Procopius "The Secret History" 550 ad

Added: 2026-05-26

[00:00:00]What's up everybody? I had heard of The Secret History by Precopius a while back, but never looked into it. It's got some pretty juicy stuff in there, and it's a kind of an interesting story of where we get this from, as usual, but Precopius talks about supernatural beings and stuff causing the plague in his normal writing. So, his secret histories just kind of went off the rails with it. He's saying Justinian was a shapeshifting king of the demons. And Justinian is the foundational block of the whole story of the Eastern Empire and that timeline of a thousand years of basically nothing happening. Since my subscriber count is negative for the last couple months, I'm assuming everybody's heard my version of history with the thousand years added in. Well, Justinian was supposedly emperor at the time of the 536 AD event. And they even call the plague that broke out in Baantium the Justinian plague. And then everything pretty well goes dark for 800 years. We're going to start off with history of the wars. It's got a couple interesting stories and then we'll do the secret histories. Now this Auggurus was the most clever of all men of his time and as a result of this was an a special friend of the emperor Augustus.

[00:01:23]For desiring to make a treaty with the Romans, he came to Rome and when he conversed with Augustus, he so astonished him by the abundance of his wisdom that Augustus wished never more to give up his company. For he was an ardent lover of his conversations, and whenever he met him, he was quite unwilling depart from him. So this is Emperor Augustus's bromance. Well, he was seized with an exceedingly violent attack of gout, and being distressed by the pains in his inability to move in consequence of them, he carried the matter to the physicians, and from the whole land, he gathered all who were skilled in these matters. But later he abandoned these men, for they did not succeed in discovering any cure for the trouble. And finding himself helpless, he beweld the fate which was upon him.

[00:02:13]But about that time, Jesus, the son of God, was in the body and moving among the men of Palestine, showing manifestly by the fact that he never sinned at all, and also by his performing even things impossible, that he was the son of God in very truth. For he called the dead and raised them up as if from sleep, and opened the eyes of men who had been born blind, and cleansed those whose whole bodies were covered with leprosy, and released those whose feet were maimed, and he cured all other diseases, which are called by the physicians incurable.

[00:02:50]When these things were reported to Agaras by those who traveled from Palestine to Adessa, he took courage and wrote a letter to Jesus begging him to depart from Judea and the senseless people there.

[00:03:05]When the Christ saw this message, he wrote in reply to Auggurus, saying distinctly that he would not come, but promising him health in the letter. And of course, he did get better. But what I found interesting here was he just wrote Jesus a letter. For some reason, that's just something I never thought of for Jesus's day. Now, being best friends with the emperor, I'm sure helped because you probably got a royal courier. But it got me to thinking about how were there like professional couriers at that time? And I'd say pretty much definitely. You know, rich families want to send a message to their family in other cities. There was international trade after all, so you get a message out to your supplier on things. But I bet there was a pretty formalized postage system out there. But yeah, you just wrote Jesus a letter. No big deal. And he wrote back. So I guess that answers the question about whether he not whether or not he was literate.

[00:04:04]Now, here's what he says about Justinian's plague. And it came as follows. Apparitions of supernatural beings in human guys of every description were seen by many persons and those who encountered them thought that they were struck by the man they had met in this or that part of the body. And immediately upon seeing this apparition, they were seized also by the disease. So I guess they looked almost human, but not quite enough to fool everybody because they saw him coming.

[00:04:38]Now, at first those who met the creatures tried to turn them aside by uttering the holiest of names and exercising them in other ways as well, but accomplished absolutely nothing. For even in the sanctuaries where most of them fled and were dying constantly. But later on they were unwilling to give heed to their friends when they called to them. And they shut themselves up in their rooms and pretended that they did not hear, although their doors were being beaten down, fearing obviously that he who was calling was one of those demons.

[00:05:13]So that's reading like some invasion of the body snatcher stuff. They felt like they were struck in certain parts of their body after walking by these things. Were they like shooting them with little hypodermic needles and injecting them with stuff? You know those shots make you really sore. Just some thoughts. But in the case of some, the pestilence did not come on in this way. But they saw a vision and a dream, and it seemed to suffer the very same thing at the hands of the creature who stood over them, or else to hear a voice for telling them that they were written down in the number of those who were to die. So that's the kind of stuff that Precopius wrote officially and he's just getting warmed up for the secret history. While serving as primary legal adviser and official historian to Emperor Justinian I precopious wrote publicly glowing accounts of the imperial court's military victories and building projects. However, disillusioned by the corruption he witnessed, he composed the secret history as a vehement underground critique of Justinian, his wife Empress Theodora, and the general Bellisarius.

[00:06:23]Now, they say this was an unpublished manuscript written in 550 CE, but was kept entirely hidden during that era, and it was miraculously rediscovered by a scholar in the Vatican library in the early 19 or 1620s. So Justinian ruled in the eastern empire headquartered in Constantinople and then there was the east west schism and all kinds of animosity between the two churches and somehow this was discovered in the Vatican library in the 1600s.

[00:06:55]So I'm not saying this is a forgery but the cat holix do have a history of doing such things though this would probably get most people burnt at the stake.

[00:07:05]So it was that the possessions of those considered wellto-do and Bantium and every other city were plundered in the way described by Justinian and Theodora and remained in their hands until the Na insurrection took place. They were content to annex the estates of wellto-do one at a time. But after it took place, as I related in an earlier volume, from then on they confiscated at a single stroke the possessions of nearly all the senators on all movable property and on most attractive landed estates. They laid their hands just as they had fancied, but they set aside properties liable to oppressive and crushing taxation and with sham generosity sold them to their previous owners. These in consequence were throttled by tax collectors and reduced to pinery by the neverending interest on their debt.

[00:08:06]Yeah, that would be infuriating. The emperor with supreme authority over everything steals your damn house and then sells it back to you.

[00:08:16]In view of all of this, I like most of my contemporaries never once felt that these two were human beings. They were a pair of bloodthirsty demons and what the poets call plagars of mortal men. For they plotted together to find the easiest and swiftest means of destroying all races of men and all their works.

[00:08:40]Assumed human shape became man demons and in this way can bolst the whole world. Proof of this could be found in many things but especially in the power manifested in their doings. For the actions of demons are unmistakably different from those of human beings. So that doesn't sound like he's being metaphorical about things. He says they took human shape. In the long course of time, there have doubtless been many men who by chance or by nature have inspired the utmost fear and by their unaded efforts have ruined cities or countries or whatever it might be. But to bring destruction on all mankind and calamities on the whole world has been beyond the power of any but these two who who were it is true aided in their endeavors by chance which collaborated in the ruin of mankind. For earthquakes, pestilence and rivers that burst their banks brought widespread destruction at this time as I shall explain shortly.

[00:09:49]And don't forget this is right at the 536 AD event.

[00:09:54]Thus, it was not by a human but some very different power that they wrought such havoc.

[00:10:01]It is said that Justinian's own mother told some of her close friends that he was not the son of her husband Sabatius or of any man at all. For when she was about to conceive, she was visited by a demon who was invisible, but gave her a distinct impression that he was really there with her like a man in bodily contact with a woman. Then he vanished like a dream. So she was already pregnant and he came and got freaky with her and like switched out the souls or something. Put that spawn in there. Some of those who were in the emperor's company late at night conversing with him, evidently in the palace, men of the highest possible character, thought that they saw a strange demonic form in his place. One of them declared that he more than once rose suddenly from the imperial throne and walked round and round the room, for he was not in the habit of remaining seated for long. and Justinian's head would momentarily disappear while the rest of his body seemed to continue making these long circuits. The watcher himself, thinking that something had gone seriously wrong with his eyesight, stood for a long time distressed and quite at a loss. But later the head returned to the body and he thought that what a moment before had been lacking was contrary to expectation filling out again.

[00:11:36]A second man said that he stood by the emperor's side as he sat and saw his face suddenly transformed his face suddenly transformed to a shapeless lump of flesh. Neither eyebrows nor eyes were in their normal position, and it showed no other distinguishing feature at all.

[00:11:56]Gradually, however, he saw the face return to its usual shape. I did not myself witness the events I am describing, but I heard about them from men who insist that they saw them at the time. Precopius was Justinian's official chronicler, so he would have access to people in the palace. And hey, what do you do when your emperor's head turns into a shapeless lump of flesh?

[00:12:25]It is also related that a certain monk highly favored by God was persuaded by those who lived with him in the desert to set out for Baantium in order to speak on behalf of their nearest neighbors who were suffering violence and injustice beyond bearing. On his arrival there he was at once admitted to the emperor's presence. But when he was on the point of entering the audience chamber and had put one foot inside the door, he suddenly drew it back and retreated.

[00:12:59]The unic who was escorting him and others who were present urged and encouraged him to go on, but he gave no answer. And as as if he had suddenly gone crazy, he dashed away back to the apartment where he was lodging. When those who accompanied him asked him to explain the strange behavior, we understand that he said straight out that he had seen the king of demons in the palace sitting on the throne and he was not prepared to meet him or to ask any favor of him. So the priest had his spiritual they live glasses on and he's probably looking at all the people around the room saying, "How do you not see this?"

[00:13:44]After all, how could this man be other than a wicked demon when he never satisfied his natural appetite for drink, food, or sleep, but took a casual bite of the good things set before him, and then wandered about the palace at untimely hours of the night, although he had a demonic passion for the pleasures of Aphrodite.

[00:14:07]You know, that's something I've thought about before. Do you know how bad things would suck if you never slept? You stay up a couple days and you start getting loopy, but everything would just be a blur. So, a spiritual being or a demon or something would have a whole different frame of consciousness than us. So, I guess he spent his nights getting laid till he was bored with that and just wandered around the palace.

[00:14:31]We understand too from some of Theodora's lovers that while she was still on the stage, a demon of some sort swooped on them in the night and drove them from the room where they were spending the night with her. And there was a dancing girl called Macedonia who belonged to the blues in Antioch and had acquired great influence. For by writing letters to Justinian while Justin was still master of the empire, she could easily destroy any she wished of prominent citizens in eastern regions, causing their property to be confiscated for the treasury. This woman, we are told, while welcoming Theodora on her return from England and or Egypt and Libya, saw that she was very annoyed and put out by the insults she had received at the hands of Hezbollius and by the loss of her money during the trip. So Macedonia did her best to console her and cheer her up, reminding her that fortune was quite capable of playing the benefactors and showering wealth upon her. Then we are told Theodora declared that actually during the previous night she had had a vivid dream which told her not to worry about money anymore.

[00:15:55]When she reached Baantium, she would go to the she would go to bed with the king of the demons and would live with him as wedded wife in every respect and as a result would become mistress of all the money she could desire. Ah, so she was a no talent, no brains influencer.

[00:16:15]There's all kinds of people getting this deal today.

[00:16:19]The character of Justinian was in the round such as I have portrayed, but he showed himself approachable and affable to those who with whom he came in contact. Not a single person found himself denied access to the emperor, and even those who broke the rules by the way they stood or spoke in his presence never incurred his wrath. That however did not make him blush when confronting those whom he intended to destroy. In fact, he never even gave a hint of anger or irritation to show how he felt towards those who had offended him. But with a friendly expression on his face and without raising an eyebrow in a gentle voice, he would order tens of thousands of quite innocent persons to be put to death, cities to be raised to the ground, and all their possessions to be confiscated for the treasury. So, it's kind of the perfect Hollywood villain. and statesmen of today. You know, I watched this interview like a an actual hard ball interview back in the 80s or 90s with a highlevel exe exec in the IMF, the International Monetary Fund. And the reporter just scolds this dude for making these policies that made it impossible for men to support their families in these third world countries.

[00:17:48]And the banker said, "How dare you, sir?

[00:17:51]How dare you, sir, for calling him out on his shit." So, it's amazing how people in a position of power can make decisions that negatively affect, you know, thousands or millions of people, but they never pay any mind to that part of things. They just know that they're doing right by them and their investors.

[00:18:12]And by the way, ever since that interview, the IMF has a PR department and execs don't go on camera with reporters.

[00:18:21]But he went much further. And to achieve his aim, he engineered an incalculable number of murders. His ambition being to force everybody into one form of Christian belief. He wantingly destroyed everyone who would not conform. and that while keeping up a pretense of piety, for he did not regard it as murder, so long as those who died did not happen to share his beliefs. Thus he had completely set his heart on the continual slaughter of his fellow men, and together with his wife was constantly engaged in fabricating charges in order to satisfy this ambition. So a little strange that the king of demons is a Christian. I wonder if that's the form of Christian belief that added the Old Testament to the New Testament because those are two totally different things in my book. And this sounds like the model that popes would use for thousands of years after this.

[00:19:20]Like the Crusades and the Inquisition.

[00:19:23]It's amazing what you can get probably otherwise good people to do when they think they're doing it for their god.

[00:19:30]Well, I think if your god is telling you to go slaughter cities, then you should probably be considering who that god is.

[00:19:38]I didn't hear Jesus say anything about any of that. So anyway, that's the story of Justinian according to the secret history by Precopius. And here's a poor little puppy after being racism by that damn cat.

[00:19:54]Which cat, you might ask? Well, they're all just that damn cat and they need to be barked at. Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed it. I'll catch you on the next one. Static out.