the Wars, Secret History and Buildings (New York 1967); CAMERON (1985)=A. Cameron, Procopius and the Sixth Century (Ber­ keley 1985); EvANS (1972)=]. A. S. Evans, Procopius (New York 1972); EvANS (1996)=]. A. S. Evans, The Age of Justinian: The Circumstances of Imperial Power (London 1996); STEIN=E. Stein, Histoire du Bas-Empire II, ed. J.-R. Palanque (Amsterdam 1949). 301 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 302 THE DATES OF PROCOPIUS' WORKS 545, perhaps even a year earlier. 2 Possibly he intended publi­ cation in 545: his old commander Belisarius was sent back to Italy in 544 to deal with the deteriorating situation there, and Procopius may have believed that a general of Belisarius' calibre would quickly set things right and the time would soon be ripe for publication. But Belisarius failed; the war dragged on, and Procopius was left without a natural conclusion for his history. Even at mid-century he lacked a good stopping-point. None­ theless he did stop there, and we must settle on 551 as the earliest date by which the first seven books of the Wars were made available to the small reading public in Constantinople. That much is generally agreed, though there is one small caveat. The proem of the Anekdota implies that it was begun after the complete Wars 1-7 had been made public in 551, and the date of the Anekdota still accepted by most scholars is 549-550. 3 In dispute are the dates of Procopius' other works: the Buildings, the Anekdota, and the eighth book of the Wars, which serves as a sequel to the seven books already published and brings the narrative down to the victory over the Ostro­ goths, won not by Belisarius but by his rival Narses. I had a part in reopening this dispute, which has now taken on a life of its own. Twenty-five years ago, the scenario went like this. About 554 Procopius added an eighth book to his Wars. The Anekdota was not published in the sense that it was made available to a reading public, but internal evidence points to the date of com­ position: four times 4 Procopius states that Justinian's ad­ ministration of the empire had lasted 32 years, and this is taken to mean 32 years at the time of writing. Now it is clear that both in the Buildings and the Anekdota, Procopius considered Justinian the real ruler during the reign of his uncle Justin, and put the start of Justinian's regime not at 527, when Justinian himself became emperor, but at 518, when Justin ascended the throne. So a century ago, Jacob Haury, the editor of the 2 Wars 6.5.24-27. J. Haury (Procopiana [Augsburg 1890-91] Sf), and before him, W. Teuffel (Studien und Charakteristiken zur griechischen und rom­ ischen sowie zur deutschen Literaturgeschichte [Leipzig 1871]) both date this passage to 545. But see Evans (1972) 138 n.57. 3 Stein II 720; J. B. Bury, History of the Later Roman Emprie (London 1923) II 422; B. Rubin, "Prokopios von Kaisareia," R E 23.1 (1957) 354f; Cameron (1985) 9. 4 Anec. 18.33; 23.1; 24.29, 33. At Anec. 18.45 Procopius distinguishes between the reign of Justin I and that of Justinian, making it clear that he considered Justinian responsible for both periods. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ]. A. S. EVANS 303 Teubner Procopius, 5 argued that the 32 years of Justinian's rule in the Anekdota should be counted from 518, not 527, and consequently the Anekdota was composed in 549-550, rather than 559, as such earlier scholars as Felix Dahn and Wilhelm Teuffel had believed and some, among them Comparetti, con­ tinued to believe. 6 What happened to the Anekdota after its completion we do not know. Unknown both to Photius and to Constantine VII Porpyrogenitus, it is first mentioned in the Suda,; and in the early seventeenth century, it turned up in the Vatican Library and was published by the Vatican librarian, Nicolas Alemmani {see Comparetti xlvii-xlix). Such was the accepted view twenty-five years ago, and it is still accepted by many scholars-notably Averil Cameron, whose book on Procopius {1985) is the best in the field-and has recently been ably defended by Geoffrey Greatrex.? I shall not attempt to disprove the consensus here. But the difficulties it presents should not be underestimated, and it is time to look again at the evidence. First, the Buildings. It is a remarkable compendium of infor­ mation that must depend on archives, and there are grounds for placing it later than Wars 8. 8 Two items appear to date it securely {Evans [1972] 43, 139 n.70). One is Procopius' descrip­ tion of Justinian's repairs to portions of the Anastasian Wall, or Long Wall, in Thrace, "which had suffered" {presumably from enemy attacks to which Procopius had just alluded), and the rebuilding of the walls of Selymbria where the Anastasian Wall met the Sea of Marmora (4.9.9-13). This Anastasian Wall was 5 Haury (supra n.2) 9-16, and "Zu Prokops Geheimgeschichte," BZ 34 (1934) 10-14. 6 F. Dahn, Prokopius von Cisarea. Ein Beitrag zur llistoriographie der Volkerwanderung und des linkenden Romerthums (Berlin 1865) 53; Teuffel (supra n.2) 217, who places the Anekdota in 558/559 just before Belisarius' vic­ tory over the Kutrigur Huns in 559; D. CoMPARETII, ed., Le inedite libra none del~~ Isto:_~e di Procopio di Cesarea (Rome 1928): hereafter 'Comparetti') XXXll- XXXIII. 7 Cameron (1967) xxxiii, (1985) 8; G. Greatrex, "The Dates of Procopius' Works," BMGS 18 (1994) 101-14. 8 The evidence rests on two passages: ( 1) Bldg s. 6.1.8 makes a cross­ reference to Wars 8.6; (2) Wars 8.7.8f professes ignorance about the course of the river that flows through Dara, whereas by the time Procopius wrote Bldgs. 2.2.15f, he was aware that it flowed to Theodosiopolis. Cf Greatrex (supra n.4) 1OS f. Cross-references in Procopius are insecure evidence, but none­ theless the conclusion that Wars 8 antedates the Buildings is generally accepted. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 304 THE DATES OF PROCOPIUS' WORKS pierced by a Bulgar raid in 539 or 540, and in late 550, an incursion of Slavs reached the wall but may not have crossed it before they were turned back. 9 It is not impossible that Procopius is referring to one or other of these attacks. But the incident that best fits Procopius' testimony occurred in 559, when the Kutrigur Huns did overrun the wall, which they found in disrepair. After they were repulsed, Justinian in per­ son went out to Selymbria; making it his base, he supervised the rebuilding of the wall, and presumably the reconstruction of Selymbria's circuit as well. For this we have dated evidence in Theophanes (A.M. 6051). Second, Procopius mentions the start of construction of a bridge over the Sangarios River: "Having already begun the task, he is now much occupied with it, and I know he will complete it not long hence" (5.3.10, tr. Downey, LCL). Theophanes (A.M. 6052) dates the start of construction to A.M. 6052 (559- 560). So a terminus post quem of 560 seems in order. Ernst Stein (720) was the first to dissent. He set aside Theo­ phanes as unreliable and, in any case, referring to the comple­ tion of the bridge, not the start of construction (this involves a misreading of Theophanes' text).
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