“Are you not entertained?” chides the gladiator Maximus to the crowds watching him in the 2000 film by Ridley Scott. The question teases all of us humans, because of our penchant for being attracted to drama — sports, scandal, and story.
In Byzantine history this penchant for the dishy reached an acme with the author Procopius, whose __Secret History_ is a complete takedown of the Emperor Justinian (d. 565) that mixes possible truth with hyperbole worthy of the most tawdry tabloids. Chapter headings start out relatively innocuous, with titles like “the character and appearance of Justinan,” but quickly spiral with titles such as “Proving that Justinian and Theodora [his wife] were actually fiends in human form,” and “How Justinian killed a trillion people”.
While some of Procopius’ accusations must have sounded extreme even to his contemporaries, others are more realistic. One account in particular is reminiscent of recent political events in our own day, as Procopius discusses the chariot sports team known as the Blues, which became associated with radicalism and started to take on a level of violence that threatened the ordinary populace.
Procopius writes, “then it was that Justinian, fanning the flame and openly inciting the Blues to fight, made the whole Roman Empire shake on its foundation . . . Law and order, throughout the State, overwhelmed by distraction, were turned upside down . . . Almost all of them carried steel openly from the first,” which terrified the populace.
