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The Secret History · Sacred Texts

The Secret History

35 entries

tr. by Richard Atwater

Start Reading Contents Introduction Foreword by the Historian I. How The Great General Belisarius Was Hoodwinked By His Wife, Whose Lover Became A Monk II. How Belated Jealousy Affected Belisarius's Military Judgment, to the Joy of the Enemy III. Showing The Danger of Interfering With a Woman's Intrigues, Especially When the Woman Is the Friend of an Empress IV. How Theodora, Revenging Her Dear Antonina, Humiliated the Conqueror of Africa And Italy V. How Theodora Tricked the General's Daughter Into a Liaison With the Empress's Nephew, and Belisarius Became a Public Laughing Stock VI. Ignorance of the Emperor Justin, and His Stencilled Signature, and How His Nephew Justinian Was the Virtual Ruler VII. Outrages of the Blues VIII. Character and Appearance of Justinian IX. And How Theodora, Most Depraved of All Courtesans, Won His Love X. How Justinian Created a New Law Permitting Him to Marry a Courtesan On Her Promise to Repent Her Past; and the Truth About the Apparent Quarrels of a Happy Pair XI. How the Defender of the Faith Ruined His Subjects XII. Proving That Justinian and Theodora Were Actually Fiends in Human Form XIII. Deceptive Affability and Piety of a Tyrant XIV. Justice For Sale XV. How An Roman Citizens Became Slaves, and a Complaining Patrician Was Ribaldly Mocked by Theodora's Eunuchs XVI. What Happened to Those Who Fell Out of Favor With Theodora XVII. How She Saved Five Hundred Harlots from a Life of Sin, Made Away with Her Own Natural Son, and Other Curious Incidents of Her Passion for Match Making XVIII. How Justinian Killed a Trillion People XIX. How He Seized All the Wealth of the Romans and Threw It Away In the Sea and On the Barbarians XX. Debasing of the Quaestorship XXI. The Sky Tax, the Selling of All Offices, and How Border Armies Were Forbidden to Punish Invading Barbarians XXII. Further Corruption In High Places XXIII. How Landowners Were Ruined Unjust Treatment of the Soldiers, and How Justinian Tricked the “Students” Out of Their Pay by Threatening to Send Them to War XXV. How He Robbed His Own Officials, Merchants, Sailors, Workmen, and Everybody Else XXVI. How He Spoiled the Beauty of the Cities and Plundered the Poor XXVII. How the Defender of the Faith Protected the Interests of the Christians XXVIII. His Violation of the Laws of the Romans, and How Jews Were Fined For Eating Lamb XXIX. Other Incidents Revealing Him as a Liar and a Hypocrite XXX. Further Innovations of Justinian and Theodora, and a Conclusion Which Imagines the Death of an Emperor Glossary