The Secret History of Procopius

Richard Atwater - Procopius, who lived from 500 to 565 C.E., was a Byzantine historian. His writings are a primary source about the reign of the Emperor Justinian. Writing in Greek, Procopius was the last major ancient historian.

The original title of this work was Anecdota, which means ''things not given over, withheld.'' Procopius speculates that Justinian might have been something . . . not even human, perhaps vampiric. He soberly quotes eyewitness accounts of Justinian shapeshifting into a ''shapeless mass of flesh,'' and literally losing--and retrieving--his head. Justinian killing a ''trillion'' people. The text actually says "A myriad myriads of myriads" (a myriad is the highest number in Greek, 10,000). [That is 105*3 = 1015 = 100,000,000,000,000, or 100 trillion.] All of this is a bit sophistical of course, what Procopius obviously means here is "a ridiculous number."