Procopius

Procopius of Caesarea (Greek: Προκόπιος ὁ Καισαρεύς, Latin: Procopius Caesarensis; c. 500 CE – c. 560 CE) was a prominent late antique scholar from Palaestina Prima. Accompanying the Roman general Belisarius in the wars of the Emperor Justinian, he became the principal historian of the 6th century, writing the Wars (or Histories), the Buildings of Justinian and the celebrated (and infamous) Secret History. He is commonly held to be the last major historian of the ancient Western world.

Life

Apart from his own writings, the main source for Procopius' life is an entry in the Suda, a 10th-century Byzantine encyclopaedia that tells everything about his early life. He was a native of Caesarea in the Province Palaestina Prima. He would have received a conventional élite education in the Greek classics and then rhetoric, perhaps at the famous School of Gaza, may have attended law school, possibly at Berytus (modern Beirut) or Constantinople, and became a rhetor (barrister or advocate). He evidently knew Latin, as was natural for a man with legal training. In 527, the first year of Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian's reign, he became the adsessor (legal adviser) for Belisarius, Justinian's chief military commander who was then beginning a brilliant career.

Procopius (magister militum)

Procopius (fl. 420s AD) was a general and politician in the Eastern Roman Empire; he was the father of the Western Roman Emperor Anthemius.

Biography

Procopius was the son of Procopius, born c. 365, and the paternal grandson of Procopius, born c. 325, who was a maternal first cousin of Julian the Apostate and usurper (365-366) against Emperor Valens, and wife Faustina. The older Procopius married Lucina (born c. 400) sister of Anthemius Isidorus, and daughter of the powerful praetorian prefect of the East, Flavius Anthemius (405-414). With Lucina he had a son, the later emperor Anthemius.

Procopius began the military career very young, and in 422 he held the position of dux or comes rei militaris in the East. In that same year, he succeeded in saving part of a Roman army ambushed by the Sassanid Persians. He also took part in the peace negotiations of the same year.

He was then raised to the rank of patricius and named magister militum per Orientem, a post he held at least until December 3, 424 (the date of a law preserved in the Codex Theodosianus addressed to him, vii.4.36).

Procopius (gens)

The Procopii (Procopius or Procopia in singular male/female) were a family of Ancient Rome. Among the bearers of the name (not all of which were actually related to the clan) are:

Other people bearing the name "Procopius":