Procopius employs the motif of “grieving in silence” to describe the deliberations preceding Justinian’s invasion of Vandal North Africa in 533 (Wars 3.10.7-8) and his vendetta against the urban prefect of Constantinople in 523 (HA 9.41). The particularity of Procopius’ language in these passages makes their collocation especially pronounced. The distance between the Wars and the Secret History, which represents itself breaking the silence between what the Wars can state publicly and the unvarnished truth (HA 1.1-10), may be measured by (...) two “wise advisers” who speak when others are silent: the quaestor Proclus, warmly remembered for his probity, and the praetorian prefect John the Cappadocian, a figure universally reviled. Discontinuities between the presentation of John in the Wars and the merits of the policies he endorses problematize readers’ impressions of not only John but also the relationship between the Wars and the historical reality the work claims to represent. (shrink)

Examining a range of sixth-century literary sources, this paper explores the authors' attitudes toward the marital relationship of the Late Roman emperor Justinian I and his empress, Theodora. It emerges that the sources characteristically appeal to the agency of Theodora or to an underlying level of mutual understanding between the imperial couple in order to reconcile inconsistencies or apparent contradictions between the regime's rhetoric and its actions. Recourse to such an interior dynamic gave scope to the recognition and expression of (...) contradiction without thereby entailing an admission of disorder: it enabled the imperial couple, and thus in an overarching sense the instrumental function of the imperial "role" in the state, to work if necessary at cross purposes while preserving an unbroken unity of purpose. Special attention is paid to the particular interests and expectations of two distinct groups: the classically-educated mandarinate of the Roman civil service, and the schismatic hierarchy of the nascent Monophysite church. (shrink)