Breaking silence in the historiography of Procopius of Caesarea

Procopius employs the motif of “grieving in silence” to describe the deliberations preceding Justinian’s invasion of Vandal North Africa in 533 (Wars 3.10.7–8) and his vendetta against the urban prefect of Constantinople in 523 (HA 9.41). The particularity of Procopius’ language in these passages makes their collocation especially pronounced. The distance between the Wars and the Secret History, which represents itself breaking the silence between what the Wars can state publicly and the unvarnished truth (HA 1.1– 10), may be measured by two “wise advisers” who speak when others are silent: the quaestor Proclus, warmly remembered for his probity, and the praetorian prefect John the Cappadocian, a figure universally reviled. Discontinuities between the presentation of John in the Wars and the merits of the policies he endorses problematize readers’ impressions of not only John but also the relationship between the Wars and the historical reality the work claims to represent. Adresse: Prof. Dr. Charles F. Pazdernik, Grand Valley State University, Department of Classics, One Campus Drive, Allendale, MI 49401, USA; pazdernc@gvsu.edu

Now the rest of the Persians remained silent and did not dare to express an opinion in opposition to the one that had been offered; but then Artabanus son of Hystaspes,relying on the fact that he was Xerxes' uncle, spokea sf ollows … If, for Herodotus, "the silence that holds the Persian courtiers is the mark of their condition as subjects,"⁵ the samemay be said for Procopius. The particularityof Procopius' languagei nt hese passages in the Wars and the Secret History,h owever,m akes their collocation especiallyp ronounced.⁶ The expression "grieving in silence" (σιωπῇ … ὀδύρεσθαι)i so therwise attested anywherei nt he TLG corpus onlyatWars 3.25.19 [A2] (σιωπῇ … ὠδύροντο)⁷ -apassagetowhich we will turn presently.
Although the close parallelism at these two moments between the Wars and the Secret History has been discussed with reference to the pragmatics of courtly etiquette in late antiquity,⁸ more relevant here is the self-characterization of traditional Greco-Roman historiography as an exercise in bridging the silence between the present and an otherwise evanescent past and in recovering and rehabilitatingt ruths that are otherwise concealed by the dissimulating effects of power.⁹ In this connection, the relationship thatP rocopius constructs between the Wars and the Secret History is strikingly figured. If the Wars is ap ublic, and thereforeanecessarilyc ircumspect and carefullyh edged, account of ar ecent past that cannot be fullyd isclosed while the principals are still alive (HA 1.1-3), the Secret History represents itself as the breaking of the silence marked by the distance between what is able to be stated publiclyand the frank and unvarnished truth (4-10).
In patterningthe deliberations over the Vandal expedition upon Herodotus, Procopius is signalingthe structural importance of the scene, which punctuates am ajor turning point in his narrative and am oment of great historical consequence.¹² Importantq uestions of interpretation hinge upon whether John the Cappadocian creditablya cquits himself as an Artabanus-likew ise advisor and whether his advice is validated by the subsequent course of events. Consensus on these matters has eluded scholars.¹³ It has been suggested, for example, that, "while condemningJ ohn the Cappadocian … Procopius admits thatJ ohn acted bravelya nd reasonablyi na rguing against the African expedition."¹⁴ As  [John] was reluctant to endorse major new commitments." Kaldellis,Procopius (as footnote  above),  -,f inds that "the prefect'sc aution is justified by later events." J. A. S. Evans,T he power game in Byzantium: Antonina and the empress Theodora.L ondon /N ew York , ,incontrast,finds that "John the Cappadocian'sadvice was wrong as wellasnegative,which mayhavebeen the reason whyProcopius made apoint of puttingitonthe record." D. Brodka,Prokopiosvon Kaisareia und JustiniansIdee 'der Reconquista'. Eos  (),  -:  -,f inds the attribution of the speech to John unremarkable: "Im Prinzip wirdi n der Rede des Johannes nichts Neues gesagt. Der Historiker deuteth ier die Probleme an, auf die er schon früher aufmerksam gemacht hat";c f. B. Rubin,D as ZeitalterI ustinians,I .B erlin ,  -. this statement indicates,readers of the Wars are called upon to formjudgments, not onlyabout John the Cappadocian, but also -and crucially -about the costs and benefitsofJustinian'sV andal War. Careful examination of the literary design apparent in Procopius' narrative of that war (in many respects the most thematicallyc oherent part of the Wars)i ndicates thatd iscontinuities between the presentation of John in the work, on one hand, and the merits of the policy of conflict aversion attributed to John, on the other,a re carefullyd rawn.P lacing an estimable messagei nt he handso fadiscreditable messenger problematizes not onlyP rocopius' presentation of John in the Wars but also the relationship between the silence-breakingc laims of the Wars and the historical reality the work claims to represent.¹⁵ Readersa lert to the literarys elf-consciousness apparent in the scene are equipped to appreciate how its presentation of John, which at first glance might appear to be quite positive,fails upon fuller reflection to cohere.¹⁶ The familiar Herodotean templatethat presses John into serviceasawise advisor is defamiliarized by the introduction of the whollyu nprecedented motif of "grieving in silence." As will be discussed below,the superlativesthat introduce John as "a man of the greatest daring and the cleverest of all men of his time" not onlyalign his presentation here with depictions elsewherei nt he Wars stressingh is outsized and uncannyq ualities but also signal that the speech placed in John's mouth, in direct discourse, cannot be taken at face value. The speech itself superimposes upon the scene'sH erodotean templatea nu nmistakable allusion to Thucydides that is jarringlyo ut of stepw ith motivations ascribed to John by the Procopian narrator.V erbala nd contextual correspondences between the scene and subsequent moments in the unfoldingnarrative of the Vandal Warestablish athematic through-line that offers anuanced assessment of the policyof conflict aversion attributed to John and evaluates the costs and consequences of armed conflict in light of the livedexperiencesofthose who experienceitonthe ground.
 J. Weisweiler,Unreliable witness:f ailings of the narrative in Ammianus Marcellinus,i nL . VanH oof/P. VanN uffelen (eds.), Literature and society in the fourth century AD: performing paideia, constructingthe present,presentingthe self. Leiden ,  -: ,comparably, investigates through as eries of close readings "the complex forms of authorial self-awareness displayedb yA mmianus."  As for the availability of such readers in the period, S. D. Smith,Greek epigramand Byzantine culture: gender,d esire, and denial in the ageo fJ ustinian. Cambridge ,d emonstrates how classical paideia equipped membersofthe literary circle around Agathias and Paul the Silentiary to fashion transgressive authorial personae and to authorize subversive readingswithin the genreo fG reek epigram; see esp. pp.  - on epigrama sa" system of textual relations." This essay, accordingly, offers an ew and an uanced readingoft he arrangement of these verbal and contextual correspondences, which are detailedinfour series of key passages designated A-D (see Table 1 below). It distinguishes the figure of Procopius as the implied author of the works under examination ("who is neither the historical author nor the narrator but the guiding intelligence that motivates awork"¹⁷), from that of the Procopian narrator (modelled aboveall on the Thucydidean), and again from thato fP rocopius the embeddedc haracter (who likeT hucydidesa ppears in the narrative as an agent). The interplay among these figures is an effect of Procopius' texts (in particular, for our purposes, the Wars and the Secret History),¹⁸ which claim to expose the dissimulating effects of power but also, as works of contemporary history,c annot avoid being implicated in those effects themselves. Consequently, this essaya lso makes the argument that the relationship between John the Cappadocian in the Wars and Proclus in the Secret History,a tt he point at which each emerges in their respective narratives as as ilence-breakingw ise advisor,i ss ynecdochic of the relationship that the two works -the former implicitly, the latter expressly -construct between themselves.
We begin by situatingt he motif of "grievingi ns ilence" in two moments in book threeofthe Wars that punctuate Procopius' narrative of the Vandal Warin its ascendant phase. The stricken silence with which Justinian'sofficials greet the prospect of the expedition [A1]f inds an unexpecteda nd ironic doublet in the shocked reaction evoked by al etter from Gelimer, the king of the Vandals, to his brother Tzazo and his forces on Sardinia, announcing the news of Belisarius' initial victory in North Africa and subsequent occupation of Carthage[ A2;s ee Section II]. At the samet ime as the Wars constructs the subjectivity of the participants who are implicatedo nbothsides of the conflict, it drawspointed contrasts with those who are insulated from its consequences, who are figured as spectators [B1, B2]; when Tzazo is reunited with Gelimero nt he mainland at Bulla Regia as book three comes to ac lose, moreover,ar emarkable aside in the narratorial first person [C2]c onfesses the impossibility of describingt he intensity and interiority of the grief experienced by the Vandals, once they have  Fora ne lucidation of the distinction between the implied author of one or morew orks and the narrator(s) of those work(s), see S. M. Wheeler,Adiscourse of wonders:a udiencea nd performance in Ovid'sMetamorphoses.Philadelphia ,  - (esp.  - on Ovid's Metamorphoses and Fasti as contemporaneous and complementary works); quotation at p. ,citing W. C. Booth,The rhetoric of fiction.  Chicago ,  -, .  Insofar as the narrator of the Wars is to be distinguished from that of the Secret History,asis suggested below,these figuresb ecome correspondinglym orer efractory. been relieved of the necessityofsilencing their emotions in front of theirsubjects on Sardinia.
At ap rior point in the narrative,t he samee xpression [C1;S ection III] had announced the narrator'si nability to fathom the unscrupulousness of John the Cappadocian, whose false economies in provisioningt he expedition, once his opposition to it was overruled, imperiled its success. John'sc onduct substantiates Procopius' explanation of the actual motivesb ehind John'so pposition, while the narratorial aside drivesh ome the outsized and uncannyq ualities that Procopius consistentlyattributes to John. Turning now to John'sspeech [Section IV], we are equipped as readers of the Wars to seehow Procopius has superimposed upon his Herodotean templateanallusion to Thucydidesthat has been underappreciated by scholars and yetu nmistakablys ubverts John'ss elf-presentation as an Artabanus-like wise advisor advocating apolicy of conflict aversion.
Procopius figures himself in the Wars as not onlyanauthor/narrator but also an investigator-participant -thatis, as an embeddedcharacter who experienced the African expedition at the side of Belisarius.¹⁹ Closelyi nterrelated to questions thats cholars have posed about the authorial judgment expressedt oward John'so pposition to the expedition is the narrator'sa ccount of ad ream experienced by the character that relieved his anxieties about the venture. Placing the imagery of the dream into context [Section V] exposesat hematict hrough-line that links togetherJohn'sconcerns about provisioningthe expedition; the subsequent exposure of his misconduct; and Belisarius' successes in overcoming obstacles up to, and culminating in, his uneventful occupation of Carthage, where soldiers and civilians alike observecivil order and preservethe rhythms of daily life [D2].
Preservation of the geopolitical status quo had been the principal concern put forward by John as the ostensible basis of his opposition to the expedition [D1;S ection VI]. Herea gain, Procopius' Thucydidean intertext underscores the extent to which John'sm essagem ust be distinguished from its messenger.P rocopius' evaluation of Belisarius' achievement in peacefullyo ccupyingC arthage pointedlycontrasts Belisarius' actions with John'swords, to the detriment of the latter [Section VII]: to this extent,John is discredited and the optimistic reading of Procopius' dream validated. When Procopius turns, however,i nb ook four of the Wars,t oc hroniclingm aladministration and misrule in Africa once Belisarius' energies are directed against the Ostrogoths, the bleak note on which the  See now A. J. Ross,N arrator and participant in Procopius' Wars,i nL illington-Martin/Turquois (eds.), Procopius (as footnote  above),  -,with salutary remarks about the pitfalls of takingabiographical approach to the studyo fP rocopius' works. narrativeo ft he Vandal Warc oncludes [D3]w ould seem to offer ar etrospective endorsement of the worldview articulated by John.
Returning now to the comparison with which we began [Section VIII], we see how the difference and the distance that the Secret History and the Wars construct between the quaestor Proclus and John the Cappadocian, respectively,mirrors the relationship the two works construct between themselves.²⁰ John dares not disclose the actual motivest hat determine his opposition to the Vandal expedition, and so his claim to be breakingsilence in the service of truth ringshollow,whereas Proclus' motivesa nd his candora re unimpeachable. In much the same way, the narrator of the Wars mayb ec ounter-posed with the narrator of the Secret History.
Our investigation of the narratorial personae constructed by two literary texts,the Wars and the Secret History,respectively,ispremised on the longstanding scholarlyconsensus attributing the authorship of the two works to the historical Procopius of Caesarea and the near-consensus positing thatthe first edition of the former (Wars books one through seven) and the latter werec omposed together and completed at the turno ft he 550s.²¹ The prefaceo ft he Wars anticipates that its readers will be actively engagedi nf orming judgmentsa bout the relationship between the present and the past,²² while the opening of book  In asomewhat similar vein, J. Grethlein,H ow not to do history:X erxes in Herodotus' Histories. American Journal of Philology  (),  -:  offers a "metahistorical" reading of the Persian council scene in Herodotus "as an implicit commentary on the usefulness of the Histories."  A. Kaldellis,The dateand structureofProkopios' Secret History and his projected work on Church history. GRBS  (),  -,r ebuts efforts by B. Croke,P rocopius' Secret History:r ethinkingt he date." GRBS  (),  -,t or evivea rguments in favoro falater date( /)f or the SecretH istory;s ee also Greatrex,P erceptions (as footnote  above),  -.L.Van Hoof /P .Van Nuffelen,The historiographyofc risis:Jordanes, Cassiodorus, and Justinian in mid-sixth-century Constantinople. JRS  (),  -,e sp.  -, sketch how military and ecclesiastical crises in these years ( -)stimulated historiographical production within elite circles in Constantinople.  "Nothinggreater or mightier than those deeds that occurred in these wars will be apparent to anyone, at anyrate, whowishes to base his judgment on the truth (τῷ γε ὡς ἀληθῶςτεκμηριοῦσθαι βουλομένῳ). Forinthem have been performed moreremarkable feats than anyofthose we know by report (ὧν ἀκοῇἴ σμεν,c f. Thuc. .), unless ar eadero ft his narrative (τις τῶντ ά δε ἀναλεγομένων)gives the placeofhonor to antiquity and considers contemporary achievements unworthyt ob ed eemed remarkable" (Wars .. -). On the literary self-consciousness apparenti nt he preface of the Wars,s ee now M. Kruse,A rchery in the preface to Procopius' Wars:afigured imageo fa gonistic authorship. Studies in Late Antiquity  (),  -; F. B asso /G .G reatrex,H ow to interpret Procopius' preface to the Wars,i nL illington-Mar-eight (whichappeared in 552 or 553) celebratest he wide readership the first edition had attained.²³ Procopius' works are replete with cross-references that demonstrate their interrelations and their interdependence upon one another.²⁴ Literary-theoretical approaches -notably, narratology,r eader-response theory, and the studyofintertextuality -provide critical lenses that equip us to identify and appreciate the very qualities that Procopius' works predicate of themselves.²⁵ In particular, these approachesa ssign agency to implied²⁶ or inscribed²⁷ readers in finding meaning by recognizing and responding to the indeterminacy,reflexivity,and interpretability of texts. Book threeofthe Wars,Procopius' narrative of the ascendant phase of Justinian'sVandal War, displays techniques and effects that have been recognizedi no ther monuments of classical and classicizing historiography.²⁸ Itsrelationship with its audience is remarkably nuanced. Figuring its readersasspectators who are uninvolved in and insulated from the risks and consequences of conflict,i ta ligns itself with participants in conflict,both combatants and civilians,²⁹ selectively disclosing and withholding tin/Turquois (eds.), Procopius (as in footnote  above),  -;P .R ance,N ew viewpoints on Procopius. Histos  (), xciii -cvi: xciv -xcv.  "The narrative that has been written (δεδιήγηται)bymeuptothis point has been composed (ξυγγέγραπται), as far as possible, by separating the material into books that focus on the different theaters of war,a nd these books have alreadyb een published and have appeared in every corner of the Roman empire" (τοὺςλ ό γους, οἵπερ ἤδη ἐξενεχθέντες πανταχόθι δεδήλωνται τῆς Ῥωμαίων ἀρχῆς, Wars ..;r eiterateda t .  .  :γράμμασι γὰρτ ο ῖ ςἐ ςτ ὸπ ᾶ νδ εδηλωμένοις).  CompareA v. Cameron,P rocopius and the sixth century.L ondon ,  -.  Recent guides aimed at classicists include T. Schmitz,M odern literary theory and ancient texts: an introduction. Malden, MA ,a nd I. J. F. de Jong,N arratology and classics.Apractical guide. Oxford .  An "implied" reader is one who, in the definiton of W. I ser,The act of reading:atheory of aesthetic response. Baltimore , , "embodies all those predispositions necessary for aliterary work to exercise its effect."  "The kind of reader that the text posits":D .F eeney,B ecominga na uthority:H oraceo nh is own reception, in L. B.T. Houghton /M .Wyke( eds.), Perceptions of Horace:aRoman poet and his readers.C ambridge /N ew York ,  -:  - and note ,c itingS .R.S uleiman.  Seminal reader-centered approaches include, for Thucydides,W .R.C onnor,T hucydides. Princeton ,and T. Rood,Thucydides:narrative and explanation. Oxford ;for Tacitus, E. O'Gorman,Ironyand misreadinginthe Annals of Tacitus.Cambridge ;for Herodotus,E. Baragwanath,M otivation and narrative in Herodotus. Oxford ;f or Ammianus, G. Kelly, AmmianusM arcellinus:t he allusive historian. Cambridge .C ontrast the Straussian approach to Procopius in Kaldellis,P rocopius( as footnote  above).  CompareA .Golz,A nspruch und Wirklichkeit -Überlegungen zu Prokops Darstellungo stgotischer Herrscher und Herrscherinnen, in G. Greatrex /S .J anniard( eds.), Le monde de Procope/The world of Procopius.P aris ,  -:  -,o nP rocopius as an author "embedded" in combat not unlikeacontemporary war correspondent. access to their thoughts and experiences, demonstrating the limits of narratability and dissimulating its representation of historical reality within asilence that stands in marked contrast to the truth-making claims of the Secret History. When this letter had been brought to Tzazo, and he had disclosedi ts contents to the Vandals,t hey turned to wailinga nd lamentation -not openly, however,b ut concealing their feelings as much as possible and avoidingt he noticeofthe islanders, silently among themselves they bewailed their present state.
Tzazo'sreception of Gelimer'sletter and the disclosure of its contents to the Vandals in Sardinia set the scene for the culminating and concluding moment in book three of the Wars. As such, the episode serves as the fulcrum around which the overarchingt wo-book structure of Procopius' narrative of Justinian's Vandal War(i. e., books threeand four of the Wars)turns. Procopius' declaration that Tzazo'sV andals, having been apprised of Gelimer'sd efeat at Ad Decimum, "were grieving in silence" (σιωπῇ … ὠδύροντο)u nmistakablyechoes the historian'si mageo fJ ustinian'sg enerals and senior ministers "grieving in silence" (σιωπῇ … ὀδυρομένων,3 .10.8 [A1])³² over the emperor'so riginal decision to launch the expedition. The juxtaposition of these two moments effectively bookends the opening act of the Vandal Wara nd makesthe plight of Justinian'sofficials at the outset of the conflict,o no ne hand,a nd that of Tzazo'sV andals on Sardinia at its cliffhangingclimax, on the other,into an unexpectedly ironic doublet. The reduction of these two groups to grieving in silence does neither of them credit.J ustinian'sofficials are cowed and submissive,and theydissimulate their concerns until John the Cappadocian steps forward. By the same token, the Vandals on Sardinia are stunned and bewildered by the news reachingt hem from the mainland, but their need to keep face and to avoid betraying their discomfiture to their subjects on the island obliges them to stifle their emotions and mask their reactions. Procopius constructs the subjectivity of the Vandals in remarkable detail, describingh ow they abandon themselvest ot he performance of grieving and yethow at the same time they dissimulate and obfuscate those impulsesfrom outsiders, caught in the dilemma of deploring theirsituation without being able to sayo rt od oa nything about it.
On the face of it,these two moments validatenot onlyJustinian'simpetuousness in presumingt oa ttack the Vandals in the first place but also the various interests thate ventuallyp revailed upon the emperor to go through with the expedition.³³ With the benefit of hindsight,t he cautiousness and aversion to  The parallel is heightened by the similarity of the twop hrases takena sawhole, which lay stress upon an immediatelyp ressing dilemma: τῶν ἄλλων σιωπῇ τὰςπ αρούσας ὀδυρομένων τύχας, ..;c f. σιωπῇἐ φ 'ἑ αυτῶν τὰ παρόντα σφίσιν ὠδύροντο, ...  Cf. Brodka,P rokopios (as footnote  above),  -.P rocopius extends the parallel with Herodotus (footnote  supra; cf. Hdt. . -), when he reports that Justinian'se nthusi-risk that Procopius imputes to the Romanofficials as agroup, and that John the Cappadocian articulates (and, at first,s uccessfullyp resses in his speech in opposition to Justinian), seems in this moment to have been discredited by the course of events. So toothe brutal reversaloffortune experienced by the Vandals in Sardinia, upon theirreceipt of Gelimer'sletter,and their consequent struggles to masktheir emotions and to avoid making aspectacle of themselvesbefore the island'si nhabitants would seem to elevatea nd to celebrate Justinian'sc ause at their expense.
Procopius situates himself -or,r ather,s ituates the voice of the Procopian narrator,the narratorial persona thatthe text constructs for itself -in close proximity to these events. Not onlydoProcopius' readers experience John the Cappadocian'si ntervention with Justinian and the discomfitureofthe Vandals on Sardinia with fly-on-the-wall immediacy, but they alsoa ccess the innermost, undisclosed, and deliberatelymasked thoughts and emotions of the participants themselves.
In the former case, the narrator makes ap anoramic survey.When Justinian announced his planst oh is officials (ἐςτ ὰ ςἀ ρχάς, Wars 3.10.2), most (οἱ πλεῖστοι)reacted unfavorably, mindful of the debacles sustainedagainst the Vandals in the previous century;especiallydistressed werethe praetorian prefect and the officers of the fisc, who would be expected to finance the expedition (3);³⁴ the generals shrank from the magnitude of the undertaking (4); the soldiers, recently recalled from the East,weren onplussed at the prospect of marinew arfare and unfamiliar opponents (5); "but all the rest,asusually happens in large crowds,³⁵ wished to be spectators of new adventures (νεωτέρων πραγμάτων … θεαταὶ γενέσθαι [B1]),³⁶ while others faced the dangers" (6).
Such sweeping declarations, informed by narratorial omniscience, are authorized by the conventions of classicizing historiography; they advancet he asm for the war was rekindled by an Eastern bishop whoh ad experienced an epiphanyi na dream and expressed divine endorsementfor the idea (Wars .. -). Other sourcesattributingarangeofmotivesfor the expedition areconvenientlysurveyed by Kaldellis,inH.B.Dewing (trans.), Prokopios. The wars of Justinian, revised by A. Kaldellis.Indianapolis ,  note .  See further footnote  infra.  "As usuallyhappens in large crowds" (ἅπερ ἐν ὁμίλῳ φιλεῖ γίγνεσθαι): cf. Thuc. .. (ὅπερ φιλεῖὅμιλος ποιεῖν), .., .., ..;onthese expressions,see V. Hunter,Thucydides and the sociology of the crowd. Classical Philology  (),  -.  The Persian kingC hosroes is "of unstable mind and irrationallyf ond of innovations" (ἄτακτόςτεἦντὴνδιάνοιαν καὶ νεωτέρων πραγμάτων ἐραστὴς ἄτοπος, Wars ..), qualities that alignw ith Procopius' presentation of him as as pectator (θεατής)e lsewherei nt he work: see footnote  infra. On Justinian as an innovator( νεωτεροποιός), see footnotes - infra. analysis of the situation at hand and do not sustain close scrutinyi nto the historian'ss ources and methods.³⁷ Procopius seems to be indicating,a ll the same, that speculation about an imperial expedition against the Vandals extended well beyond elite policy-making circles, and the distinction he drawsbetween conflict aversion on the part of those who would be responsible for carryingout the mission, on one hand, and the enthusiasm of those in the masses who would experience conflict onlya ss pectators (θεαταί), on the other,³⁸ is significant not only in the context of the sequel involving Tzazo'sV andals, as will be discussed presently, but also with reference to the relationship that Procopius' text constructs with its readers,who are also in the position of spectators vicariouslyexperiencing the struggles of its characters.³⁹  Comparable is Thucydides' analysis of the balanceo fo pinion in Greece at the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War(  .  ).  Agathias could be describing the ironic inversion of this scenario duringthe Kotrigur attack on Constantinople in ,w henh ew rites of the ragtag civilian defenders hastilya ssembled under Belisarius, "the whole crowd clearlyh ad no weapons and was inexperienced in war, and onlybecause of their inexperiencethey thoughtthat dangers produced the greatestpleasure and they had come morefor aspectacle than to be drawn up for battle" (τὸ δὲ λοιπὸν ἅπαν πλῆθος ἄνοπλόντ εἦ νπ εριφανῶςκ α ὶἀ π ό λεμον καὶ μόνῳ τῷἀ πείρως ἔχειν ἡδίστους ἡγούμενοι τοὺςκ ινδύνους θέας τε ἕνεκα μᾶλλον ἢ παρατάξεως ἀφιγμένοι, ..,t rans.S .D.S mith).  Plutarch figuresr eaders as spectators in praising the vividness (ἐνάργεια)o fT hucydides' writing: "AssuredlyT hucydides is always strivingf or this vividness in his writing, sincei ti s his desiretomake the readeraspectator (θεατὴνποιῆσαι τὸν ἀκροατήν), as it were, and to produce vividlyinthe minds of those who peruse his narrative the emotions of amazement and consternation which weree xperienced by those whob eheld them" (de glor.A th. a, trans.B abbitt). As J. Grethlein,Social minds and narrative time: collective experience in Thucydides and Heliodorus. Narrative  (),  -:  -,p oints out,w ith reference to this passage: "The internal spectators arec rucial to 'makingt he reader as pectator.' Prefiguringt he reception of the reader,the embedded audiencelets the readersee the action through the lens of an eyewitness." Procopius' formulation stresses the differenceand the distancebetween reception and experience: "As absorbed as we can getbynarratives, the experiences in our reception always remain within the frame of 'as-if'":J .Grethlein,P hilosophical and structuralist narratologies -worlds apart?, in J. Grethlein /A.Rengakos (eds.), Narratology and interpretation: the content of narrative form in ancient literature. Berlin /New York ,  -: .Thucydides offers his readers at ext that equips them "to look clearly" at the past (τὸ σαφὲςσ κοπεῖν, Thuc. ..,with E. Greenwood,Thucydides and the shaping of history.L ondon ,  -), and yetimplicates them in emotionally-and rhetorically-chargedspectacles that complicate critical analysis;see R. Harman,Metahistory and the visual in Herodotus and Thucydides,inA. Kampakoglou /A.Novokhatko(eds.), Gaze, vision,and visuality in ancient Greek literature. Berlin ,  -:  -.L ikeT hucydides,P rocopius relieso ni nternal focalization that enables his readers to experienceh istorical uncertainty and contingencyt hrought he perceptions of his characters; see F. K. Maier,D ealingw ith the invisible -war in Procopius,i bid.  -.O nt he representation of spectators in Greek historiographym oreg enerally, see If this opening episodei so ne bookend of the first act of Justinian'sV andal War, as has been suggested, which constructs aP rocopiann arrator capable of exposing and exploring silences that dissimulate concerns and emotions that his characters daren ot disclose, the corresponding bookend, which reaches its crescendo once Tzazo and his forces reunite with Gelimer and the rest of the Vandals on the mainlanda tB ulla Regia, explodes thosec onventions.⁴⁰ It is marked by astriking aside in the first-person voice of the narrator,who confesses al imit to his powers of historiographical representation and destabilizes the relationship between his narrative and its implied audience of reader-spectators C2]): καὶ πεζῇ βαδίζοντες ἀφικνοῦνται ἐςτ ὸΒούλλης πεδίον, οὗ δὴἀ νεμίγνυντο τῷἄ λλῳ στρατῷ. ἐνταῦθα συχνὰἐ λ έ ου πολλοῦἄ ξια Βανδίλοις ξυνέβη, ἅπερ ἔγωγε οὐκ ἂν ἔτι φράσαι ἱκανῶς ἔχοιμι. οἶμαι γὰρεἰκαὶ αὐτῶνπολεμίων ἀνδρὶ θεατῇ γενέσθαι τετύχηκε, τάχα ἂνκ α ὶα ὐ τ ὸ ςΒ ανδίλους τε τότε καὶ τύχην τὴν ἀνθρωπείαν ᾠκτίσατο.
They reached the plain of Bulla travelingo nf oot,where they joined the rest of the army. And in that placet herew erem anym ost pitiable scenes amongt he Vandals, which I, at least, could never relate as they deserve. ForIthink that even if one of the enemythemselves had happened to be as pectator at that time, he would probablyh avef elt pity for the Vandals and human fortune generally.
On Sardinia, Tzazo and his Vandals had suppressed their emotions and concerns preciselytoa void making spectacles of themselvesbefore the islanders; once reunited with their fellows and their families, they are no longer undert he same constraint.T he narrator confesses his inability to represent the intensity of these moments in his prose: they exceed his powers of expression, but he does not condemn them as excessive;indeed, he claims, even ahostile spectator (θεατής)hardlycould have refrained from pitying the Vandals and acknowledging in them ac ommon humanity and shared vulnerability.
The passagei sr ecognizable genericallya sa" pathos statement" familiar from Thucydides,⁴¹ but Procopius' contrafactual scenario introducesaparadox: even ah ostile spectatorl ikelyw ould have pitied the Vandals, had he observed A. D. Walker,Enargeia and the spectator in Greek historiography. Transactions of the American Philological Association  (),  -.  This is to saythat Procopius, in the first "bookend," invokesexpectations about the relationship between readers and spectators(as articulated in the preceding note), onlytosubvert those very expectations, in the second. the spectacle at Bulla Regia. Had ah ostile spectator been present (as on Sardinia), however,t he Vandals likelyw ould not have made as pectacle of themselves. The absenceo fs pectators is the condition that allows the Vandals to break silence and to grieveo penly -making,a si tw ere, an anti-spectacle of themselves. The contrast between the Vandals' comportment on Sardinia and at BullaR egia, respectively,e xposest he limits of the Procopian narrator of the Wars,who can penetrate others' self-imposed silencesbut whose inability to represent an absence -in this instance, the anti-spectacle at BullaR egia -dissimulates those moments within as ilence of their own, which is marked in Procopius' text as the trace of an undisclosed reality or,o ne might say, of a varnished truth.
The implicit identificationo fP rocopius' contrafactual spectator (θεατής, Wars 3.25.23 [B2])a tB ulla Regiaw ith the crowd of spectators (θεαταί,3 .10.6 [B1]), whose enthusiasm for ap rospective Vandal Warw as conditioned by their uninvolvement in its dangers, secures the relationship between the two "bookends" of the "first act" of Justinian'sV andal Wara si ti sr epresented in book three of the Wars.⁴² To the extent that Procopius' text also figures its implied audience of readers as spectators who experience the strugglesofits characters vicariously, as has been suggested abovewith reference to Procopius' panoramic survey of reactions to the prospect of attacking the Vandals, the reunion of the Vandals at BullaRegia effaces the relationship of narrative to narratee, of text to reader,ofspectacle to spectator:asProcopius goes on to relate, the situation is one that defies description or explanation.
The Vandals themselves, engrossed in their plight,h aven ow ords nor,i ndeed, anyneed for words in order to understand one another.Procopius stresses the ineffability and the impenetrable interiority of their interactions : ForGelimer and Tzazo threwtheir arms about each other'snecks and could not let go, yet they spoke not aw ordt oe ach other (οὐδὲνμ έ ντοι ἐς ἀλλήλους ἐφθέγγοντο), but kept graspingtheir hands and weeping,and each of the Vandals with Gelimer embraced one of those whoh ad come from Sardinia in the same way. And they stoodf or al ong time as if grown together (ὥσπερ ἀλλήλοις ἐμπεφυκότες)a nd found such comforta st hey could in this, and neither did the men of Gelimer ask about [the rebel on Sardinia] Goda (for their present fortune had so stunned them that they wereinclined to disregard matters that had previouslyseemed to them most important), nor could those whocame from Sardinia bring  The word θεατής appears onlyf our times in the Wars. It is used elsewherei naconcrete sense when Chosroes appears as as pectator in the hippodrome at Apameia (..)a nd againwhen he is seated (like Xerxes at Salamis)a sa no bserver of the siegeo fP etra in Colchis (..); cf. HA ., ..S ee also footnote  supra.
themselves to ask (ἐρωτᾶντιἠξίουν)about what had happened in Libya. Forthe place was sufficient for them to infer what had come to pass (ἱκανὸςγὰ ρα ὐ τοῖς ὁ χῶρος τεκμηριῶσαι τὰ ξυμπεσόντα ἐγίνετο). Indeed, they made no mention (λόγον ἐποιοῦντό τινα)evenoftheir own wivesa nd children, knowing well (ἐξεπιστάμενοι)t hat whoever was not therew ith them had either died or fallen into the hands of the enemy. Thus,t hen, did these things happen.
Relying upon intuition and nonverbal cues, consumed by grief and the enormity of loss, and reelingfrom the frustration of theirhopesand expectations, the Vandals huddle together and form ac losed circle, practicallym eltingi nto one another.⁴³ Procopius' confession of his own inadequacy as ah istoriographer at this moment results not from an information deficit or af ailureo fi magination, but rather from his professed inability to conveyt he inarticulate and unarticulated grief of his subjects.Asanarrator,heconspicuouslyfailstofind words capable of conveying the Vandals' loss for words, makingaspectacle of himself by inscribing within his text an arrative vacuum, an absence -as ilence -thata uthorizes his reader-spectators to reflect more widelyu pon circumspect,r ecalcitrant,o ru nforthcoming qualities of the work in front of them.
The praetorian prefect,J ohn, was ac rookedc haracter and so skillful at devisingw ayso f bringingm oney into the public treasury to the detrimentofm en that I, for my part, would never be able to describe him sufficiently.
Procopius will go on to relatehow John the Cappadocian pursued the false economyofp rovisioningt he expedition against the Vandals with under-baked hardtack biscuit,⁴⁵ which was cheaper to produce and disburse; by the time the fleet put in at Methone in the southwestern Peloponnesus, however,i ts provisions had disintegratedand spoiled, causing,Procopius claims, the deaths of five hundred men. Even after Belisarius had rescuedt he situation by procuringr ations locallya nd had informed Justinian of John'sm alfeasance,t he emperorf ailed to hold him to account (3.13.15 -20).⁴⁶ Procopius himself accompanied the expedition as Belisarius' assessor and aide-de-camp and witnessed these events at first hand.⁴⁷ He shows his reader how the episode fits into the largerp ortrait of John'sv illainy, culminatingi n his fall from Justinian'sf avor and forced ordination, thatP rocopius has already recounted in book one of the Wars (3.13.13): ἀλλὰ ταῦτα μὲνκ α ὶ< ἐ ν >τοῖς ἔμπροσθεν λόγοις ἐρρήθη, ἡνίκα πρὸςτ ῆ ςἱ στορίας ἐςτ ό δε ἠγόμην τοῦ λόγου. This narratorial analepsis refers to the Nika rebellion in  CE, when John was dismissedfromthe prefecture. Procopius uses comparable languagep rolepticallyw henr eferringt oB elisarius' capture of Sicilyi n  CE: "The wayi nw hich this was done will be told by me in subsequent books,w hen my narrative leads me into my investigation of events in Italy" (ὅντινα δὲ τρόπον, ἐντ ο ῖ ςὄ πισθέν μοι λόγοις λελέξεται, ὅτε με ὁ λόγος ἐςτ ῶ νἸ ταλικῶνπ ραγμάτων τὴν ἱστορίαν ἄγει, ..). Now Procopius once again picks up the thread (3.13.14): "Iwill explain here how he destroyed the soldiers" (τὰ δὲ νῦν ὅτῳ ποτὲ τρόπῳ τούτους δὴ τοὺςσ τρατιώτας διεχρήσατο ἐρῶν ἔρχομαι).
This scandal over provisioning the Vandal expedition substantiates the covert objection, discussed above, that Procopius had attributed to John the Cappadocian at the initial prospect of attacking the Vandals -namely, that it would fall to him as praetorian prefect to find the money to outfit the expedition.⁴⁹ On that occasion, John broket he silence that had gripped the other officials in order to spare himself, abovea ll, from having to meet this burden. Itss equel, once the expedition has gone forward in spite of John'so bjections, exposest he depths of his unscrupulousness and shows thatt he earlier narratorial intervention was subtlyp roleptic. In resumingt he story of John'sv illainya nd slotting it into its place in his firsthand account of the progress of the expedition against the Vandals, Procopius displays surehanded control over his material and a keen sense of the shape that his line of inquiry,h is ἱστορία,i mposes on the selection and arrangement of thatm aterial.
The samee mphatic, first-person voice that announcest he unfathomability of John the Cappadocian'ss cheming remindsP rocopius' readers, nevertheless, of the path along which the historian'si nquiry has led, and,w ith something of aH erodotean flavor,⁵⁰ it brooks no equivocation about the consequences of John'sb ehavior.A si st he case with the Vandals at BullaR egia, and unlike other first-person interventions in the Wars,h owever,Procopius is figuring himself not as an investigator-participant whose declaration authenticates some-In these passages, ἱστορία ("[historical] investigation")s eems to refer to the reconstruction of a past constituted out of τὰ πράγματα ("events"), which, on one hand, is generative of λόγος ("narrative")a nd, on the other,i so rganized and articulated by it.  Wars ..: "But the men who weret he most sorrowful of all and who, by reasono ft heir anxiety,f elt the keenest apprehension (μάλιστα δὲἤ λγουν τε καὶ περιώδυνοι τῇ μερίμνῃἐ γ ίνοντο), were the praetorian prefect,w hom the Romans call praetor (ὅ τε τῆςα ὐ λ ῆ ςἔ παρχος, ὃνδὴπραίτωρα καλοῦσι Ῥωμαῖοι …), also the administrator of the treasury (… καὶὁτοῦ ταμιείου ἡγούμενος), and all to whomhad been assigned the collection of either public or imperial taxes, for they reasoned that whilei tw ould be necessary for them to produce countless sums for the needs of the war,they would be granted neither flexibility nor anyextensions." Af ormer praetorian prefect,A rchelaus,a ccompanied the expedition with responsibility for thing he has personally witnessed,⁵¹ but rather as an author/narrator confronted by the limits of narratability,s ignalingt he impossibility of expressingt he inexpressible.⁵² Prior occasions on which John the Cappadocian is introduced in the Wars lay stress upon his outsized and uncannyq ualities. Accordingt oP rocopius, John was untouched by liberal studies and classical paideia;his superlative attributes are, to the contrary,i nnate : He learned nothingatgrammar school other than the letters themselves, and poorlyatthat. But through the strength of his natural ability (φύσεως … ἰσχύϊ)hebecame the most powerful (δυνατώτατος)m an of our times, for he was the most capable (ἱκανώτατος)a tk nowing what had to be done and at findings olutions to practical problems.H owever,h ea lso became the most wicked (πονηρότατος)o fa ll men and benta ll the force of his naturet oi t ( τ ῇτ ῆ ςφ ύ σεως δυνάμει ἐςτ ο ῦ το ἐχρῆτο).⁵³ So tooi nt he deliberations about the expedition against the Vandals, John is "a man of the greatest daring and the cleverest of all men of his time" (θρασύτατός τε ὢνκ α ὶδεινότατος τῶνκ ατ' αὐτὸν ἁπάντων,3 .10.7).⁵⁴ John'ssilence-breaking intervention in these deliberations is of apiece with the transgressive,larger-than-life persona thatProcopius constructs for him elsewherei nt he Wars. The Cappadocian'sf all from grace presented Procopius with an opening to expose his maladministration and to offer the kind of unsparing criticism that wasa uthorized by the truth-telling claims of classicizing historiography.⁵⁵ As the Procopiann arrator declaresi nt he prefacet ot he Wars  1.4), "to rhetoric cleverness is appropriate;topoetry,inventiveness; and to history,t ruth" (πρέπειν … ῥητορικῇ μὲνδ εινότητα, ποιητικῇ δὲ μυθοποιΐαν, ξυγγραφῇ δὲἀ λ ή θειαν). He insists that he has composed the work with scrupulous attention to detail, omitting the shortcomingso fn one of the figures inscribed within, includingt hose of his close associates.⁵⁶ While the Wars proclaims its fidelity to historical truth, however,the Secret History undermines those claims by presentingi tself as an esoteric supplement and corrective.I nc ontrast to the third-person narratorial voice of the Wars that identifiesi tself with Procopius of Caesarea, in the manner of classical historiography,⁵⁷ the first-person voice of the Secret History refrains from identifying itself,but it asserts that it will reveal causes(αἰτίαι)that the Wars was obligedt oc onceal.⁵⁸ The two works are strikingly concordant in their portrayal of John the Cappadocian; yet, even wheret he disgraced praetorian prefect is concerned, the Secret History intimates how much the Wars leavesu nsaid.⁵⁹ John'si ntervention in the deliberations over the Vandal expedition is framed, as we have seen, by Procopius' damning portrait of his depravity and selves: the Byzantine outsider.Burlington, VT ,  -,argues that the material on John the Cappadocian in book one of the Wars was originallyi ntended for the SecretH istory.  "Accordingly,h eh as not concealed the shameful deeds of even his most intimatea cquaintances but has written down with complete accuracy everythingthat happened to all concerned, whether it was done wellb yt hem or not" (ταῦτά τοι οὐδέ του τῶνο ἱἐ ςἄ γαν ἐπιτηδείων τὰ μοχθηρὰἀ πεκρύψατο, ἀλλὰ τὰ πᾶσι ξυνενεχθέντα ἕκαστα ἀκριβολογούμενος ξυνεγράψατο, εἴτε εὖ εἴτε πη ἄλλῃ αὐτοῖςε ἰ ργάσθαι ξυνέβη, Wars ..).  "Procopius of Caesarea has written the history of the wars …" (Προκόπιος Καισαρεὺςτ ο ὺ ς πολέμους ξυνέγραψεν, Wars ..). See H. Lieberich,S tudien zu den Proömien in der griechischen und byzantinischen Geschichtsschreibung, II. Teil: Die byzantinischen Geschichtsschreiber und Chronisten. Programm des Königlichen RealgymnasiumsM ünchen /,  -.  Comparee sp. Wars .. (footnote  supra) with HA .: "Moreover,Iwas forced to conceal the causes of manyoft he events that In arrated in earlier books.I ti st herefore incumbent on me here to reveal what had previouslyremained concealed as well as to disclose the causes of those events that Id id report there" (ἀλλὰ καὶ πολλῶντ ῶ νἐ ντ ο ῖ ςἔ μπροσθεν λόγοις εἰρημένων ἀποκρύψασθαι τὰςα ἰ τ ί ας ἠναγκάσθην. τὰ [τό] τε [δ'] οὖντ έ ως ἄρρητα μείναντα καὶ τῶν ἔμπροσθεν δεδηλωμένων ἐνταῦθά μοι τοῦ λόγου τὰςα ἰ τ ί ας σημῆναι δεήσει). Greatrex, Composition (as footnote  above),  note ,a lso compares τὰ μοχθηρὰ in Wars .. with HA .: διά τοι ταῦτα πρῶτα μὲν ὅσα Βελισαρίῳ μοχθηρὰ εἴργασται ἐρῶν ἔρχομαι· ὕστερον δὲ καὶὅ σα Ἰουστινιανῷ καὶ Θεοδώρᾳ μοχθηρὰ εἴργασται ἐγὼ δηλώσω ("Iw ill, therefore, proceed to relatef irst all the wretched deeds that wered one by Belisarius; then Iw ill testify to all the wretched deeds done by Justinian and Theodora"). On the relationship between the two works, see now A. Kaldellis,P rocopius'sV andal War: thematic trajectories and hidden transcripts,i nS .T.S tevens /J .P.C onant,( eds.), North Africa under Byzantium and early Islam. Washington,D C,  -.  See Greatrex,Composition (as footnote  above), esp.  -. the circumstances of his downfall, on one side, and by the uncannyi nventiveness and the brazen indifference he displayedt owardt he health and readiness of the imperial forces in the scandal over provisioning the Vandal expedition, on the other.Wehavealsoseen how Procopius supplies the motive for (or the cause of)t hat scandal -its αἰτία -by revealing whyt he praetorian prefect and other treasury officials, in particular,were "grieving in silence" about Justinian'splans for invadingA frica.⁶⁰ Heret he narrator of the Wars showsh imself capable of penetrating the self-imposed silences of others, as is subsequentlyt he case with the Vandals on Sardinia. As is the case with the Vandals at Bulla Regia, however,the narrator of the Wars subsequentlyconfesses his inability to fathom the inexplicable qualities and capacities he attributes to John.
These overarching and mutually-reinforcingstructures demonstrate the control that the narrator of the Wars exercises over his narrative,evenasthey destabilize the relationship between thatnarrative and the historical truth it claims to represent.Insofar as the Secret History otherwise undermines the truth claims of the Wars,but John the Cappadocian'sdownfallauthorizes its narrator to be completelyf rank and forthcominga bout John'sd eficiencies, the reticencet he Wars displays about John is all the more striking;m uch the samec an be said about its treatment of the defeated Vandals at Bulla Regia, about whom Procopius might have been as curt and dismissive as he pleased. Yett he Wars uses wholly distinctive language, first,toc haracterize John'sa nd the Vandals' respective dilemmas as "grieving in silence" [A1, A2 (cf. A3,discussed below)] and, second, to confess Procopius' inability to describe or explain theiri nteriorityo nce their silence has been broken [C1, C2]. At the liminal moment of the breakingo fs ilence in each of the two situations, moreover,t he implied reader of the Wars is figured, first,a mong at hrongo fs pectators whose eagerness at the prospect of action against the Vandals is inverselyc orrelated with their accountability for the consequences and, second, as aw ould-be voyeur of the anti-spectacle at Bulla Regia [B1, B2].

IV
At the point at which the Vandal expedition is proposed, accordingly, the reader of the Wars is inclined to evaluateJ ohn'si ntervention skepticallya nd, once John'ss cheming and maladministration in provisioning the expedition is exposed, justified in validatingt hat stance. As we have seen, John'sm otivation  Wars ..;s ee footnote  supra.
for opposing the expedition is patent: his interest in avoiding responsibility for the demands that would be placed upon the treasury,werethe expedition to go forward, is self-serving, but to the extent that resources were in fact unavailing, his concerns are not without merit.

(a) Procopius :H erodotus (b)J ohn the Cappadocian :A rtabanus (c)J ustinian:Xerxes
The allusioni ss traightforward: John the Cappadocian is figured, however improbably, as aHerodotean "wise advisor," whose insights into the human condition and the vagaries of fortune recommend apolicy of conflict aversion that momentarilyr estrains the impetuosity of the monarch.⁶⁴ Justinian is figured in the corresponding role with scant elaboration: unlike Xerxes, he does not make a speech setting out his position, nor does he offer ar esponse to the objections lodgedagainst him.⁶⁵ Indeed, Procopius is selective and focused in his treatment of the episode as aw hole. He seems careful, in particular, to avoid placing Belisarius in arole correspondingtothatofMardonius,Xerxes' ambitious and overweeningg eneral,⁶⁶ offering the ameliorating explanation that,u nbeknownst even to Belisarius, Justinian had recalledh im from the East in order to lead the expedition while the story was bruited about that he had been dismissed from his command.⁶⁷ If the Herodotean "wise advisor" provides the template for the episode at the level of the story,however,Procopius' text introducesasecond, Thucydidean, intertext that,p aradoxically, both reinforces and subverts this pattern. When Justinian decides to move against Gelimer,the Procopian narrator describes the emperor as "quick to devise ap lan and tireless in carrying out his decisions" (ἦν γὰρ ἐπινοῆσαί τε ὀξὺςκαὶἄοκνοςτὰβεβουλευμένα ἐπιτελέσαι,3.9.25), unmistakablya ppropriatingl anguaget hat Thucydides' Corinthians use, in the debate at Sparta in 432B CE that precipitates the Peloponnesian War( Thuc. 1.68 -71), to  Comparei nt his respect the efforts of Proclusa sq uaestor to coolJ ustin I'se nthusiasm for adoptingC hosroes (Wars .. -); see Pazdernik,Q uaestor (as footnote  above), esp.  -.  CompareH dt. ., .S ee further footnotes ,  supra.  CompareM ardonius' speech (Hdt. .), which earns ar ebuke from Artabanus (.η).  Incensed at the effrontery of Gelimer,J ustinian resolvedt oc onclude hostilitiesw ith Persia and to attack the Vandals, "and Belisarius,t he general of the East,was summoned and came to him immediately, not because it had been announced to him or anyone else that he was about to lead an armya gainst Libya, but it was giveno ut that he had been removedf romt he officeh eh eld" (καὶ … παρῆνμ ὲ να ὐ τ ῷμετάπεμπτος ὁ τῆς ἑῴας στρατηγὸςΒ ελισάριος, οὐχ ὅτι ἐςΛ ιβύην στρατηγήσειν μέλλοι προειρημένον αὐτῷἢἄ λλῳὁ τ ῳ ο ῦ ν ,ἀ λλὰ τῷ λόγῳ παραλέλυτο ἧςε ἶχεν ἀρχῆς, Wars ..). Belisarius had been discreditedfollowingthe Persian victory at Callinicum:s ee G. Greatrex /S .N.C.L ieu (eds.), The Roman eastern frontier and the Persian wars. Part II: AD  -.Anarrative sourcebook. London /N ew York ,  -.U nmentioned herei sB elisarius' rolei ns uppressingt he Nika rebellion (cf. .. -).
contrast the intrepid, grasping nationalcharacter of the Athenians with the stolid, reactionary character of the Spartans: "[The Athenians]a re innovators and are quick to devise aplan and then to carry it out in action" (οἱ μένγενεωτεροποιοὶ καὶἐ πινοῆσαι ὀξεῖςκ α ὶἐ πιτελέσαι ἔργῳἃἂ νγ ν ῶ σιν,T huc. 1.70.2,t rans. Woodruff, modified).⁶⁸ Unless the Spartans act (the existing truce, the so-called Thirty Years Peace, notwithstanding), the Athenians' momentum will become irresistible -or so the Corinthians insist.
Procopius' allusion to Thucydidesi sp ointed. He repeats the same claim about Justinian in an unmistakablyderogatory sense in two places in the Secret History. ⁶⁹ In book twoo ft he Wars,m oreover,h ec auses envoys of Vittigis,t he king the Goths, to echo the same Thucydidean intertext in appealing to Chosroes to resume hostilities against Justinian, lest Justinian'svictories in the West upset the balance of power with Persia.⁷⁰ Unless Chosroes acts (the existing truce,the so-called Eternal Peace, notwithstanding), Justinian'smomentumwill become irresistible -or so the Gothic envoys insist.
Herea gain the analogies are straightforward and quitea pt: in am annert hati sw hollyc onsistent with the allusions in the Secret History. Less significant for our present purposes is the fact that threeo ft he four allusions unambiguouslys ignal their hostility to Justinian, than thatt hey consistentlyf igure Justiniana sa na nalogue of the Athenians. With this pattern in front of us, two places in John the Cappadocian'sspeech opposing the Vandal expedition are especiallya rresting.
Your good faith, Oe mperor,i nd ealing with your subjects affords us the ability to speak franklyregarding anythingthat will be of advantage to your regime, even though our words and deeds mayn ot be to your liking.
The speakers use certain key words in starklyd iffering ways.J ohn praises the integrity and honesty (τὸ πιστόν)o ft he relationship (ὁμιλία)o ft he emperor toward his subjects for enablingopposing viewpointst hat benefit the state (πολιτεία). The Corinthians charge thatthe honesty and integrity(τὸπιστόν)ofpolitical and social life (πολιτείακαὶὁμιλία)among Spartans makes them resistant to opposing viewpoints.⁷² Thedifferences between the two passages reflect the differing positions of the speakers with respect to theiraddressees. The Corinthians approach the Spartans as exasperated allies,⁷³ while John the Cappadocian presents himself to Justinian as aloyal subordinate.John must insist that his loy- See H. Braun,P rocopius Caesariensis quatenus imitatus sit Thucydidem. Erlangen , .  Debnar,Speaking (as footnote  above), ,argues that τὸ πιστόν was adistinctlySpartan catchword or slogan echoed hereb yt he Corinthians;c f. Pericles at Thuc. ...  "In no other debatei nt he History are the speakers so critical of their audience":i bid., . alty authorizes his παρρησία,h is ostensiblyu nconstrained performancet hat risks incurring displeasure,⁷⁴ while the Corinthians take this prerogative for granted and make every effort to provoke and unsettle.
As we have seen, John'sassertions are undercut by the narrative:others have been cowed into silence, and John is outrageous and self-serving.J ustinian's court is no more welcoming of παρρησία than John is acting in Justinian'si nterests or in those of the commonwealth. John'sbarefaced assertions to the contrary signal his unscrupulousness, while his ability to manipulate Justiniand emonstrates how boldness and cleverness capitalize upon rhetoric'si ndifference to truth. John'ssuccess, however fleeting it turns out to be, is symptomatic of larger political and institutional dysfunction and malaise,atoxic environment that made John not onlyt olerable but indispensable to Justinian and allowed him to operate for so long with impunity,e vena fter the disaster at Methone.⁷⁵ Procopius' Thucydidean intertext drivesh omeJ ohn the Cappadocian'su nsuitability for the role that the story'sHerodotean template presses him into playing.I ndeed, John'so pening allusion to the Corinthians' speech at Sparta is shockingly maladroit: he commences his λόγος ἀποτρεπτικός,aspeech of dissuasion, by ostentatiouslyc iting ac lassic λόγος προτρεπτικός,aspeech of encouragement.⁷⁶ Where Thucydides' Corinthians call for immediate and resolute action,Procopius' John, like Herodotus' Artabanus,counsels moderation and restraint.C onsequently, John'ss peech makes as tartling mismatch between the speaker and his addressee: Quite unlike the analogies that have been examined above, this one fails to cohere.⁷⁷ Justinian, otherwise figured as the Athenians, should not be pressed into the place of the Spartans. The Corinthians, as figured by John, should not be counsellingr estraint.S peaker,s peech, and addressee are confuseda nd out of sync with comparable patterns observable in the worka sawhole. If the opening of John'sspeech is guilty of committingwhat we might call an allusive malapropism -the making of an infelicitous allusion to Thucydidesi n place of am ore appropriate intertext⁷⁸ -then it remains to ask how such a faux pas as this contributes to Procopius' characterization of John. The implied or inscribed readers of the Wars are those who possess the elite literary education that the historical John the Cappadocian, Procopius and others insist,most assuredlylacked. Procopius'stext presents such readerswith an embedded allusion to the Corinthians' speech, voiced by the Gothic ambassadorstoChosroes in book two, that is rhetoricallyand contextuallyapt.I tframes the debate over the Vandal expedition -the centerpiece of which is John'sspeech -with anarratorial allusion to the Corinthians' speech that is contextuallya pt (and that narratorial judgments expressed in the Secret History surreptitiouslye cho).
When Procopius' text,a ccordingly, presents an unlettered, brazen,a nd diabolicallyresourceful John the Cappadocian donning the guise of the wise advisor and essaying acourtlyspeech in favorofconflict aversion -onlytov oice an allusion to the bellicose speech of the Corinthians that goes off the rails with its very first word -readers of the Wars are equipped to see this as caricature and are afforded the pleasure of having their erudition validated at John'se xpense.
One need not posit thatthe embedded speakers themselves, be they John or the Gothic envoys,are "conscious" of alludingtoThucydides -nor,for that matter,that their embeddedaddressees, be they Chosroes or Justinian (whom the Secret History dismisses as barbaric in his speech, his dress,and his intellect⁷⁹), are capable of recognizingthese allusions.⁸⁰ Quite to the contrary, the inaccessibility of the intertextual dimension to these narratively embeddedc haracters reinforces the artificiality of the episodesinwhich they appear and privileges the position of Procopius' readers,w hose superiork nowledge and perspective make them conscious of (and complicit in) the strategies that the Wars employs to construct the historical truth it claims to represent.T ot he extent that Procopius' readers are figured as "spectators of new adventures" (Wars 3.10.6 [B1]), however,whose appetitesare whettedbytheir distance from the action, they remain unimplicatedinand insulated from events in which narratively embedded characters unavoidablyp articipate.

V
Of course, the Wars represents Procopius, ap articipant himself in Justinian's wars, as both the narrator and an embedded character.⁸¹ His position with respect not onlyt oh is fellow character-participants but also to his reader-spectators is correspondinglydouble-edged. The narratorial third-person voice conveys the character'ssolidarity with the officers and soldiers who faced the dangers of the Vandal expedition while affordinga ccess to his subjectivity and reframing his experiencesw ith allusive inter-a nd intratexts.The prospect of sailing with the expedition terrified the character,confides the narrator,until he experienced adream-vision that relieved his anxieties.⁸² He dreamt that,while he was present  The historicity of the letteraddressed by Belisarius to Justinian followinghis occupation and defense of the city of Rome in  (Wars .. -), which is clearlymodelled on the famous letterofNiciasinThucydides (. -)and plausiblywould have been composed by Procopius himself, should not be discounted( K. Adshead,P rocopius' poliorcetica: continuities and discontinuities,i nG .Clarkee ta l., Readingt he past in late antiquity.R ushcutters Bay ,  -: ); in this case, there is every reasont os uppose that the allusion was meant to be noticed; see now C. Pazdernik,N icias' lettert ot he Athenians and their response (Thuc. . -). ClassicalP hilology  (),  -,e sp.  -.  LikeThucydides (but unlikeHerodotus, "whofinds his placeinhis textonlythrough his activities as traveler,r esearcher,a nd writer," as an "external narrator"), Procopius is "an internal narrator in as much as he … appears as an agent";quotations fromT .Rood,Thucydides,inI.J.F. de Jong /R.N ünlist/ A. Bowie (eds.), Narrators,narratees, and narrativesinancient Greek literature.L eiden ,  -:  (citingT huc. ..).  "With them [i. e., Belisarius and Antonina] was also Procopius, whow rote this history.P reviouslyhehad been extremelyterrified at the danger,but later he had seen avision of adream that caused him to take heart and made him eager to go on the expedition" (ξυνῆνδὲαὐτοῖςκαὶ Προκόπιος, ὃςτ ά δε ξυνέγραψε, πρότερον μὲνκ α ὶμ ά λα κατορρωδήσας τὸνκ ί νδυνον, ὄψιν δὲ in Belisarius' house, strangers arrivedbearing loads of sod that werestrewn with flowers,and that Belisarius and his spearmen reclined on the sod as if they were dining and ate the flowers,which weres weet to the taste .
The narrator assures us that the embedded character who experienced the dream was heartened by it,b ut neither the character nor the narrator offers to interpret the vision or to draw express analogies between the imagery in the dream and the situation in which the character finds himself.⁸³ The character recognizes himself within the dream as ab ystander who witnesses the action rather than participating in it.Perhaps this position is aprefiguration of the distance inscribed between the narrating voice of the historian and the historical events that are the focus of his line of inquiry.⁸⁴ Thed ream itself, represented by the Procopiannarrator as ascene within ascene or mise en abyme,would accordingly stand,o nahighlya bstracted plane, as ap refiguration of Procopius' narrativeo ft he Vandal War -or,r ather,o fakey point of inflection within it.
Indeed, whatever the covert or sublimated significanceofthe imagery in the dream might be, the imageo fB elisarius and his officers enjoying theirr epose and feasting on the fruits of another land, delivered to them by strangers,clearly foreshadows the freighted moment,f ollowing his initial victory over Gelimer at Ad Decimum and occupation of Carthage, when Belisarius and his retinue dined in Gelimer'spalace on dishes, Procopius tells us, that had been prepared for the Vandal king (Wars 3.21.1-6): When the time came, Belisarius commanded that luncheon (ἄριστον)bepreparedfor them in the placew here Gelimer was accustomed to entertain the leaders of the Vandals.This placet he Romansc all 'Delphix' (Δέλφιξ) …⁸⁵ So Belisarius dined in the Delphix and with him all the notables of the army( ἐ νΔ έ λφικι τοίνυν Βελισάριόςτ εἤ σθιε καὶ εἴ τι ἐντ ῷ στρατεύματι δόκιμον ἦν). And it happened that the luncheon (τὸἄριστον)made for Gelimer on the preceding dayw as in readiness. We feasted on that very food that the servants of Gelimer served, and they poured the wine and waited upon us in every way( καὶ ταῖςτ ε ὀ νείρου ἰδὼν ὕστερον, ἣ αὐτὸνθ αρσῆσαί τε ἐποίησε καὶἐ ςτ ὸστρατεύεσθαι ὥρμησεν, Wars ..).  I. Anagnostakis,P rokopios' dream beforet he campaigna gainst Libya: ar eading of Wars .. -,inC.Angelidi /G .T.Calofonos (eds.), Dreaming in Byzantium and beyond. Farnham ,  -,argues that the imageo fBelisarius and his men tastingsweet flowers alludes to the Odyssey'sl and of the LotusE aters (. -), which traditionallyh ad been locatedi n Libyaa nd from which no one was ablet or eturn.  Comparethe formulation of these ideas in Procopius' own terms as discussed in footnote  supra.  Ad igression follows on the origin of the name and likewise that of 'palace' [Παλάτιον], which Procopius develops into ab road sketch of Graeco-Roman cultural continuity and Roman imperial hegemony. βρώσεσιν αὐταῖς εἱστιάθημεν ἥ τε τοῦ Γελίμερος θεραπείαπαρετίθει τε καὶᾠνοχόει καὶ τὰ ἄλλα ὑπούργει).
Striking here is the narratorial first-person plural,w hich collapses the nested representational frames that distinguishedthe narrator from the embeddedcharacter and the character from the imageofhimself in the dream. Procopius figures himself as aparticipant and an agent,rather than abystander and an observer. He counts himself within ap rivileged circle that is demarcated by its proximity to Belisarius, by the ties of reciprocity and patronage that are celebrated and cemented through commensality,and by its ambivalent relationship to Justinian.⁸⁶ As would subsequentlyt ranspire also in the ascendant phase of the Gothic War in Italy, Belisarius' comportment in Carthage -dining at Gelimer'stable, seating himself on Gelimer'sthrone -would arouse suspicions that he aimed at usurpation rather than the restoration of imperial suzerainty from Constantinople.⁸⁷ Procopius emphasizes the contingency and fortuityo ft he occasion.⁸⁸ Belisarius achieved aglory never before attained by the men of his time, "nor indeed anymen of ancienttimes,"⁸⁹ not on account of his victory at Ad Decimum, which Procopius allows resulted as much from the Vandals' ownmistakes as from Belisarius' generalship,⁹⁰ but rather in light of the tranquil entry of his troops into Carthage, who refrainedf rom the customary excesses practiced by victorious soldiers.⁹¹ No insult was offered, no interruption in the flow of dailyl ife and commerce (Wars 3.21.10 [D2]): Indeed, nothingh appened to hinder the business of the city.I nacapturedc ity,then, that had changedi ts regime and joined ad ifferent realm (ἐν ἁλούσῃ πόλει καὶ πολιτείαν  CompareR oss,N arrator (as footnote  above),  -,who does not discusst he present passage but points out that Procopius reserves the first-person plural for his account of the expedition'sp rogress towardCarthage,where such usagesg enerally "refertothe anonymous and collective mass of the army" ().  See Wars .. -.Similar allegations resurfaced followingBelisarius' occupation of Ravenna in  CE: see .. -.  See footnote  infra.  See footnote  infra.  Wars ...  "Fort hough Roman soldiers weren ot accustomed to enterasubject city without confusion (θορύβου χωρίς), even if they numbered onlyfivehundred, and especiallyifthey made the entry unexpectedly, this general kept all the soldiers under his command in line (κοσμίους)s ot hat therew as not as ingle act of insolencen or threat" (οὐδὲὕ βριν τινὰἢἀ πειλὴνγ ενέσθαι, Wars .. -). On this episode, see C. Pazdernik,P rocopiusa nd Thucydides on the labors of war:B elisarius and Brasidas in the field. Transactions of the American PhilologicalA ssociation  (),  -,e sp.  -. μεταβαλούσῃ καὶ βασιλείαν ἀλλαξαμένῃ), it came about that no man'sh ousehold was excluded from the marketplace(ἀπὸτῆςἀγορᾶς). The clerks drew up their lists of the soldiers and conducted them to their lodgings,j ust as usual, and they obtained their lunch by purchase from the market (ὤνιον ἀπὸ τῆς ἀγορᾶςτ ὸἄ ριστον λαβόντες),⁹² as each one wanted, and they were quiet (ἡσύχαζον).
By drawing attention to these alimentary concerns, Procopius has constructed a remarkable through-line from the genesis of the Vandal Wartothe occupation of Carthageand what the historian describes as Belisarius' (almost literally) crowning achievement.T he progression becomes apparent in hindsight and is more clearlysurveyed workingbackward, hysteron proteron. Images of quartermasters' clerks dutifullyfilling out their paperwork and billeting soldiers, and likewiseof soldiers acquiring provisions for their mid-daym eala tm arket rates out of the commutation of theirrations into cash, might have been lifted out of the dreary regulations in the Codex Iustinianus;⁹³ yett he perpetuation of ab land and bureaucratic routine, which Procopius celebrates here unironically, encapsulates av ision of civil society thata ssesses the consequences of conquest in light of the livede xperiences of persons implicated within it.Under Belisarius' enlightened leadership and strict discipline,n ot onlydid soldiers refrain from preying upon civilians, whom they werei nstructed to embrace as fellow Romans liberated from the Vandals,⁹⁴ but they also enjoyed conditions that enhancedt heir own welfare and redressedthe shortcomingsthat had contributed to theirvictimization at an earlier stageo ft he expedition. Procopius sums up this moment of balance, accord, and contentment with as imple, pregnant,d eclaration: "they wereq uiet" (ἡσύχαζον).
We should find clear connections,t hen, among the humble fare purchased by Belisarius' soldiers for their lunch (τὸἄ ριστον)i nC arthage; the altogether more regal luncheon (likewise, τὸἄ ριστον)t hatB elisarius and his retinue, in-cludingP rocopius himself, found waiting for them in Gelimer'sp alace; and the prefiguration of thatluncheon in Procopius' dream vision prior to the departure of the expedition from Constantinople. Procopius' solicitude for the billeting and messing of the rank-and-file in Carthage, moreover,isthe counterpart of his outrageo vert he disaster at Methone, when rotting provisions supplied by John the Cappadocian contributed to the deaths of five hundred fighting men. Methone, in turn, is the sequeland the consequenceo fJ ohn'se vasion of responsibility,a sp raetorian prefect,f or financinga nd equipping the expedition, which crystallizes his opposition to the Vandal expedition and findse xpression in his silence-breaking speech to Justinian.

VI
Having circled in this wayback to John the Cappadocian, we are now in aposition to consider the second place in his speech at which an echo of Thucydidesis especiallya rresting. As we have seen,⁹⁵ John'ss peech cuts against the grain of the surroundingn arrative by alludingtothe bellicose speech of the Corinthians at Sparta while cautioning Justinian against the perilsattendant upon attacking the Vandals. Justinian, who is otherwise figured as the analogue of the meddling, relentless Athenians, is here miscast as the counterpart of the stolid, risk-averse Spartans, as the two sides are characterized by the Corinthians. These miscues combine with Procopius' overarching, unrelentinglyh ostile, portrait of John to undermine the Cappadocian'sclaim to be speakingcandidlyand with Justinian's best interests at heart. The Corinthians' speech to the Spartans turns upon the opposition they construct between the Spartan and Athenian national characters and theirc orresponding stances with respect to international relations.⁹⁶ Alone of the Greeks, the Corinthians charge,t he Spartans remain quiet (ἡσυχάζετε,T huc. 1.69.4), while allowing their opponents to gather strength; the Athenians,i nc ontrast, "have been born never to allow themselvesn or anyone else to enjoy peace and quiet (πεφυκέναι ἐπὶ τῷ μήτε αὐτοὺς ἔχειν ἡσυχίαν μήτε τοὺς ἄλλους ἀνθρώπους ἐᾶν,1.70.9). The Spartans' stubborn embrace of ἡσυχία,and the Athenians' hostility to it,emergesasthe leitmotif of the speech. Rather than striking back at Athenian provocations, the Spartans remain on the defensive,preferring to expose themselvest ot he chances of war (ἐςτ ύ χας … καταστῆναι,1 .69.5) against an opponent who is becominga ll the more formidable. They have not considered how different the Athenians are from themselves: how revolutionary and daring,how optimistic and impetuous, how undeterredand self-sacrificing. The Athenians live livesfilled with toil and danger (μετὰ πόνων … καὶ κινδύνων); they are relentless and insatiable; "they do not consider anyday aholidayunless they have done something that needed to be done, and they think that an idle rest (ἡσυχία ἀπράγμων)i sa sm uch trouble as hard work" (1.70.8). Yett he Spartans temporize and fail to understand that they will perpetuate peace and quiet (ἡσυχία,1.71.1), onlyb ys tandingf irm against wrongdoers.
The Corinthians hammer home the incompatibility between Sparta'so ldfashionedhabits (Thuc. 1.71.2-3) and preferencefor an international order characterized by non-interference,s ettled power relationships, and risk-aversionsummed up by their repeatedr eferences to ἡσυχία⁹⁷ -and Athens' appetitef or disruption and transgression. John the Cappadocian'sa ddress to Justinian, likewise, turns on his evaluation of the merits of a ἡσυχία-focused international order in relation to the risks and rewards of foreign adventurism.⁹⁸ Of course, John must taket he opposite tack and argue, contra the Corinthians,i nf avor of the Spartan position, perpetuating the mismatch between his Herodoteantemplate and his Thucydidean intertext.
John'sp osition is carefullyh edgeda nd,o nce he gets down to specifics, remarkablyclear-headed,leading manytoconclude that here John is serving,however improbably, as aspokesman for Procopius' ownviews.⁹⁹ This interpretation becomes much more nuanced, however,o nce it becomes apparent how thor-oughlyJ ohn'sp remises are controverted by Belisarius' initial successes, as these are borneo ut in Procopius' narrative.J ohn himself gestures proleptically when he insists that,e veni fh er isks antagonizing Justinian in the present moment,h ew ill make his goodwill apparent in the future:¹⁰⁰ for (γάρ), he says, should Justinianbeunpersuadedand attack the Vandals, "if the struggle is prolonged for you, it will come about that my advice wins praise."¹⁰¹ The elaboration of this claim is rather complex and maybeset out as follows ): Fori f, on the one hand (εἰ μὲνγ ά ρ ), (i) youh avec onfidencet hat youwill prevail over the enemy, (ii) it is not at all unreasonable for yout osacrificethe livesofmen, expend avastamount of treasure, and undergo the difficulties of the struggle.
For(γάρ)(iii) victory,once it has been accomplished, effaces all of the calamities(τὰπάθη) of war.
But if, on the other hand (εἰ δέ), in the first place(μέν), (iv) these things "lie on the knees of God" (ἐντοῖςτοῦθεοῦ γούνασι κεῖται), and, in the second place( δ έ ), (v) it is necessary for us,c onsideringt he precedents (παραδείγματα)o fw hath as happened before,¹⁰² to fear the outcome of war, (vi) how is lovingpeaceand quiet not better than the dangers of conflict?(πῶςοὐχὶτῶνἐν τοῖς ἀγῶσι κινδύνων τὸ τὴν ἡσυχίαν ἀγαπᾶν ἄμεινον; [D1]) On one side of the ledger, John sketches what Thucydides' Corinthians (and Procopius' readers) could recognize as the "Athenian" position: ar esolute attitude (i), heedless of the cost in blood and treasure(ii), plausiblyproduces an end that justifies the means (iii).¹⁰³ John is skeptical of such an outcomea nd adamantly opposed to such an undertaking,asProcopius has informed us (Wars 3.10.3). In order to undermine Justinian'sc onfidencea nd dull his appetitef or military aggression, accordingly, John goes on to elaborate, on the other side of the ledger, ac orrespondingly "Spartan" position by recommending caution in view of the inscrutability of the future and the admonitory value of the past.¹⁰⁴ Saying thata nu ndetermined outcome "lies of the kneeso ft he gods" (iv) is alreadyawell-established coinage in Homer and mayw ellh aveN ear Eastern roots.¹⁰⁵ In puttingt he expression in John'sm outh here, Procopius seems less  παραδείγμασι δὲ τῶνπ ρογεγενημένων χρωμένους (Wars ..): compare παραδείγμασι τοῖςπ ρογιγνομένοις χρώμενοι (Thuc. ..,t he speech of the Mytileneans to the Peloponnesians at Olympia in  BCE); see Duwe,P rocopius (as footnote  above), .  The Corinthians develop the theme of Athenian relentlessness and their willingness to absorb losses most fullya tT huc. .. -.  Comparei nt his respect the positiono fT hucydides' Archidamus (..): "We [Spartans], whowill bear most of the responsibility for the outcome, either way, should reflect calmly(καθ᾽ ἡσυχίαν)o nt he consequences that mayf ollow."  Hom., Il. ., .; Od. ., , .. "Apicturesque wayo fs ayingt hat the futureo fs ome issue rests with ah igher power whose will is not yetk nown":R .B.O nians, likelyt ob ea iming for allusive specificity than signalingt hatJ ohn is thinking aphoristicallyand, possibly, putting on airs. John'spoint is to underscorethe uncertainty and contingency that attends anyhuman undertaking,and the impression of anyspecificallyChristian coloring(apart from John'suse of the monotheistic singular)i sr emote.¹⁰⁶ Lacking certainty about the future, human beings must relyupon the exemplarity of prior experiences, which bode ill in the instant case (v): here John is referringo bliquelyt ot he failuret hata ttendedp riore fforts to oust the Vandals from North Africa, which Procopius has told us was weighingh eavilyo nt he minds of most of Justinian'so fficials when he initiallyd isclosed his plan (Wars 3.10.2).
John artfullyf rames his recommendation in favoro fp reservingt he status quo and avoiding conflict as arhetorical question (vi) thatcounterpoises "loving peace and quiet" (τὸ τὴν ἡσυχίαν ἀγαπᾶν)against "the dangers of conflict" (οἱἐν τοῖς ἀγῶσι κινδύνοι). John implies that the advantagesofthe former position are self-evident,i nv iew of the inscrutability of the future and the ominousness of the past.J ohn'sp ro-ἡσυχία stance in favoro fp reservingt he status quo and avoiding disruption places him squarelya to dds with the arguments advanced by Thucydides' Corinthians and compounds the artificialitya nd unreality of the episode as Procopius reconstructs it.
The ἡσυχία championedbyJ ohn the Cappadocian is afreighted concept not onlya sf ar as Procopius' Thucydidean intertext is concerned, as we have seen, but alsoi nt he largerc ontext of Procopius' narrative of the Vandal War. At root,t he wordd enotes as tate of stillness and quiet; it signifies,t hati s, the silence that is ap roduct and an expression of contentedness and the absenceo f strife. Procopius employs the abstract noun, at the onlyp oint in the Wars at which it appears prior to John the Cappadocian'ss peech, to connotethe official solemnities of the imperial court,p articipants in which were expectedt om aintain an atmosphere of mystical harmonya nd ineffable majesty.I nanarratorial aside, Procopius introduces acertain figure as one "who had always assisted the On the knees of the gods. ClassicalR eview  (),  -: .M .L.West,The east face of Helicon. West Asiatic elementsinGreek poetry.Oxford ,  -,finds in Babylonian poetry "plausibly … the mythological concept that underlies the Homeric phrase," insofar as the gods' knees arec oncerned (a detail that has puzzled ancient and modern commentators).  Pace J. A. S. Evans,Christianitya nd paganism in Procopius of Caesarea. GRBS  (),  -:  -,who points out that Artabanus warns Xerxes about the hazards of divine jealousy (Hdt. .ε); Procopius chooses the expression, he suggests,i no rder to avoid attributing jealousy to the Christian God, but its Homeric pedigree goes unnoticed. emperor while in the palace in all the business of the court" (βασιλεῖ μὲν ἀεὶἐ ν παλατίῳ τὰἐ ςτ ὴ νἡ συχίαν ὑπηρετοῦντα, Wars 2.21.2).¹⁰⁷ This ἡσυχία,then, that characterizes the orderlyf unctioninga nd stately decorum of court ceremonial and that affects an awestruck silence worthyo ft he theophanic spectacle of the imperial presence, differs categoricallyf rom the utter speechlessness that grips Justinian'so fficials when the emperor declares his intention to attack the Vandals. There is ad elicious irony, accordingly, when John the Cappadocian breaks that stricken silence and, parting with courtlye tiquette,ventures to thwart Justinian by selling him on the benefits of ἡσυχία.I nf raming John'sd ilemma in this way, Procopius is problematizinga policy of conflict aversion that,a sv alid as it mayb eo ni ts merits, is compromised by narrowly self-servinge nds. The peace and quiet, ἡσυχία,c hampioned by John the Cappadocian is, aboveall, his own -and, ostensibly, Justinian's. Notablya bsent from these deliberations, however,a re the interests of the participants -both the combatants and the civilian inhabitants in North Africawho ultimatelyr un the risks and bear the burdens of the ensuing hostilities. VII of ancient times."¹¹² Belisarius' experiences to thatpoint in North Africa, Procopius affirms, were both fortuitous and unprecedented. His achievement neatly subverted the premises upon which John'so pposition to the expedition was founded. His actions, and not John'sw ords, won renown. He preserved peace and quiet while surmounting "the dangers of conflict" and accomplishingarevolutionary changeofregimes.A tthe end of book three of the Wars,asthe opening act of Procopius' narrative of the Vandal Ward raws to ac lose with Gelimer not yets ubdued, but with the Vandals locked together in indescribable grief at Bulla Regia, the repudiation of John the Cappadocian and of John'sp olicy of conflict aversion would appear to be complete.
Following Belisarius' victory over Gelimer at Tricamarum in December of 533 BCE and the consolidation of imperial control over North Africa by Solomon, his successor,prospects in North Africa remained bright: "as aresultofthis,all the Libyans who weres ubjects of the Romans … seemed the most fortunate of all men."¹¹³ YetS olomon'sd eath and the subsequent misrule of others contribute to ac risis that,e veno nce the situation has been retrieved, leavesd evastation in its wake. The very last words of Procopius' narrative of the Vandal Warare unrelentinglyg rim (4.28.52 [D3]):¹¹⁴ οὕτω τε Λιβύων τοῖςπ εριγενομένοις, ὀλίγοις τε καὶ λίαν πτωχοῖςο ὖ σιν, ὀψὲ καὶ μόλις ἡσυχίαν τινὰ ξυνηνέχθη γενέσθαι.
Thus it came to pass that the Libyans whos urvived, few as they werei nn umber and extremelyp oor,a tl ong last and just barely managed to find some peace and quiet.
If the images and the narratorial interventions with which book three of the Wars closes repudiateJ ohn the Cappadocian, then it must also be admittedt hatt he sardonic note on which the Vandal Warc oncludes, at the end of book four,a ppears to vindicate his prediction thathis advice would be credited if the struggle wereprolongedand to echo ironicallyhis warning: the peace and quiet, ἡσυχία, that John advises Justinian to conservew as,f or the Libyans subsequentlye nmeshed in conflict,a ll tood earlyb ought.

VIII
The historical judgments about the Vandal Wart hata re detectable in the Wars are complex and correspondingly dissimulatedw ithin spaces and silences inscribed in the text.J ohn the Cappadocian cannot be reduced to as pokesman for the historian'sv iews, even whereh eh appens to voice something that seems to be approximating them. While Belisarius' uncannyand unprecedented successes against the Vandals confounded John'sp redictions,t hey also confoundedt he well-founded fears of the participantst hemselves, not least the fears of the historical Procopius who sailed with the expedition. Belisarius' achievement,falling well outside the boundsofrationalcalculationand prediction, scarcelydiscredited apolicy of conflict aversion, inasmuchasbetting on a miracle is not apolicy.Procopius' narrator is left to marvel at the Vandals' reversal of fortune.¹¹⁵ The Wars nonetheless equips its readers to understand how,i nP rocopius' estimation, that achievement was squandered. SuspicionsoverBelisarius' imperial ambitions, which the historian insists wereb aseless, diverted the general from post-conflict reconstruction, disappointing prospects for pacifyingN orth Africa and opening the door for subsequent maladministration and misrule.¹¹⁶ The effect is to magnify (and to exonerate)B elisarius, on one hand,a nd, on the other,t od rive home the point that,a bsents uch ar emarkable and capable figure exercisinge ffectivel eadership on the ground, Justinian's "liberation" of North Africa amounted to little other than occupation and exploitation by aforeign power.
Insofar as Procopius' line of historiographical inquiry goes quite some way towards ubstantiatingJ ohn'sc laim that the merits of his policy prescriptions would become apparent as the struggle draggedo n,¹¹⁷ it remains to investigate how such an estimable messagef ares in the hands of such ad iscreditable messenger.H erei ti sw orthwhile to return to the moment in the Secret History with which this discussion began, an instance of stricken silence in the court of Justin I, whose relationship to the corresponding instance in the Wars is akin to that of an object and its imageinadistortingmirror.Matters of war and peace are not at stake, but the future emperor Justinian is instead pursuing av endetta against a blameless official, Theodotus "the Pumpkin," and it requires the intervention of afigure of unimpeachable integrity,the quaestor Proclus, to blunt (if not wholly to prevent¹¹⁸)ablatantm iscarriageo fj ustice.
Like the largerw ork of which it is ap art, the episode displays an unvarnisheds tyle to impart what it claims to be the unvarnished truth.¹¹⁹ Dispensing with the conventions of classicizing historiography,the narrative merelyr eports Proclus' sententia in indirect discourse without rhetoricale laboration; it affords no access into the embedded character'si nteriority and motivations;i td eclines to find relationships between particular circumstances and universalp atterns and precedents for human behavior.F or all of these reasons,t he appearance here of the motif of "grieving in silence" (σιωπῇ … ὀδύρεσθαι), which is so idiosyncratic not onlyi nP rocopius' oeuvreb ut in all of Greek literature,i sa ll the more striking.¹²⁰ We have seen how the expression signals moments of intense emotional turmoil and internalized conflict that have to be dissimulated because they threaten to upset established relationships of power,b ei tt he relationship of the emperort oh is officials or thato ft he Vandals to their subjects on Sardinia.¹²¹  Wars .. (footnote  supra).  The "Pumpkin" was stripped of his rank and relegated to Jerusalem on Justin'so rders, where he went into hidingi nf ear of assassination: HA ..  See A. Kaldellis,I ntroduction, in idem, Prokopios:t he Secret History with related texts. Indianapolis /C ambridge ,vii-lix: xxxv-xl.  Procopius sparinglyapplies ὀδύρεσθαι tout court,but he does so in contexts in which grieving is vocalized and performed overtly, by individuals as wellasgroups: Wars .. (of Pompeius bewailinghis treatment followingt he suppression of the Nikar ebellion), .. (of Antonina feigning complaints about Justinian), .. (of AbgarofEdessa), .. (of the Vandal reaction to the flight of Gelimer), ..,  (of the Gothic besiegers of Rome), .. (of the imperial armyl amentingt he death of Chorsamantis); HA . (of Justinian feigning grief over the murder of Callinicus). It will be noticed that the wordi so nlyu sed descriptively in the narratorial voice.  Van Nuffelen,Wor(l)ds (as footnote  above),  -,analyzing material other than that examined here, finds that "in the Wars speechlessness is acipher for alack of control of reality. This shows,i nt urn, that languagei st he medium through which control is exercised." The Wars deploys these signals counterintuitively,l inking the subjective experiences of the officials who bear the unwelcome responsibility for prosecuting the Vandal Warwith those of the Vandals who are swept up in it.The effect is to humanizethe twogroups by demonstrating their mutualvulnerability and fallibility and, by making such an improbable associationb etween them, to universalize their plight.Procopius' audience of reader-spectators, who are uninvolved in and insulated from the events that are the focus of the historian'sl ine of inquiry,a re nevertheless implicated in the narrative by their shared humanity, equipping them to appreciatet he consequences and the costs of the ensuing conflict.A tt he same time, the Wars also insists upon the particularity and the contingency of the events it relates by disclosing the limits of narratability and denying to its audience access to the unmediated and inarticulate griefs of the Vandals at Bulla Regia, on one hand, and to the unfathomable pathologies animating John the Cappadocian, on the other.
The affected artlessness of the Secret History,whereProclus' intervention on behalf of Theodatus is concerned, throws into stark relief the artfula ffectations of the Wars,whereJohn the Cappadocian'sintervention in opposition to the Vandal expedition is concerned. The formerepisode is ad emonstration of breaking silence that,tothe extent that it speaks truth to power franklywithout classicizing embellishments, crystallizes the largert ruth-telling claims of the Secret History and represents in miniature the work of which it is apart.¹²² The corresponding proposition, thatthe debate over the Vandal expedition is arepresentation in miniature of the Wars,bringstothe fore John the Cappadocian'smuch more selfsubverting invocation of παρρησία and the distortinge ffects of the work'sc lassicizing structures and allusions.I ft he quaestor Proclus is at this moment an avatar and an icon of the narrator of the Secret History,m ight the same be said for John the Cappadocian and the narrator of the Wars?
The foregoing discussion has indicted John for committingaso-called "allusive malapropism,"¹²³ by echoing infelicitouslyt he speech of the Corinthians in the conference at Sparta in book one of Thucydides, the form and content of which are ill-suited for John'sc onflicted and self-serving purposes. While characters embedded in the narrative are insensible of this mismatch, culturalcapital and critical distance equip impliedorinscribed readersofthe Wars to recognize how the narrative stylizesi ts representation of the events in question. No less  The SecretHistory is not without learned allusions,notably to Aristophanes:see Kaldellis, Introduction (as footnote  above), xxxvi-xxxviii.  See Section IV supra. culpable for perpetrating an allusive malapropism, however,i st he Procopian narrator of the Wars,w ho is responsible for pressingJ ohn into the ill-fitting role of the Herodotean wise advisor,c asting the Cappadocian as an Artabanus manqué.¹²⁴ The difficulties and the dissonances that Procopius' readers experience in attemptingtoreconcile the messenger with the messageare the product of this mismatch, which has to be appreciated as an aspect of the literary design of the Wars that demonstrates the relationship between the work'sc lassicizing style and its politically sensitivec ontent and context.¹²⁵ Abovea ll, it is the Secret History'se xample of playing the "wise advisor" templates traight that exposes its counterparti nt he Wars as ap arodyo ft hat template, inasmucha ss ober and straight-talking Proclus is parodied by clever and daring John. The gulf that separates these two figures measures the distance and differencet hat the Secret History constructs between itself as as ilencebreakinge xposé and the necessarilyl ess candida nd forthcoming Wars,a nd again between the narrator of the Secret History and the narrator of the Wars: The Secret History :t he Wars The narrator of the Secret History :t he narrator of the Wars Proclus in the Secret History¹²⁶ :J ohni nt he Wars To the extent that the narrator of the Wars is implicated in John'sr hetorical subtletya nd its problematic relationship to historical truth, he nevertheless repudiates John'sr uthlessness by confessingh is inability to fathom the depths of John'sd epravity. This suggestion -that, at the moment at which John the Cappadocian intercedes in the deliberations over the prospective invasion of Vandal North Africa, he serves as af iguration or ar epresentation in miniature of the Procopiann arrator of the Wars -is ameaningful inversion of the tired and inconclusive debate  On Artabanus as an arratorial alter egoo fH erodotus,s ee I. J. F. de Jong,H erodotus, in eadem /N ünlist /B owie, Narrators (as footnote  above),  -:  -.  CompareK aldellis,P rocopius' Vandal War( as footnote  above), : "One work was a narrative,the other an argument. … Fear restricted the Wars;h ostility energized the SecretH istory." Contrast S. Constantinou,Violence in the palace: rituals of imperial punishment in Prokopios' Secret History,inA.Beihammer /eadem /M.Parani (eds.), Court ceremonies and rituals of poweri nB yzantium and the medieval Mediterranean: comparative perspectives. Leiden ,  -: ,for whominthe Secret History, "Prokopiosshows himself as awhollyunreliablea nd absurd interpreter of his own work," but whom ischaracterizes,i nm yv iew,t he Wars as ap anegyric of Justinian together with the Buildings.  It must be borne in mind that Proclusisrepresentedasanembedded character in the Wars: see footnote  supra. over whether John serves as as pokesman for the views of the historical Procopius, which could not be statedo penlyw hile the principals werea live.Whether the Wars figures John as as pokesman for its author,this is to say, is al essp roductive question than whether it figures its narrator as an ironic and rueful counterpart of John. Those who would positt hat the Wars dissimulatest he settled judgmentso fi ts author about historical truth within as ilence of their own, the trace of which is marked in the text by John'ss ilence-breaking speech, must first address the work'sall too plausible depiction of aworldinwhich judgments about the present,t he past,a nd the future are situational, provisional, and revisable¹²⁷ -aw orld, that is, of varnished truths, in which the narrator of the Wars is ineluctablye nmeshed.¹²⁸  CompareV an Nuffelen,Wor(l)ds (as footnote  above), ,for whom the Wars is "anarrative that insists on the gapb etween world and word, and this both on the level of the representation of events (the Wars themselves) as on the level of man'saction in the world (the events described in the narrative)."  This essayincorporates elements of apaper ("Conflict aversion in Procopius of Caesarea") that Iwas invited to delivera tthe XXIII Finnish Symposium on LateAntiquity, "Conflictinlate antiquity," in October ,b ut which Iw as obliged to withdrawd ue to ad isablingp ersonal injury.L et me acknowledge with heartfeltt hanks the support and encouragement Ir eceived at the time from the organizers,e speciallyV ille Vuolanto, and subsequentlyf romB ronwen Neil. Ia lso acknowledge with gratitude the sound adviceo fMichael Maas and the constructive suggestions of the twoa nonymous readers for BZ.