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How much credence should we give to Procopius' portrayal of the empress Theodora?
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How much credence should we give to Procopius' portrayal of the empress Theodora? If we omit the chroniclers, there are hardly any sources for Theodora that are written without parti pris. The most important, Procopius of Caesarea, who is our only source for the lurid details of Theodora's early life, presented a different Theodora in each of his three works, the History of the Wars of Justinian in seven books to which an eighth was added later, the Anekdota or Secret History, to give it its popular name, an essay purportedly written immediately after the first seven books of the Wars were published and containing data which were too defamatory to circulate openly1, and the De Aedificiis or Buildings which is a panegyric on Justinian's building program throughout the empire. All these works were written or at least completed after Theodora's death in 5482. In the Wars, Procopius credits the...
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