Riccardo Stigliano | PhD Candidate | Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck

Seminar Chair: Gianfranco Agosti (Università di Pisa)

Abstract
Procopius of Caesarea, author of the critical Secret History, seems to compose an unexpected eulogy of Emperor Justinian with the Buildings. This paper challenges the hypothesis that the work represents a genuine conversion of the author or a simple court commission. Through a rhetorical analysis of the prologue, it is suggested instead that Procopius constructs only a superficial eulogy, internally emptied of its persuasive force.

The analysis focuses on three strategies: the choice of an impersonal theme (the buildings, not the emperor’s virtues); the hybridization of the panegyric with the objective style of Thucydidean historiography; and the use of ambiguous comparisons with figures such as Temistokles and Cyrus, who, behind the appearance of praise, evoke obscure origins and moral ambiguity. The use of figures such as praeteritio and ‘rhetorical irony’ confirms this double reading.

It concludes that the Buildings is an act of literary dissimulation, a formal but unconvincing eulogy, which allows Procopius to maintain critical consistency with his previous works while fulfilling, only in appearance, his duties as a courtier.