March 12, 2005
Secret histories
In the sixth century, Procopius, the Byzantine historian, published a book. The good bits -- scandalous, even pornographic in parts -- of his latest missive contained information that the average reader might have found a bit more interesting than Procopius' previous "Justinian's Buildings", a straightforward account of of all the buildings in the eastern Roman empire for which the emperor was responsible. While the latter has proved invaluable for historians and archaelogists, the former contained such information as the emperor (and his wife, Theodora's) apparent supernatural origins:
And they say his mother said to some of her intimates once that not of Sabbatius her husband, nor of any man was Justinian a son. For when she was about to conceive, there visited a demon, invisible but giving evidence of his presence perceptibly where man consorts with woman, after which he vanished utterly as in a dream.
Actions have consquences, and Procopius knew that violating the conspiracy of silence surrounding Justinian's satanic nature and Theodora's amorous adventures, was unlikely to be good for his health. He cleverly waited until he was dead to unleash his Secret History upon the world. It was not the first exposé, probably not the even the first to suggest that the emperor's wife used black magic, but it was the first to sum things up so neatly. There are secret histories, truths that the people who really run things don't want you to read. And we've been reading them ever since, to their immeasurable disgust.
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