Author:
Abstract
Procopius appears to us as intellectual and historian who lived in heyday of Byzantium Empire and wrote important work. As it is known, powerful periods reveal strong rulers, powerful administrative and military staffs and strong scholars. Despite negative criticisms, Justinian I period also was the brightest period of Byzantium Empire. Here, Procopius, as a historian, tried to introduce this period with all its aspects, and tried to reflect what he saw, lived and felt with all his nakedness, relying on the power of his pen. On one hand, he transfered to architectual characteristic of era, wars of period, on the other hand he transfer to all the positive and negative activity of statesmen with respect to his perspective. But in this study, we would like to point out that in the first degree we are going to focus on in detail the “Black Plague” or the Plague of Justinian which ravaged the world and the Byzantine empire and the İstanbul, capital of this state, from 540 to 555. Because the core of our article rather consist of reassestment of Procopius’s findings on mentioned plague pandemic. In this work, we tried to reassest many aspects of these findings. Considering the positive aspects, not the negative aspects, of the findings of the mentioned historian, we have to say that it contains very valuable information about the plague that occurred at that time.
Keywords
Abstract
Procopius appears to us as intellectual and historian who lived in heyday of Byzantium Empire and wrote important work. As it is known, powerful periods reveal strong rulers, powerful administrative and military staffs and strong scholars. Despite negative criticisms, Justinian I period also was the brightest period of Byzantium Empire. Here, Procopius, as a historian, tried to introduce this period with all its aspects, and tried to reflect what he saw, lived and felt with all his nakedness, relying on the power of his pen. On one hand, he transfered to architectual characteristic of era, wars of period, on the other hand he transfer to all the positive and negative activity of statesmen with respect to his perspective. But in this study, we would like to point out that in the first degree we are going to focus on in detail the “Black Plague” or the Plague of Justinian which ravaged the world and the Byzantine empire and the İstanbul, capital of this state, from 540 to 555. Because the core of our article rather consist of reassestment of Procopius’s findings on mentioned plague pandemic. In this work, we tried to reassest many aspects of these findings. Considering the positive aspects, not the negative aspects, of the findings of the mentioned historian, we have to say that it contains very valuable information about the plague that occurred at that time.