ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how Byzantine chronicles, if they are studied sympathetically, can be exploited to give a better understanding of Byzantine history. It demonstrates the initial problem which results from our accepting too easily not so much the facts but the interpretation of Byzantine History that is given by a supposedly 'good' historian, Procopius. Modern historians certainly do accept many of the facts provided by chronicles. Classical historians wrote about war and politics. Much of modern scholarship has concentrated on the decline of cities because this has been seen almost as the signpost which separates Byzantium from the Roman Empire. Studies on Anastasius naturally have accepted the picture of Justinian as the great conqueror and so interpret Anastasius' achievements as weak by comparison. Anastasius' diplomacy had kept alive the notion that Italy and Rome still continued to be part of the Empire with Theoderic acting as a kind of regent.
