摘要：For the past century the majority of Anglophone readers have approachedthe works of Procopius via Dewing’s multi-volume Loebtranslation. That it has done its job well is demonstrated by the fact thatfor the audience in the twenty-first century Anthony Kaldellis has used it forthe basis of this new version, which replaces the five Loeb volumes of Warswith a single, much larger, volume.A brief introduction, no more than ten pages, summarises the historicalcontext for the events narrated by Procopius, surveys what little is knownabout his life and career, touches on sources and the underlying literarytraditions, and digests modern scholarship on the state of Justinian’s armies.Brevity precludes the airing of particular scholarly debates and Kaldellis hassensibly avoided presenting his distinctive but implausible views on Procopiusas a writer. They only intrude in the comment on the Ecclesiastical History, thatProcopius alluded to but never wrote (x): this work might well have beendifferent from extant ecclesiastical histories, but that does not mean that itwould have resembled the Secret History in adopting a scandalous approach.The categorization as ‘facetious’ (xiii) of Procopius’ argument in hisintroduction about the importance of mounted archers is also unfounded:modern historians have certainly been wrong to assume from this passage thatthese troops were the backbone of the sixth-century Roman army, butProcopius was wanting to make a point about how the balance of warfare hadchanged over the centuries.
