ABSTRACT
Comparison throughout with Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy will hopefully highlight the confident, studied Christian orthodoxy and philosophical sophistication of a historian who, perhaps reasonably, claimed to equal Thucydides himself. This chapter suggests that Procopius was to History what his contemporary John Philoponus was to Philosophy – a Christian who both venerated traditional paedia and accepted that new ideas had to replace old notions if they were no longer sufficient. Khusro and Justinian are seen throughout the Persian Wars to work together to ensure their conflicts are as strung-out, inefficient and as bloody as possible. It shows that Procopius' understanding of the issues at stake is just as sophisticated as Boethius', though often delivered in a more complex, implicit form. The chapter concludes that Procopius was preoccupied with very much the same doubts as Boethius, but chose to tackle them via a historical narrative rather than a philosophical dialogue.
