ABSTRACT
It was of the Secret History, or rather the Anecdota (literally ‘the unpublished work’), that Gibbon wrote that it must ‘sully the reputation and detract from the credit of Procopius’, and of which he decreed that certain passages must, in his inimitable phrase, be left ‘in the obscurity of a learned language’. At the same time he took the trouble to inform the reader with relish of Alemanni’s bowdlerisation of the notorious chapter nine on the sexual habits of Theodora, and to note with mock solemnity that ‘a learned prelate, now deceased, was fond of quoting this passage in conversation’.1 Thereby he set the tone of all subsequent reactions. Whereas however Gibbon (unlike the seventeenth-century lawyers),2 had felt no doubts about the authenticity of the Secret History, J.B.Bury argued in 1889 that it could not be by Procopius; he had changed his mind by 1923, but still supposed that Procopius must have suffered a ‘brainstorm’ before writing it.3 More recently, A.J.M.Jones, while criticising the Wars for the ‘childish credulity’ displayed there towards everything of which he had no personal knowledge, described the Secret History as ‘a venomous pamphlet’ which ‘does not deserve the respect which is often accorded to it’.4 B.Rubin reversed the trend by elevating the work to a primary place in Procopius’ oeuvre, while for Z.V. Udal’cova it represented a unique document for perceiving the situation of the discontented masses under Justinian.5 The Penguin translator was uncertain what to make of it, but gallantly defended Procopius: ‘Procopius was unquestionably on the side of right, and the things which are disgusting to us were equally disgusting to him.’6
