THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD IN LATE ANTIQUITYespecially in matters of marriage and family. Novel 131 (545) also gave to
ecclesiastical canons the force of civil law, which Justinian expected bishops
to promulgate, ordering also that copies of the Gospels should be placed in
secular courtrooms. He was also concerned that the new compilations should
be widely known in the provinces, through the offi ces of the respective pra-
etorian prefects.
Taken together, Justinian’s codifi cation of the law and his legislative activ-
ity were an extraordinary achievement. It was not surprising that he claimed
divine aid, or that he used the rhetorical prefaces introducing the new law
books and the later Novellae to present the work within the framework of
Roman tradition or to justify what he was doing.^5 It went together with the
emperor’s energetic reforms in other spheres – for example, in the adminis-
tration – and Justinian’s law codes remained, albeit with modifi cations, the
basis of both Byzantine law and much European civil law, so much so that the
discovery of Procopius’s scandalous and hitherto unknown Secret History (see
below) in the early seventeenth century seemed to shake Justinian’s reputation
so severely that it was assumed to be a forgery.
Procopius of Caesarea and Justinian’s warsMost of Justinian’s reign is fully and dramatically reported by a major writer,
Procopius of Caesarea, who has provided not only a nearly complete military
narrative in his eight-book History of the Wars, but also a sensational decon-
struction of the same events in his Secret History. The same author’s panegyrical
Buildings, in six books, listing and praising the building activity of Justinian,
brings a further level of complexity to those attempting to understand Proco-
pius as an author and evaluate his evidence as a historian.^6 In Procopius’ works
we have a body of historical writing in Greek as important and interesting in
itself as that of any historian in antiquity and a wealth of detailed information
on military matters, topography, fi nance, buildings, and much else. Proco-
pius was a participant in and eyewitness of some of the campaigns which he
describes, and although that certainly does not guarantee his accuracy as a
reporter, it does give his writing an immediacy and an authority which strike
anyone who reads it. Procopius began as the aide of the general Belisarius, and
his accounts of the early campaigns against the Persians in the east reveal an
enthusiasm which was to sour later when things went less well. His descrip-
tions of Belisarius’ invasion and reconquest of Vandal Africa, and of his early
successes in Italy, are based on his own experience on those campaigns, includ-
ing missions undertaken together with Belisarius’ wife Antonina. However,
after 540 Procopius seems to have stayed in Constantinople, and he became
increasingly disappointed with Belisarius and with Justinian. The Secret History
fi lls in the narrative of the early part of the Wars by giving the ‘secret’ and
more personal side of what happened in those years, including notoriously
salacious and scathing accounts of the two women, Theodora and Antonina.
The literary techniques of Procopius’ writings, including the Buildings,