This book presents a new history of the leadership, organization, and disposition of the field ar... more This book presents a new history of the leadership, organization, and disposition of the field armies of the east Roman empire between Julian (361–363) and Herakleios (610–641).
To date, scholars studying this topic have privileged a poorly understood document, the Notitia dignitatum, and imposed it on the entire period from 395 to 630. This study, by contrast, gathers all of the available narrative, legal, papyrological, and epigraphic evidence to demonstrate empirically that the Notitia system emerged only in the 440s and that it was already mutating by the late fifth century before being fundamentally reformed during Justinian’s wars of reconquest. This realization calls for a new, revised history of the eastern armies. Every facet of military policy must be reassessed, often with broad implications for the period. The volume provides a new military narrative for the period 361–630 and appendices revising the prosopography of high-ranking generals and arguing for a later Notitia.
The Politics of Roman Memory: From the Fall of the Western Empire to the Age of Justinian, 2019
The Politics of Roman Memory explores the process by which the emperors, historians, jurists, ant... more The Politics of Roman Memory explores the process by which the emperors, historians, jurists, antiquarians, and poets of the eastern Roman empire employed both history and mythologized versions of the same to reimagine themselves not merely as Romans but as the only Romans worthy of the name.
Ioannes Xiphilinos, the nephew of the eponymous patriarch Ioannes VIII Xiphilinos (1063-1075), pl... more Ioannes Xiphilinos, the nephew of the eponymous patriarch Ioannes VIII Xiphilinos (1063-1075), played a critical role in the transmission of the text of the Roman historian Cassius Dio. Despite his importance, however, scholars continue to reproduce an inaccurate and arbitrary biography according to which he was a monk and the author of three works: the epitome of Cassius Dio, a collection of fifty-three homilies, and a menologion dedicated to Alexios I Komnenos. The current article lays out the shortcomings of the prevailing consensus before surveying the evidence for the family of the Xiphilinoi in the eleventh century and positing an identification of our epitomator informed by the testimony of lead seals and the letters of Michael Psellos. It argues that our epitomator was not a monk, but was likely a student of Psellos and a high-ranking member of the imperial administration whose only extant work is the epitome of Cassius Dio.
Although it is easy to miss among the lurid and dramatic episodes that open the work, Procopius’ ... more Although it is easy to miss among the lurid and dramatic episodes that open the work, Procopius’ Secret History contains thoughtful and lucid critiques of the emperor Justinian’s policies. Some of these, such as Procopius’ responses to Justinian’s legal program, have recently begun to receive scholarly attention. One aspect of these critiques which remains almost totally unexplored, however, is the economic thinking that underlies much of Procopius’ indictment of Justinian’s fiscal policies. In part, this oversight is understandable, given that Procopius has framed many of these critiques in the moral terms typical to the genre of Kaiserkritik, such as imperial avarice. Despite the conventional nature of the charges, however, Procopius discusses them with a level of economic sophistication that is perhaps unmatched in the ancient world outside of Xenophon’s Poroi, the only explicit text on economic theory to survive from antiquity. The Secret History is therefore an important text relating to ancient economic thought that survives from late antiquity, and its importance for the difficult task of writing the economic history of the later Roman empire (or early Byzantium) has not been fully appreciated. The goal of this chapter is to explore the economic thought of Procopius by explicating the economic theory and logic that underpins some his critiques of Justinian’s fiscal decisions and policies in order to uncover the unspoken assumptions about economic behavior guiding his writings. To be clear, my goal is not to translate Procopius’ economic thought into modern economic parlance (though modern terminology will be used where appropriate) as this would obscure more than it would illuminate. Instead, the goal is to understand Procopius’ economic thought on its own terms, which is necessary before we can assess his economic understanding according to modern standards. After all, it is important to remember that, though its practitioners often claim otherwise, modern economics is not a purely scientific endeavor. The various schools of economic thought are predicated on axiomatic assumptions about human nature that are fundamentally debatable. It is therefore crucial for modern scholars to carefully distinguish between exegesis and analysis when considering how and to what extent the ancients understood their economy.
Procopius of Caesarea: Literary and Historical Interpretations, 2017
Reinventing Procopius Abstract
Competing Histories in the Sixth Century: Procopius and Justinian
... more Reinventing Procopius Abstract Competing Histories in the Sixth Century: Procopius and Justinian
Justinian’s laws (including both the Corpus Iuris Civilis and the Novels) and Procopius’ writings are two of the most extensive and significant corpora available for the study of the sixth century. Despite their importance, however, the two bodies of work are generally studied separately by scholars with different specialties and research interests. The legal codes are used as a source for earlier Roman law and contemporary administrative reform, while Procopius is primarily used as a source for Justinian’s foreign policy and contemporary reactions to his reign, both positive and negative. Although there have been some discussions of Procopius’ reaction to specific laws in the Secret History, in particular his subversion of Justinian’s carefully cultivated self-representation as the ‘sleepless emperor,’ there has not been any work on Procopius’ responses to the laws in the Wars. Moreover, scholars have yet to come to a consensus on the precise relationship between the Wars and Secret History. The current paper addresses both of these questions by focusing on discussions of the consulship in Justinian’s Novels, the Wars, and the Secret History. The current paper argues that Belisarius’ triumphant entry into Syracuse on 31 December 535, reported at Wars 5.5.17-9, is a carefully coded response to Justinian’s Novel 105, in which the emperor modified the financial responsibilities and rights of consulship. The paper continues to show that the discussion of Novel 105 in the Wars complements, but at no point overlaps with, the explicit discussion of that Novel in the Secret History. Several conclusions are drawn from these facts. First, the Secret History was intended to function as a coherent work and act as a key for decoding and understanding oblique discussions of contemporary events found in the Wars. Second, Procopius was intimately familiar not only with the rhetoric of Justinian’s laws, but also their specifics, and that his depiction of Belisarius was meant to frustrate the narrative of consular decline that Justinian’s legal team articulated in Novel 105. Third, just as Procopius inverted the narrative of the ‘sleepless emperor’ in the Secret History to attack Justinian’s reform program, his discussion of Novel 105 in the Wars inverts the logic of that law to imply that the imperial office, not the consulship, was in decline. The paper concludes in the spirit of the conference’s search for new methodologies for the study of Procopius by opening two new avenues of inquiry: using the Secret History as a key to detect oblique discussions in the Wars and investigating the role of Justinian’s laws in shaping Procopius’ discussions of contemporary events. Specifically, the paper suggests that Justinian’s laws may have played a role in shaping the structure of the Wars, in particular the division of material into chronologically distinct campaigns (for which Appian is the only classical precedent), which form counternarratives to the model of imperial success articulated in Justinian’s provincial reform laws, especially Novel 24.
Historians have long taken Procopius' description of heavily armored mounted archers in the openi... more Historians have long taken Procopius' description of heavily armored mounted archers in the opening of his Wars to be a more-or-less accurate depiction of contemporary military practice. This paper argues that Procopius employs archery as a metaphor for authorship by drawing on the techniques of figured writing (which include metaphor) as developed by the late antique rhetorical tradition in which he was trained. The comparison between Homeric and contemporary warriors at the opening of the Wars is therefore a figured way for Procopius to engage in a self-referential discussion concerning authorship and, in particular, to develop his agonistic relationship with his primary classical models, Herodotus and Thucydides. This conclusion requires a reevaluation of the military history of the sixth century.
Solicited for a Greek Imperial Epic, ed. P. Avlamis and E. Kneebone (Forthcoming, University of C... more Solicited for a Greek Imperial Epic, ed. P. Avlamis and E. Kneebone (Forthcoming, University of California Press).
This book presents a new history of the leadership, organization, and disposition of the field ar... more This book presents a new history of the leadership, organization, and disposition of the field armies of the east Roman empire between Julian (361–363) and Herakleios (610–641).
To date, scholars studying this topic have privileged a poorly understood document, the Notitia dignitatum, and imposed it on the entire period from 395 to 630. This study, by contrast, gathers all of the available narrative, legal, papyrological, and epigraphic evidence to demonstrate empirically that the Notitia system emerged only in the 440s and that it was already mutating by the late fifth century before being fundamentally reformed during Justinian’s wars of reconquest. This realization calls for a new, revised history of the eastern armies. Every facet of military policy must be reassessed, often with broad implications for the period. The volume provides a new military narrative for the period 361–630 and appendices revising the prosopography of high-ranking generals and arguing for a later Notitia.
The Politics of Roman Memory: From the Fall of the Western Empire to the Age of Justinian, 2019
The Politics of Roman Memory explores the process by which the emperors, historians, jurists, ant... more The Politics of Roman Memory explores the process by which the emperors, historians, jurists, antiquarians, and poets of the eastern Roman empire employed both history and mythologized versions of the same to reimagine themselves not merely as Romans but as the only Romans worthy of the name.
Ioannes Xiphilinos, the nephew of the eponymous patriarch Ioannes VIII Xiphilinos (1063-1075), pl... more Ioannes Xiphilinos, the nephew of the eponymous patriarch Ioannes VIII Xiphilinos (1063-1075), played a critical role in the transmission of the text of the Roman historian Cassius Dio. Despite his importance, however, scholars continue to reproduce an inaccurate and arbitrary biography according to which he was a monk and the author of three works: the epitome of Cassius Dio, a collection of fifty-three homilies, and a menologion dedicated to Alexios I Komnenos. The current article lays out the shortcomings of the prevailing consensus before surveying the evidence for the family of the Xiphilinoi in the eleventh century and positing an identification of our epitomator informed by the testimony of lead seals and the letters of Michael Psellos. It argues that our epitomator was not a monk, but was likely a student of Psellos and a high-ranking member of the imperial administration whose only extant work is the epitome of Cassius Dio.
Although it is easy to miss among the lurid and dramatic episodes that open the work, Procopius’ ... more Although it is easy to miss among the lurid and dramatic episodes that open the work, Procopius’ Secret History contains thoughtful and lucid critiques of the emperor Justinian’s policies. Some of these, such as Procopius’ responses to Justinian’s legal program, have recently begun to receive scholarly attention. One aspect of these critiques which remains almost totally unexplored, however, is the economic thinking that underlies much of Procopius’ indictment of Justinian’s fiscal policies. In part, this oversight is understandable, given that Procopius has framed many of these critiques in the moral terms typical to the genre of Kaiserkritik, such as imperial avarice. Despite the conventional nature of the charges, however, Procopius discusses them with a level of economic sophistication that is perhaps unmatched in the ancient world outside of Xenophon’s Poroi, the only explicit text on economic theory to survive from antiquity. The Secret History is therefore an important text relating to ancient economic thought that survives from late antiquity, and its importance for the difficult task of writing the economic history of the later Roman empire (or early Byzantium) has not been fully appreciated. The goal of this chapter is to explore the economic thought of Procopius by explicating the economic theory and logic that underpins some his critiques of Justinian’s fiscal decisions and policies in order to uncover the unspoken assumptions about economic behavior guiding his writings. To be clear, my goal is not to translate Procopius’ economic thought into modern economic parlance (though modern terminology will be used where appropriate) as this would obscure more than it would illuminate. Instead, the goal is to understand Procopius’ economic thought on its own terms, which is necessary before we can assess his economic understanding according to modern standards. After all, it is important to remember that, though its practitioners often claim otherwise, modern economics is not a purely scientific endeavor. The various schools of economic thought are predicated on axiomatic assumptions about human nature that are fundamentally debatable. It is therefore crucial for modern scholars to carefully distinguish between exegesis and analysis when considering how and to what extent the ancients understood their economy.
Procopius of Caesarea: Literary and Historical Interpretations, 2017
Reinventing Procopius Abstract
Competing Histories in the Sixth Century: Procopius and Justinian
... more Reinventing Procopius Abstract Competing Histories in the Sixth Century: Procopius and Justinian
Justinian’s laws (including both the Corpus Iuris Civilis and the Novels) and Procopius’ writings are two of the most extensive and significant corpora available for the study of the sixth century. Despite their importance, however, the two bodies of work are generally studied separately by scholars with different specialties and research interests. The legal codes are used as a source for earlier Roman law and contemporary administrative reform, while Procopius is primarily used as a source for Justinian’s foreign policy and contemporary reactions to his reign, both positive and negative. Although there have been some discussions of Procopius’ reaction to specific laws in the Secret History, in particular his subversion of Justinian’s carefully cultivated self-representation as the ‘sleepless emperor,’ there has not been any work on Procopius’ responses to the laws in the Wars. Moreover, scholars have yet to come to a consensus on the precise relationship between the Wars and Secret History. The current paper addresses both of these questions by focusing on discussions of the consulship in Justinian’s Novels, the Wars, and the Secret History. The current paper argues that Belisarius’ triumphant entry into Syracuse on 31 December 535, reported at Wars 5.5.17-9, is a carefully coded response to Justinian’s Novel 105, in which the emperor modified the financial responsibilities and rights of consulship. The paper continues to show that the discussion of Novel 105 in the Wars complements, but at no point overlaps with, the explicit discussion of that Novel in the Secret History. Several conclusions are drawn from these facts. First, the Secret History was intended to function as a coherent work and act as a key for decoding and understanding oblique discussions of contemporary events found in the Wars. Second, Procopius was intimately familiar not only with the rhetoric of Justinian’s laws, but also their specifics, and that his depiction of Belisarius was meant to frustrate the narrative of consular decline that Justinian’s legal team articulated in Novel 105. Third, just as Procopius inverted the narrative of the ‘sleepless emperor’ in the Secret History to attack Justinian’s reform program, his discussion of Novel 105 in the Wars inverts the logic of that law to imply that the imperial office, not the consulship, was in decline. The paper concludes in the spirit of the conference’s search for new methodologies for the study of Procopius by opening two new avenues of inquiry: using the Secret History as a key to detect oblique discussions in the Wars and investigating the role of Justinian’s laws in shaping Procopius’ discussions of contemporary events. Specifically, the paper suggests that Justinian’s laws may have played a role in shaping the structure of the Wars, in particular the division of material into chronologically distinct campaigns (for which Appian is the only classical precedent), which form counternarratives to the model of imperial success articulated in Justinian’s provincial reform laws, especially Novel 24.
Historians have long taken Procopius' description of heavily armored mounted archers in the openi... more Historians have long taken Procopius' description of heavily armored mounted archers in the opening of his Wars to be a more-or-less accurate depiction of contemporary military practice. This paper argues that Procopius employs archery as a metaphor for authorship by drawing on the techniques of figured writing (which include metaphor) as developed by the late antique rhetorical tradition in which he was trained. The comparison between Homeric and contemporary warriors at the opening of the Wars is therefore a figured way for Procopius to engage in a self-referential discussion concerning authorship and, in particular, to develop his agonistic relationship with his primary classical models, Herodotus and Thucydides. This conclusion requires a reevaluation of the military history of the sixth century.
Solicited for a Greek Imperial Epic, ed. P. Avlamis and E. Kneebone (Forthcoming, University of C... more Solicited for a Greek Imperial Epic, ed. P. Avlamis and E. Kneebone (Forthcoming, University of California Press).
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To date, scholars studying this topic have privileged a poorly understood document, the Notitia dignitatum, and imposed it on the entire period from 395 to 630. This study, by contrast, gathers all of the available narrative, legal, papyrological, and epigraphic evidence to demonstrate empirically that the Notitia system emerged only in the 440s and that it was already mutating by the late fifth century before being fundamentally reformed during Justinian’s wars of reconquest. This realization calls for a new, revised history of the eastern armies. Every facet of military policy must be reassessed, often with broad implications for the period. The volume provides a new military narrative for the period 361–630 and appendices revising the prosopography of high-ranking generals and arguing for a later Notitia.
Competing Histories in the Sixth Century: Procopius and Justinian
Justinian’s laws (including both the Corpus Iuris Civilis and the Novels) and Procopius’ writings are two of the most extensive and significant corpora available for the study of the sixth century. Despite their importance, however, the two bodies of work are generally studied separately by scholars with different specialties and research interests. The legal codes are used as a source for earlier Roman law and contemporary administrative reform, while Procopius is primarily used as a source for Justinian’s foreign policy and contemporary reactions to his reign, both positive and negative. Although there have been some discussions of Procopius’ reaction to specific laws in the Secret History, in particular his subversion of Justinian’s carefully cultivated self-representation as the ‘sleepless emperor,’ there has not been any work on Procopius’ responses to the laws in the Wars. Moreover, scholars have yet to come to a consensus on the precise relationship between the Wars and Secret History. The current paper addresses both of these questions by focusing on discussions of the consulship in Justinian’s Novels, the Wars, and the Secret History.
The current paper argues that Belisarius’ triumphant entry into Syracuse on 31 December 535, reported at Wars 5.5.17-9, is a carefully coded response to Justinian’s Novel 105, in which the emperor modified the financial responsibilities and rights of consulship. The paper continues to show that the discussion of Novel 105 in the Wars complements, but at no point overlaps with, the explicit discussion of that Novel in the Secret History. Several conclusions are drawn from these facts. First, the Secret History was intended to function as a coherent work and act as a key for decoding and understanding oblique discussions of contemporary events found in the Wars. Second, Procopius was intimately familiar not only with the rhetoric of Justinian’s laws, but also their specifics, and that his depiction of Belisarius was meant to frustrate the narrative of consular decline that Justinian’s legal team articulated in Novel 105. Third, just as Procopius inverted the narrative of the ‘sleepless emperor’ in the Secret History to attack Justinian’s reform program, his discussion of Novel 105 in the Wars inverts the logic of that law to imply that the imperial office, not the consulship, was in decline.
The paper concludes in the spirit of the conference’s search for new methodologies for the study of Procopius by opening two new avenues of inquiry: using the Secret History as a key to detect oblique discussions in the Wars and investigating the role of Justinian’s laws in shaping Procopius’ discussions of contemporary events. Specifically, the paper suggests that Justinian’s laws may have played a role in shaping the structure of the Wars, in particular the division of material into chronologically distinct campaigns (for which Appian is the only classical precedent), which form counternarratives to the model of imperial success articulated in Justinian’s provincial reform laws, especially Novel 24.
To date, scholars studying this topic have privileged a poorly understood document, the Notitia dignitatum, and imposed it on the entire period from 395 to 630. This study, by contrast, gathers all of the available narrative, legal, papyrological, and epigraphic evidence to demonstrate empirically that the Notitia system emerged only in the 440s and that it was already mutating by the late fifth century before being fundamentally reformed during Justinian’s wars of reconquest. This realization calls for a new, revised history of the eastern armies. Every facet of military policy must be reassessed, often with broad implications for the period. The volume provides a new military narrative for the period 361–630 and appendices revising the prosopography of high-ranking generals and arguing for a later Notitia.
Competing Histories in the Sixth Century: Procopius and Justinian
Justinian’s laws (including both the Corpus Iuris Civilis and the Novels) and Procopius’ writings are two of the most extensive and significant corpora available for the study of the sixth century. Despite their importance, however, the two bodies of work are generally studied separately by scholars with different specialties and research interests. The legal codes are used as a source for earlier Roman law and contemporary administrative reform, while Procopius is primarily used as a source for Justinian’s foreign policy and contemporary reactions to his reign, both positive and negative. Although there have been some discussions of Procopius’ reaction to specific laws in the Secret History, in particular his subversion of Justinian’s carefully cultivated self-representation as the ‘sleepless emperor,’ there has not been any work on Procopius’ responses to the laws in the Wars. Moreover, scholars have yet to come to a consensus on the precise relationship between the Wars and Secret History. The current paper addresses both of these questions by focusing on discussions of the consulship in Justinian’s Novels, the Wars, and the Secret History.
The current paper argues that Belisarius’ triumphant entry into Syracuse on 31 December 535, reported at Wars 5.5.17-9, is a carefully coded response to Justinian’s Novel 105, in which the emperor modified the financial responsibilities and rights of consulship. The paper continues to show that the discussion of Novel 105 in the Wars complements, but at no point overlaps with, the explicit discussion of that Novel in the Secret History. Several conclusions are drawn from these facts. First, the Secret History was intended to function as a coherent work and act as a key for decoding and understanding oblique discussions of contemporary events found in the Wars. Second, Procopius was intimately familiar not only with the rhetoric of Justinian’s laws, but also their specifics, and that his depiction of Belisarius was meant to frustrate the narrative of consular decline that Justinian’s legal team articulated in Novel 105. Third, just as Procopius inverted the narrative of the ‘sleepless emperor’ in the Secret History to attack Justinian’s reform program, his discussion of Novel 105 in the Wars inverts the logic of that law to imply that the imperial office, not the consulship, was in decline.
The paper concludes in the spirit of the conference’s search for new methodologies for the study of Procopius by opening two new avenues of inquiry: using the Secret History as a key to detect oblique discussions in the Wars and investigating the role of Justinian’s laws in shaping Procopius’ discussions of contemporary events. Specifically, the paper suggests that Justinian’s laws may have played a role in shaping the structure of the Wars, in particular the division of material into chronologically distinct campaigns (for which Appian is the only classical precedent), which form counternarratives to the model of imperial success articulated in Justinian’s provincial reform laws, especially Novel 24.