Rhetoric and Narrative Settings in Procopius’ Persian Wars: Ten Centuries after Herodotus

This study explores how Procopius of Caesarea integrates Herodotean mimesis alongside his traditional Thucydidean framework in the Persian Wars. By analyzing the speeches during the Nika Riots (532 AD) and Khosrow I's allocution at Antioch (540 AD), Eramo demonstrates how Procopius uses literary models, tragic warnings, and intertextual variations to convey implicit political critiques and complex reflections on fate (týche). Classical mimesis serves not as mere stylistic imitation, but as a sophisticated system of masks enabling the historian to guide reader reception and articulate nuanced views on contemporary 6th-century events