1. Procopius, From Manuscripts to Books: 1400–1850

Abstract

The path from mainly 13th- and 14th-century Byzantine manuscripts of Procopius’ Wars, Secret History and Buildings to a modern critical edition of all three works together was long and winding. At different points along the way from manuscripts to books the text of Procopius acquired its organised division into numbered Books, chapters and sections, while his writings were successively exploited by European scholars for purely contemporary purposes, which explains Procopius’ role in the history of scholarship. In the 15th century Italian humanists such as Bruni and Biondo acquired manuscripts of Procopius from Constantinople and elsewhere but only used them in translation. Books 5 to 8 of the Wars became popular immediately because they told the Italians about their sixth-century past which was otherwise dimly perceived a millennium later. The Persian and Vandal wars (Wars 1 to 4) barely rated interest, the Buildings, which excluded Italy, was unpublished, and the Secret History presumed lost. By the 16th century the centre of scholarly effort had moved into the German states of the Holy Roman Empire where Procopius became a highly valued source for the early history of the Goths and Vandals (Peutinger, Beatus, Cuspinian). This role lent him respectability and provided a new witness to bolster the antique identity of Germans but especially of the Swedes. The period from 1590 to 1650 was the great era of philological effort and acumen applied to Procopius at Paris and Leiden, to a lesser extent at Rome and Augsburg, by the foremost scholars of the time including Scaliger, Casaubon and Grotius. The first edition of the Wars was published at Augsburg in 1607 (Hoeschel), followed by that of the Secret History at Lyons in 1623 (Alemanni), a version of the Buildings having already appeared at Basel in 1531 (Beatus). Only in 1662/63 did the first complete edition of all Procopius’ works (Maltretus) appear in Paris.This enabled Procopius to be seen for the first time as a historian and writer of the age of Justinian, thereby facilitating his use by 18th-century historians such as Edward Gibbon. By 1850, with the modern techniques of textual and historical scholarship now being codified, Procopius still lacked the proper edition and the serious scholarly attention that was eventually to come, Dindorf’s edition (1833–8) having turned out to be another lost opportunity. Published in Geoffrey Greatrex, ed., Work on Procopius outside the English-speaking World (HISTOS Supplement 9).