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The Secret History

Procopius, translated by Richard Atwater

Nonfictionabout 4 h 45 min of listening

Procopius recounts the supposed true history of Justinian’s reign.

Contents

  1. Imprint
  2. Introduction
  3. Foreword by the Historian
  4. I: How the Great General Belisarius Was Hoodwinked by His Wife, Whose Lover Became a Monk
  5. II: How Belated Jealousy Affected Belisarius’s Military Judgment, to the Joy of the Enemy
  6. III: Showing the Danger of Interfering with a Woman’s Intrigues, Especially When the Woman Is the Friend of an Empress
  7. IV: How Theodora, Revenging Her Dear Antonina, Humiliated the Conqueror of Africa and Italy
  8. V: How Theodora Tricked the General’s Daughter Into a Liaison with the Empress’s Nephew, and Belisarius Became a Public Laughing Stock
  9. VI: Ignorance of the Emperor Justin, and His Stencilled Signature, and How His Nephew Justinian Was the Virtual Ruler
  10. VII: Outrages of the Blues
  11. VIII: Character and Appearance of Justinian
  12. IX: And How Theodora, Most Depraved of All Courtesans, Won His Love
Show all 36 chapters
  1. X: How Justinian Created a New Law Permitting Him to Marry a Courtesan on Her Promise to Repent Her Past; and the Truth About the Apparent Quarrels of a Happy Pair
  2. XI: How the Defender of the Faith Ruined His Subjects
  3. XII: Proving That Justinian and Theodora Were Actually Fiends in Human Form
  4. XIII: Deceptive Affability and Piety of a Tyrant
  5. XIV: Justice for Sale
  6. XV: How an Roman Citizens Became Slaves, and a Complaining Patrician Was Ribaldly Mocked by Theodora’s Eunuchs
  7. XVI: What Happened to Those Who Fell Out of Favor with Theodora
  8. XVII: How She Saved Five Hundred Harlots from a Life of Sin, Made Away with Her Own Natural Son, and Other Curious Incidents of Her Passion for Match Making
  9. XVIII: How Justinian Killed a Trillion People
  10. XIX: How He Seized All the Wealth of the Romans and Threw It Away in the Sea and on the Barbarians
  11. XX: Debasing of the Quaestorship
  12. XXI: The Sky Tax, the Selling of All Offices, and How Border Armies Were Forbidden to Punish Invading Barbarians
  13. XXII: Further Corruption in High Places
  14. XXIII: How Landowners Were Ruined
  15. XXIV: Unjust Treatment of the Soldiers, and How Justinian Tricked the “Students” Out of Their Pay by Threatening to Send Them to War
  16. XXV: How He Robbed His Own Officials, Merchants, Sailors, Workmen, and Everybody Else
  17. XXVI: How He Spoiled the Beauty of the Cities and Plundered the Poor
  18. XXVII: How the Defender of the Faith Protected the Interests of the Christians
  19. XXVIII: His Violation of the Laws of the Romans, and How Jews Were Fined for Eating Lamb
  20. XXIX: Other Incidents Revealing Him as a Liar and a Hypocrite
  21. XXX: Further Innovations of Justinian and Theodora, and a Conclusion Which Imagines the Death of an Emperor
  22. Endnotes
  23. Colophon
  24. Uncopyright

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Source: Standard Ebooks. CC0 1.0 (Standard Ebooks edition); the text is in the public domain

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