Procopius secret history - Essay Example

Justinian is presumed to be of average height, he is not tall or short. He is also described as moderately flabby and not thin. The author continues to describe Justinian as healthy looking. His physical appearance is not affected even when he fasts for two days. In contrast, Justinian has a different character from his attractive appearance (Halsall 1). This makes it difficult to describe Justinian. Justinian is illustrated as amenable and villainous. People may refer to him as a moron. Justinian is never honest with any individual, but all the time crafty in his actions and words.

Nonetheless, he is tricked by any person who wants to delude him. In addition, Justinian’s personality is an unusual mixture of wickedness and foolishness. His contradictory characteristics combine in his makeup. Justinian’s Administration Justinian changes the country’s laws and regulations as soon as he takes charge. He reintroduces into the administration whatever elements of the society that are forbidden. In contrast, Justinian repeals all customs or practices that were previously set up.

Moreover, Justinian abolishes existing agencies and creates different ones to manage the public issues of the state. He also alters the structures of the army. He changes the regulations and laws of the military. He makes all these changes, not for any advantage or improvement of justice, but to make everything recent and named after him (Halsall 1). His foolishness is further highlighted when he renames institutions and structures he is unable to alter. Justinian also does everything to acquire property, including looting and killing.

He accumulates property through looting. He grabs the houses of the wealthy and searches for more property. He shares a part of his loot with barbarians. Justinian’s Laws He has a thought of killing more people in the state and gaining more property. He promotes frontier warfare, and civil strife to conquer the Romans. He creates a new way of eliminating his people. He sets up new laws that abolish previous religious beliefs, for example, he calls for the abolishment of heresies, used by the Christian faithful in the Roman Empire.

He replaces the religious beliefs with the orthodox dogma, theeatening. For example, he proposes loss of the heretic’s entitlement to give possessions to his household or further relatives. These laws make the heretic churches extra wealthy. These depict a vast wealth disparity between the heretic churches and the entire Roman Empire administration (Halsall 1). He also enforces a law that prosecutes offences regardless of the time they occur. Period of Existence The writer lived in a period of dictatorship and inadequate freedom.

This is because this period had a lot of restraints. There are a number of suggestions that the administration of Justinian has not been efficient as perceived. People were forced to move from the state to other areas (Halsall 1). The people spread to different cities and countries. This is because they were escaping prosecution from the administration. Conclusion From the beginning, the resource characterizes Justinian as an individual with different characters from his appearance. This is because he never practices honesty with any person and is always crafty in his actions and words.

He is also depicted as evil and foolish because he get whatever he wants through any means and can be easily tricked by anyone. The work