Reconstructing Justinian’s Reconquest of the West without Procopius

Abstract

This thesis examines the evidence surrounding the Roman emperor Justinian’s wars in western Europe (Italy and Spain) and North Africa. It argues that without Procopius’ narrative, we would be left with a very bland, cursory account and even find it difficult to get a full grip on what happened when, even though Jordanes in particular does give some sort of narrative. The thesis focuses on the narrative of Justinian’s western wars offered by sources like Jordanes’, Romana and Getica, Victor of Tonnuna’s Chronicle, Corippus’ epic poem and Marcellinus comes’ Chronicle and its addition. It also discusses when each of these sources was written and where, and the background of the author, so that the reader can identify what was important to the author and the potential biases in the presentation of the events in question. The thesis then compares the narrative of the above sources to the narrative of Procopius in order to determine what information historians and scholars would not have if they did not have Procopius’ work.