A Sixth Century libertarian?
by Tom Jackson
Note: I agree with Tom. Procopius would have been a happy man in the 2nd or 18th centuries. Instead, he had the misfortune to live in a world run by ranting lunatics.
This being said, I will try to be fair to Justinian. He was, from the outset, extravagant with the taxpayers’ money and a bigot. But he did begin with a full treasury and a commanding position on the Persian frontier. The Eastern part of the Empire had enjoyed a good fifth century, and there was a moral and strategic case for taking back the Western provinces. The Western collapse was recent enough for it still to be shocking for Roman citizens and for Rome itself to be under barbarian rule – barbarian rule which, in the case of Africa, was grossly oppressive. Africa was recovered with one battle. An uncertain part of Spain may have taken without that. Italy turned out to be harder, but could have been taken without great cost. Whether he also wanted Frankish Gaul and even Britain can’t be said. But Justinian had the will and apparently the means to reunite the Empire after one of its recurrent periods of disintegration.
What sent everything tits up was the first visitation of bubonic plague in 542. It may have killed off a third of the Mediterranean population. In particular, it ended Greek domination in Syria and Egypt. For a thousand years, Semites who came from the countryside to cities like Alexandria and Antioch and Damascus etc had been expected to make themselves into Greeks – and, more recently, Orthodox Greeks – before they could move up the social ladder. In one season, these Hellenised ruling classes were swept away, and hardly anyone after that felt the need to learn Greek. Except Islam wasn’t yet part of the mix, the settlement that became visible in the 630s was already present in the 540s.
Justinian can be blamed for not realising this. The last response he should have made was to centralise the Imperial State and to sharpen its fiscal and theological teeth. He can be blamed, because it is the duty of a ruler to see things as they are. He should have called off the war in Italy and struck a deal with the heretical Semites in Syria and Egypt. He could then have spent the last half of his reign staring down the equally shattered Persians and nursing the Empire back to some kind of health. Instead, he carried on regardless. Because of that, he presided over the collapse of the Ancient World.
I think Procopius realised this. He was himself a Hellenised Syrian, and knew how thin the crust of Greek had been outside the Home Provinces. He spent the best years of his life flattering a bankrupt megalomaniac, and it seems to have sent him mad.
In short, he’s a good read. SIG
I have lately been immersing myself into sixth century Byzantine history, and I am currently reading The Secret History With Related Texts, by Prokopios (usually rendered in English as “Procopius”) translated by a brilliant classics professor at The Ohio State University named Anthony Kaldellis. Pretty far afield from reading Robert Anton Wilson, or so I thought.
But it turns out that Prokopios had a tolerant attitude toward religion, and belief in general, that is strikingly modern, and also reminiscent of RAW.
You’ll no doubt remember the famous quote from RAW encapsulating his philosophical attitude: “My goal is to try to get people into a state of generalized agnosticism, not agnosticism about God alone, but agnosticism about everything.”
This quotation is related not just to Wilson’s personal philosophy, but to his libertarianism. If you can’t be sure of being right about anything, you can hardly be justified in coercing everyone else to behave, or believe, as you would like them to do.
Now, compare that RAW quote with a passage from Prokopios’ The Wars of Justinian that istranslated by Kaldellis:
I think it is insanely stupid to investigate the nature of God and ask what sort it is. For I do not believe that human beings have a sufficiently exact understanding of merely human things, far less of anything that bears on the nature of God. Therefore, I will keep a safe silence about these things, with the sole intention of not allowing honored teachings to be disbelieved. For I would say nothing else about God than that he is entirely good and holds everything within his power. But let each say about these things whatever he thinks he knows, where he is a priest or a layman. (5.3.5-9).
Allowing everyone to express his own opinion is a pretty bold statement in favor of freedom of thought. I also like the statement about how it is impossible to understand “merely human things.” This is an even more remarkable quote if you know enough Byzantine history to grasp the context. Prokopios’ Wars was published during the reign of the Emperor Justinian, who envisioned the empire as a kind of totalitarian theocracy. He enthusiastically persecuted pagans, Neoplatonist philosophers, heretics, homosexuals and anyone else who failed to meet his definition of a model citizen of the Roman Empire. It was also Justinian who shut down the school of philosophers in Athens that had existed for centuries.
My description of Prokopios as a “Sixth Century libertarian” in the headline of this post probably seems like a stretch, but Kaldellis, contrasting the political views of Prokopios and Justinian, remarks in the preface of the book, “We have here an archetypical conflict between a classical conservative-liberal on the one hand and a revolutionary ideologue on the other.” (For those unfamiliar with libertarian terminology, a “classical liberal” is a kind of moderate, limited government libertarian. The folks at the Cato Institute essentially are classical liberals.)
I’ve mentioned before that I’m a big fan of Robert Shea’s historical novel All Things Are Lights, essential a kind of thematic prequel to ILLUMINATUS! The hero of the novel, Roland, is dragooned into King Louis’ crusade against the Moslems in Egypt, although he secretly believes that all religions have about the same amount of truth and falsehood. This seemed like an anachronistically modern attitude when I read the book last year, but now I am not so sure.
Whether you buy my opinion that Prokopios was a kind of early libertarian, or at least an early civil libertarian, he was undoubtedly one of the first revisionist historians. His Wars of Justinian stuck mostly to the official line on Justinian’s wars against the Persians, the Vandals and the Goths, but his Secret History (which could not be openly circulated when Prokopios was alive) offered a scathing, alternative view of Justinian and his tyranny.
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Believing that all religions have about the same amount of truth and falsehood may not be a “modern attitude”, but it is certainly a boring one (a refusal to make a judgement – to make hard choices). It is also dishonest – rather like Gibbon’s 18th century whitewashing of Mohammed. Better open atheism than such wishy washy evasion.
Still enough about that.
P. attacks Justinian for everything (at least in The Secret History) a lot of his attacks are (yes indeed) on Justinian’s big government policies, but not all of the attacks are in this line. Sometimes he attacks Justinian for not being generous enough (with other people’s money).
Sometimes these attacks are also sound – for example Justinian seems to have cut back on intelligence (spying) and that is always a false economy. A blind state (one does not know what is going on) gets trapped by unforeseen crises – and then has to spend a fortune.
However, the occasional attacks on Justinian for not doing more to help the poor are not sound. Justinian could do no more to help the poor without increasing taxation (which was already crushing) and thus increasing (not reducing) poverty.
I agree with Sean Gabb that Justinian should not have tried for theological unity – although most Emperors did, a few were wise enough to see that it was folly to try and enforce uniformity (sadly Justinian was not one of the few).
On Italy – Justinian did not support the original operation fully (either go in 100% or not at all – limited operations always drag on and end up costing more, in both lives and treasure, than if one had gone in 100% to start with).
On Greek civilisation – well there were plenty of Greek traders in Alex even in the 20th century, but yes it was no longer the language of civilisation.
But more than a thousand years of Islamic rule had occurred.
I find it hard to believe that Greek culture in the Eastern Med was weak under (say) the Emperor Maurice – and he was half a century later than Justinian.
Although yes – Justinian himself was a native Latin speaker (although he could certainly speak and write in Greek).
Still perhaps his actions (such as destroying the Athenian “universities” – i.e. the scholars and their students) can be explained by his lack of sympathy with Greek culture.
East Romans (Byzantines) still read the Greek classics (although sadly they never mastered printing – and so many works existed in only a few copies), but they stopped writing so many new things of their own (Greek culture became a semi dead thing – and thus less interesting than something in which new things are often added).
Although the early Muslims found Greek philosophical and scientific fascinating (as did Jewish thinkers) – indeed Greek was still important before the “closing” of Islam to reason (which happened about a thousand years ago).
In the West Greek was a minority intellectual interest (even among the literate) – but thinkers such as Roger Bacon show that interest never died out.Roger Bacon (and some others) argued that as the New Testament was written in Greek it was the duty of a serious theologian to learn the language (he was also interested in it for scientific and philosophical reasons), but this was very much a minority view.
The majority of Western thinkers (including Augustine and Thomas Aquinas – both of whom, centuries apart, had the opportunity to learn Greek but did not) choose to comment on Greek thought without learning the language.
And we are still like that – at least I am. Not good.
The Plague.
The plague was important in other ways,
For example it seems to have spread as far as Britain – where the Romano British traded with the Byzantines, hitting the West of the island (the Romano British) far more than the East – the pagan Anglo Saxon tribes.
I am not an expert on this period, but I’ve read a fair amount about Justinian, and can never find anything the least meritous about the man.
Here is the best work I’ve seen on the 6th century plague:
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/ahess_0395-2649_1969_num_24_6_422183
“he secretly believes that all religions have about the same amount of truth and falsehood. This seemed like an anachronistically modern attitude when I read the book last year, but now I am not so sure.”
I’d say Mr Jackson’s original opinion sounds more plausible.
It’s a long time since I read Procopius, but going from the quote it doesn’t look like a case of broad religious open-mindedness, but rather one of impatience with petty doctrinal squabbles within a Christian context – an entirely understandable, if rather courageous, position for a 6th century Byzantine.
Apart from anything else, a 13th century European would have to be either very unusually educated or extremely well travelled and experienced to have any basis for reaching such a conclusion.
One of the most chilling things that Procopius says about Justinian is that he gave no sign of who planned to destroy – everyone was talked to (and so on) in the same way.
That may be good policy (not warning someone in advance by a display of temper), but it also shows that his murders were premeditated – acts of policy (not fits of temper).
Also Justinian had no respect for tradition (remember how important ritual and tradition was for people, even quite humble people, in this period).
We are no longer a Republic so Consuls have no function – abolish the position.
“But the position is very ancient”.
That is not relevant – and, by the way, what was your name again?
Ditto the ancient practice of groups of scholars and students in Athens and……
Well everything.
Romans still clung to the idea that they (unlike the Persian Empire) were a land governed by LAW not WHIM.
And Justinian (like Frederick the Great more than a thousand years later) made a great show of his Law Code.
But, in reality, the regime was lawless – as the whims of the Emperor (or his wife and favourites) trumped any law.