The Secret History

by

Procopius of Caesarea

translated by Richard Atwater

(Chicago: P. Covici, 1927 New York Covici Friede 1927)

Reprinted, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1961, with indication
that copyright had expired on the text of the translation.

30. FURTHER INNOVATIONS OF JUSTINIAN AND THEODORA, AND A CONCLUSION

How much he cared for the interests of the State may be seen by what he did
to the public couriers and the spies. For the preceding Roman emperors, so that
they might most quickly and easily have news of enemy invasions into any province,
of sedition in the cities or any other unexpected trouble, of the actions of the
governors and everyone else everywhere in the Roman Empire, and also so that those
bringing in the annual taxes might be kept from delay and danger, had established
a system of public couriers everywhere in the following manner.

As a day’s journey for an active man, they decided on eight stages in some
places, in others less, but hardly ever less than five. Forty horses were kept
for each stage, and grooms in proportion to the number of horses. By frequent
relays of the best mounts, couriers were thus able to ride as long a distance
in one day as would ordinarily require ten, and bring with them the news required.
Also the landowners in these provinces, especially those whose estates were in
the interior ‘ were greatly benefited by the system, as they sold at a high price
to the government each year their surplus harvests to feed the horses and the
grooms. And accordingly the State received the due tribute from each of these,
immediately reimbursing them for furnishing it: and this was to the advantage
of the whole State. Now this is how things were formerly done.

But this tyrant first suppressed the post from Chalcedon to Dacibiza, and then
compelled the couriers to go from Constantinople to Helenopolis, however little
they liked it, by sea. Faring in small boats, such as were usually used for crossing
the strait, they were in serious peril if a storm came up. For because speed was
demanded of them, they could not wait for calm weather. In the case of the road
to Persia, he permitted the former system to remain; but everywhere else in the
East, as far as Egypt, he reduced the number of stages making a day’s journey
to one, and provided, instead of horses, a few asses. Consequently news of what
happened in each province was brought with great difficulty, too late to be of
any use and long after the event, and the farm owners got no benefit of their
crops which either rotted or lay idle.

The spies were organized as follows. Many men were formerly supported by the
treasury, who visited the enemy, especially the Persian court, to find out exactly
what was going on; on their return to Roman territory, they were able to report
to the Emperors the secrets of the enemy. And the Romans, being warned, were on
guard and could not be taken by surprise. This system was also a long-established
custom with the Medes; and Chosroes, they say, increased the pay of his spies,
and benefited by the precaution. But Justinian did away with the practice of hiring
Roman spies, and in consequence lost much territory to the enemy, including Lazica,
which was taken because the Romans had no information as to where the Persian
King was with his army.

The State had also always kept a large number of camels, which carried all
the baggage when the Roman army marched against the foe. Thus the peasants did
not have to carry burdens, and the soldiers lacked no necessity. But Justinian
did away with almost all of these animals. Consequently when the Roman army now
marches against the enemy, it is impossible for it to be supplied with what it
needs. Such was the zeal he displayed for the interests of the State.

There is nothing like mentioning one of his ridiculous acts. Among the lawyers
at Caesarea was one Evangelius, a man of no mean distinction, who, favored by
the winds of Fate, became the master of much money and much land. Eventually he
bought a village on the seacoast, named Porphyreon, for three gold centenaries.
Learning of this, Justinian immediately took the place from him, giving him back
only a small fraction of the price he had paid, and uttered the remark that it
would never do for Evangelius, a mere lawyer, to be the lord of such a village.
Well, we must stop somewhere when we begin to recall all these stories.

This, however, is worth telling among the innovations of Justinian and Theodora.
Formerly, when the Senate approached the Emperor, it paid homage in the following
manner. Every patrician kissed him on the right breast; the Emperor kissed the
patrician on the head, and he was dismissed. Then the rest bent their right knee
to the Emperor and withdrew. It was not customary to pay homage to the Queen.

But those who were admitted to the presence of Justinian and Theodora, whether
they were patricians or otherwise, fell on their faces on the floor, stretching
their hands and feet out wide, kissed first one foot and then the other of the
Augustus, and then retired. Nor did Theodora refuse this honor; and she even received
the ambassadors of the Persians and other barbarians and gave them presents, as
if she were in command of the Roman Empire: a thing that had never happened in
all previous time.

And formerly intimates of the Emperor called him Emperor and the Empress, Empress;
and the other officials according to the title of their rank. But if anybody addressed
either of these two as Emperor or Empress without adding “Your Majesty” or “Your
Highness,” or forgot to call himself their slave, he was considered either ignorant
or insolent, and was dismissed in disgrace as if he had done some awful crime
or committed an unpardonable sin.

And before, only a few were sometimes admitted to the palace; but from the
time when these two came to power, the magistrates and everybody else had no trouble
in fairly living in the palace. This was because the magistrates of old had administered
justice and the laws according to their conscience, and made their decisions while
in their own offices, while their subjects, neither seeing nor hearing any injustice,
of course had little cause to trouble the Emperor. But these two, taking control
of everything to the misfortune of their subjects, forced everyone to come to
them and beg like slaves. And almost any day one could see the law courts nearly
deserted, while in the hall of the Emperor there was a jostling and pushing crowd
that resembled nothing so much as a mob of slaves.

Those who were supposed to be in the imperial favor would stand there all day
and most of the night, sleepless and foodless, until they were exhausted; and
this is what their presumed good fortune got them. And those who were free of
all this sort of thing, asked each other what would become of the prosperity of
the Romans. For some were sure it was already in the hands of the barbarians,
and others said the Emperor had hidden it away in his various dwelling places.
But only when Justinian, be he man or King of the Devils, shall have departed
this life, shall they who then happen to survive him, discover the truth.

THE END