The Secret History of the Court of Justinian

Procopius spent years writing the official history of Emperor Justinian's wars, glorifying the emperor and his general Belisarius in works that would endure for centuries. Then, in secret, he wrote something else entirely: a vicious, gossip-laden account of the same court's darkest secrets, petty cruelties, and naked corruptions. The Secret History is ancient Rome's most satisfying tell-all, a text that reads like a betrayed staffer's memoir of a disastrous administration. Justinian emerges as a grasping, capricious tyrant; his wife Theodora as a cunning former actress who rose from the gutter to rule an empire through manipulation and terror; Belisarius as a military hero completely dominated by his equally scheming wife Antonina. Procopius documents scandals, sexual exploits, political murders, and the sheer pettiness of absolute power with the satisfaction of an insider who finally has nothing left to lose. It is biased, bitter, and possibly exaggerated. It is also an indispensable window into how the Byzantine elite actually viewed their rulers, and one of the most entertaining books written before the year 1000.