he Secret History of Procopius Richard Atwater – Procopius, who lived from 500 to 565 C.E., was a Byzantine historian. His writings are a primary source about the reign of the Emperor Justinian. Writing in Greek, Procopius was the last major ancient historian.
The original title of this work was Anecdota, which means ’things not given over, withheld.’ Procopius speculates that Justinian might have been something . . . not even human, perhaps vampiric. He soberly quotes eyewitness accounts of Justinian shapeshifting into a ‘shapeless mass of flesh, ‘ and literally losing–and retrieving–his head. Justinian killing a ’trillion’ people. The text actually says ‘A myriad myriads of myriads’ (a myriad is the highest number in Greek, 10, 000). [That is 105*3 = 1015 = 100, 000, 000, 000, 000, or 100 trillion.] All of this is a bit sophistical of course, what Procopius obviously means here is ‘a ridiculous number.’
Over de auteur
Richard Tupper Atwater (1892-1948) was a Chicago journalist. He wrote for a number of newspapers including the Chicago Evening Post, the Chicago Daily News, the Chicago Tribune, and the Herald-Examiner. He contributed to the literary and arts magazine The Chicagoan. He also taught Greek at the University of Chicago. In 1932, after watching a documentary about Richard E. Byrd’s Antarctic expedition, he began writing the first part of the book but was forced to stop due to a stroke he suffered in 1934. Other books by Richard Atwater include Rickety Rhymes of Riq (published in 1925) and Doris and the Trolls (published in 1931)
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