ABSTRACT
Procopius went to Sicily and Italy with Belisarius on his first campaign, in 535, not long after the latter’s consular inauguration.1 Within a few years, Procopius and Belisarius had been in all three fronts of war-the east, N.Africa and Italy. In 535, Belisarius, who was still consul, was able to take Sicily without difficulty and enter Syracuse in triumph on the last day of his year of office.2 By December of 536 he had besieged Naples and entered Rome.3 Throughout the great siege of Rome by the Goths in 537/8 Procopius was present, and employed on tasks such as gathering food and reinforcements from outside.4 This siege, lasting for over a year and ending in a Gothic withdrawal, is one of his great set-pieces in the Wars. He was still with Belisarius when the Franks invaded Italy and turned on the Byzantines in 539, and at the siege of Ravenna in winter, 539/40. It was now that certain Goths offered Belisarius the throne, which according to Procopius he steadfastly refused,5 entering Ravenna in May, 540 in the name of Justinian.6
When he was recalled to Constantinople shortly afterwards, Procopius went with him, and was deeply emotionally involved in the rights and wrongs of the situation.7 It marked a major turning point in his historical thinking and in his attitudes to Belisarius and Justinian. It is doubtful whether Procopius went back to Italy after this. He may have gone briefly to the east in 5428 and he may have been in Rome in 546, as has been thought from the fullness of his account of that year.9 But there is only one explicit hint-the story allegedly told him by a
