APPENDIX 545 whioh gives a history of the Prastorian Prefecture under Anastasius, Justin, and Justinian, is of immense importanoe for the study of the administration in the sixth century. He bitterly complains of the deoline of the service and the reduction of its emoluments. Of Justinian he always speaks in terms of the highest praise ; but his acoount of the career of John of Cappadocia, on whom he throws most of the blame for the degradation of the civil servioe, bears out the representations of Procopius. But Lydus carefully and repeatedly warns his readers that Justinian was ignorant of the Prefeot's misdeeds. At the end of forty years' work, having passed successively through the grades of notary, chartulary, augustalis, and finally that of oornicularius (a.d. 551) — his promotion being facilitated by his knowledge of the Latin language, which was supposed to be exceptional, but was really very slight, — John retired to literary leisure, honoured but impoverished. His other extant works are de Ostentis (ed. Waohsmuth) and de Mensibus (ed. Wunsoh). But he was employed by Justinian to write a Panegyric on that Emperor and a history of the Persian war (cp. de Mag. iii. 28) ; these and his poems have been lost. Peter the Patrician, Magister Officiorum in Justinian's reign (not to be con- founded with his contemporary Peter Barsymes, the Praetorian Prefect, who was also a Patrician ; see Haury, in Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 14, 529-31) went on embassies to Persia in a.d. 550 and again in a.d. 562. His portrait is drawn by John Lydus, De Mag. 2, 25-26. He wrote a history of the Empire which seems to have been a continuation of Cassius Dio (see above, vol. i. p. 478), and of which excerpts were included in the historical Encyclopaedia of Constantine Porphyrogennetos and are preserved in the Excerpta de legationibus, which have been edited by C. de Boor (1903) as vol. i. of the Excerpta historica iussu Imp. Constantini Porph. confecta, edd. Boissevain, de Boor, Biittner-Wobst. The fragments of Peter's 'aropiai will be found in Miiller, F. H. G. iv. 181 sqq. As magister officiorum Peter was interested in court ceremonial and wrote a work 7repl iroAmKrjs KaTacn-atrecos dealing with the subjeot. Extracts from this work are preserved in the De Cerimoniis of Constantine Porphyrogennetos, Book i. cc. 84-95 (p. 386 sqq., ed. Bonn). It is expressly stated that cc. 84, 85 (describing the ceremonies of the creation of various officials) are from a work of Peter, but it is quite safe to conclude that the following chapters, which were evidently written in the sixth century, are also from the same source. They contain, among other things, most valuable accounts of the inaugurations and coronations of the Emperors Leo I., Leo II., Anastasius I., Justin I. and Justinian. To the account which Gibbon has given of the career of Procopius of Csisarea little need be added except on a few doubtful points. There is no record of the date of his birth, but it must have been before the end of the fifth century (c. 490 Dahn suggests) ; he was probably in the fifties when he began to write his history. The political sympathies apparent in his writings (noticed by Dahn, and elucidated more fully by Panchenko) suggest that he belonged to the official aristocracy ; and there is plausibility in the hypothesis of Haury that bis father may have been the Procopius of Edessa, 2 whom he mentions himself in his Edifices (p. 236, ed. Bonn) as governor of the First Palestine in the reign of Anastasius ; this receives some support from the interest manifested by Procopius in Edessene affairs. The exact nature of the post which Procopius occupied in regard to Belisarius has been questioned. Three questions have been raised : (1) in a.d. 527 was Procopius appointed an assessor or consiliarius by Belisarius himself or by the Emperor ? (2) did he occupy in the African and Italian Wars the same official post which he held in the Persian War? (3) are we right in supposing that he was officially a legal adviser to Belisarius at any time ? Though the third question has been raised last, it comes logically first. In a recent study on the historian M. Bruckner has pointed out 3 (a) that Procopius never displays legal knowledge, and avoids juristic questions, (b) that his contemporary Agathias calls him not £v[ifrovos, but p^roop (Suidas calls him xnroypcHptvs, ^Tcop, cro<pi(TT'f)s, o.k6ov8os BeXuraplov), (c) that, if the father of Procopius was an Edessene as Haury suggests, the law that no one could be*assessor i in his native land would have prevented Procopius from being 2 Procopiana (1st Progr.), p. 35-37. 3 Zur Beurteilung des Geschichtschreibers Prokopius von C, p. 42-3.
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