Read "The Secret History" by Procopius online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
How he seized all wealth I will next discuss: recalling first a vision which, at the beginning of Justinian's rule, was revealed to one of illustrious rank in a dream.
In this dream, he said, he seemed to be standing on the shore of the sea somewhere in Constantinople, across the water from Chalcedon, and saw Justinian there in midchannel. And first Justinian drank up all the water of the sea, so that he presently appeared to be standing on the mainland, there being no longer any waves to break against it; then other water, heavy with filth and rubbish, roaring out of the subterranean sewers, proceeded to cover the land. And this, too, he drank, a second time drying up the bed of the channel. This is what the vision in the dream disclosed.