This site transcribes the English translation of Procopius' work by H[enry] B[ronson] Dewing as printed in Vol. VI of the Loeb Classical Library edition of that historian, published in 1935. I don't intend for the moment to transcribe the original Greek text since the paucity of readers of ancient Greek out there make it a case of diminishing returns, and at any rate it can be found on Perseus.
There is another English version of the Secret History online: translated by Richard Atwater in 1927, reprinted in 1963 by the University of Michigan, it has been made available at the Internet Medieval Sourcebook (in a single long page) and at SacredTexts.com (chapter by chapter). Atwater's translation is less stodgy than Dewing's, and to those with no Greek, the intersection of two different translations, both of them good, will be useful. (The on-target "Subject" captions in the index below, which I cannot improve on, are those of the Atwater translation; taken in turn from an unidentified manuscript tradition.) For convenience, in the navigation bar at the bottom of each Chapter, I've provided a link to the corresponding chapter of Atwater.
As with most ancient authors, not that much is known of Procopius; biographical material may appear onsite by and by: for now see the Catholic Encyclopedia article. The Loeb edition gives no information about the manuscripts, at least not in Vol. VI of its edition of Procopius, but the Introduction by H. B. Dewing is a good critique and addresses the dating of the work as well.
Chapter Subject 1How the Great General Belisarius Was Hoodwinked by His Wife
2How Belated Jealousy Affected Belisarius's Military Judgment
3Showing the Danger of Interfering with a Woman's Intrigues
4How Theodora Humiliated the Conqueror of Africa and Italy
5How Theodora Tricked the General's Daughter
6Ignorance of the Emperor Justin, and How His Nephew Justinian Was the Virtual Ruler
7Outrages of the Blues
8Character and Appearance of Justinian
9How Theodora, Most Depraved of All Courtesans, Won His Love
10How Justinian Created a New Law Permitting Him to Marry a Courtesan
11How the Defender of the Faith Ruined His Subjects
12Proving That Justinian and Theodora Were Actually Fiends in Human Form
13Perceptive Affability and Piety of a Tyrant
14Justice for Sale
15How All Roman Citizens Became Slaves
16What Happened to Those Who Fell Out of Favor with Theodora
17How She Saved Five Hundred Harlots from a Life of Sin
18How Justinian Killed a Trillion People
19How He Seized All the Wealth of the Romans and Threw It Away
20Debasing of the Quaestorship
21The Sky Tax, and How Border Armies Were Forbidden to Punish Invading Barbarians
22Further Corruption in High Places
23How Landowners Were Ruined
24Unjust Treatment of the Soldiers
25How He Robbed His Own Officials
26How He Spoiled the Beauty of the Cities and Plundered the Poor
27How the Defender of the Faith Protected the Interests of the Christians
28His Violation of the Laws of the Romans and How Jews Were Fined for Eating Lamb
29Other Incidents Revealing Him as a Liar and a Hypocrite
30Further Innovations of Justinian and Theodora, and a Conclusion
Appendix IThe Factions of the Hippodrome in Constantinople
Appendix IIThe Christian Heresies
Appendix IIIThe Statue of Domitian
Map IThe Empire at the end of Justinian's Reign (A.D. 565)
Map IIMap of Constantinople, VI Century A.D.
CopyrightThe translation is now in the public domain pursuant to the 1978 revision of the U. S. Copyright Code, since the copyright expired in 1963 and was not renewed at the appropriate time, which would have been that year or the year before. (Details here on the copyright law involved.)
Chapter and Section Numbering, Local LinksThe small section numbers mark local links, according to a consistent scheme; you can therefore link directly to any passage. Similarly, for citation purposes, the Loeb edition pagination is indicated by local links in the sourcecode.
ProofreadingAs almost always, IÂ retyped the text by hand rather than scanning it â not only to minimize errors prior to proofreading, but as an opportunity for me to become intimately familiar with the work, an exercise IÂ heartily recommend: Qui scribit, bis legit. (Well-meaning attempts to get me to scan text, if successful, would merely turn me into some kind of machine: gambit declined.)
This transcription has been minutely proofread. In the table of contents above, the sections are therefore shown on blue backgrounds, indicating that I believe the text of them to be completely errorfree. As elsewhere onsite, the header bar at the top of each chapter's webpage will remind you with the same color scheme. Should you spot an error, however . . . please do report it.
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