A reliable member of the Byzantine elite, Procopius was the official chronicler of the Empire. The History of the Wars of Justinian announced the power and wisdom of the Emperor's reign. However, the diligent scribe was simultaneously working on a very different - and dangerous - story, which would be published only when its author was safe in his life. The Secret History depicts the "great legislator" Justinian as a king of corruption and tyranny, Empress Theodora as a witch and prostitute, and the glorious general Belisarius as the gullible victim of his wife's machinations, Antonina. With an exaggerated and explosive style, the Secret History is a work full of energy, depicting the sacred Byzantine Empire as a hell of murder and vice.