Editing Procopius (section)

==Style==
Procopius belongs to the school of [[late antiquity|late antique]] historians who continued the traditions of the [[Second Sophistic]]. They wrote in [[Attic dialect|Attic Greek]]. Their models were [[Herodotus]], [[Polybius]] and in particular [[Thucydides]]. Their subject matter was secular history. They avoided vocabulary unknown to Attic Greek and inserted an explanation when they had to use contemporary words. Thus Procopius includes glosses of monks ("the most temperate of Christians") and churches (as equivalent to a "temple" or "shrine"), since monasticism was unknown to the ancient Athenians and their ''ekklesía'' had been [[Ecclesia (ancient Athens)|a popular assembly]].<ref>''Wars'', 2.9.14 and 1.7.22.</ref>

The secular historians eschewed the history of the Christian church.  Ecclesiastical history was left to a separate genre after [[Eusebius of Caesarea|Eusebius]]. [[Averil Cameron|Cameron]] has argued that Procopius's works reflect the tensions between the classical and Christian models of history in 6th-century Constantinople. This has been supported by [[Mary Whitby|Whitby]]'s analysis of Procopius's depiction of the capital and [[Hagia Sophia|its cathedral]] in comparison to contemporary pagan panegyrics.<ref>''Buildings'', Book I.</ref> Procopius can be seen as depicting Justinian as essentially God's [[vicegerent]], making the case for buildings being a primarily religious panegyric.<ref>Whitby, Mary: "Procopius' ''Buildings'' Book I: A Panegyrical Perspective", in ''Antiquité Tardive'' 8 (2000), 45–57.</ref> Procopius indicates that he planned to write an ecclesiastical history himself<ref>''Secret History'', 26.18.</ref> and, if he had, he would probably have followed the rules of that genre. As far as known, however, such an ecclesiastical history was never written.

Some historians have criticized Propocius's description of some barbarians, for example, he dehumanized the unfamiliar Moors as "not even properly human". This was however, inline with Byzantine ethnographic practice in late antiquity.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kaldellis |first=Anthony |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/859162344 |title=Ethnography after antiquity : foreign lands and peoples in Byzantine literature |date=2013 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |isbn=978-0-8122-0840-5 |page=10 |location=Philadelphia |oclc=859162344}}</ref>