Procopius 224 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap. XL acknowledged Justinian, in the forty-fifth year of his age, for the lawful sovereign of the East. 11 The reign From his elevation to his death, Justinian governed the °<Lf U8 i!p. Roman empire thirty-eight years, seven months, and thirteen A 2 D.«i5, 111: days. The events of his reign, which excite our curious atten- Nov " 14 tion by their number, variety, and importance, are diligently related by the secretary of Belisarius, a rhetorician whom elo- [a.d.562] quence had promoted to the rank of senator and praefect of character Constantinople. According to the vicissitudes of courage or iesof 18 r " servitude, of favour or disgrace, Procopius 12 successively com- posed the history, the panegyric, and the satire, of his own times. The eight books of the Persian, Vandalic, and Gothic wars, 13 which are continued in the five books of Agathias, de- serve our esteem as a laborious and successful imitation of the Attic, or at least of the Asiatic, writers of ancient Greece. His facts are collected from the personal experience and free conver- sation of a soldier, a statesman, and a traveller ; his style con- tinually aspires, and often attains, to the merit of strength and elegance ; his reflections, more especially in the speeches, which he too frequently inserts, contain a rich fund of political know- ledge; and the historian, excited by the generous ambition of pleasing and instructing posterity, appears to disdain the pre- judices of the people and the flattery of courts. The writings of Procopius w were read and applauded by his contemporaries ; 15 11 The reign of the elder Justin may be found in the three Chronicles of Mar- cellinus, Victor, and John Malala (torn. ii. p. 130-150), the last of whom (in spite of Hody, Prolegom. No. 14, 39, edit. Oxon.) lived soon after Justinian (Jortin's re- marks, <fec. vol. iv. p. 383 [cp. Appendix 1]) ; in the Ecolesiastical History of Evagrius (1. iv. c. 1, 2, 3, 9), and the Excerpta of Theodoras (Lector. No. 37 [p. 565, ed. Val.]), and in Cedrenus (p. 362-366 [i. 636 sqq., ed. Bonn]), and Zonaras (1. xiv. p. 58-61 [c. 5]), who may pass for an original. [Cp. George Monachus, ed. de Boor, ii. p. 626 ; ed. Muralt, p. 524.] 12 See the i characters of Procopius and Agathias in La Mothe le Vayer (torn, viii. p. 144-174), Vossius (de Historicis Grsecis, 1. ii. c. 22), and Fabricius (Bibliot. Greec. 1. v. c. 5, torn. vi. p. 248-278). Their religion, an honourable problem, be- trays occasional conformity, with a secret attachment to Paganism and Philosophy. [On the life of Procopius, and the chronology of his works, see Appendix 1.] 13 In the seven first books, two Persic, two Vandalic, and three Gothic, Pro- copius has borrowed from Appian the division of provinces and wars ; the viiith book, though it bears the name of Gothic, is a miscellaneous and general supplement down to the spring of the year 553, from whence it is continued by Agathias till 559 (Pagi, Critica, a.d. 579, No. 5). 14 The literary fate of Procopius has been somewhat unlucky. 1. His books de Bello Gothico were stolen by Leonard Aretin, and published (Fulginii, 1470, Venet. 1471, apud Janson. Mattaire, Annal. Typograph. torn. i. edit, posterior, p. 290, 304, 279, 299) in his own name (see Vossius de Hist. Lat. 1. hi. c. 5, and the feeble defence of the Venice Giornale de' Letterati, torn. xix. p. 207). 2. His works
