struggle against the Goths in Italy. These seven books were published
together first, and the eighth book was added later as a supplement to
bring the history up to about the date of 554, being a general account
of events in different parts of the empire. It is necessary to bear in
mind that the wars described separately by Procopius overlapped one
another in time, and that while the Romans were striving to hold back
the Persian aggressor they were also maintaining armies in Africa and in
Italy. In fact the Byzantine empire was making a supreme effort to
re-establish the old boundaries, and to reclaim the territories lost to
the barbarian nations. The emperor Justinian was fired by the ambition
to make the Roman Empire once more a world power, and he drained every
resource in his eagerness to make possible the fulfilment of this dream.
It was a splendid effort, but it was doomed to failure; the fallen
edifice could not be permanently restored.

The history is more general than the title would imply, and all the
important events of the time are touched upon. So while we read much of
the campaigns against the nations who were crowding back the boundaries
of the old empire, we also hear of civic affairs such as the great Nika
insurrection in Byzantium in 532; similarly a careful account is given
of the pestilence of 540, and the care shewn in describing the nature of
the disease shews plainly that the author must have had some
acquaintance with the medical science of the time.

After the seventh book of the _History of the Wars_ Procopius wrote the
_Anecdota_, or _Secret History_. Here he freed himself from all the
restraints of respect or fear, and set down without scruple everything
which he had been led to suppress or gloss over in the _History_ through
motives of policy. He attacks unmercifully the emperor and empress and
even Belisarius and his wife Antonina, and displays to us one of the