On Buildings

The passages that are explained by Proc. II 492, 9 also flowed from Arrian, Periplus 6: "They say that the place Apsaros was called Apsyrtos long ago; for it was there that Apsyrtos died at the hands of Medea, and the tomb of Apsyrtos is shown there. Later, the name was corrupted by the neighboring barbarians." Cf. Jung, p. 93.

In another place (II 488, 21), where he discusses certain matters that were not accurately treated by the ancients, we recognize that he is refuting Xenophon (Anabasis IV 8, 22) and Arrian, from Arrian's Periplus 11: "The Colchians are neighbors to the Trapezuntines, just as Xenophon says... but it seems to me that these are the Sanni." Procopius makes mention of Arrian once (II 565, 5); however, I leave it undecided whether he used Arrian himself or some other writer who had copied him. From Herodotus IV 86: "For the voyage from the mouth of the Phasis... is nine days and eight nights; these amount to one hundred and eleven myriad fathoms, and from these fathoms there are eleven thousand one hundred stadia..." there flowed a passage in the eighth book of the histories of Procopius II 509, 1: "This, however, is clear: that the journey along the right side of the Euxine Sea, from Calchedon to the river Phasis, is a fifty-two-day journey for an active man." For since Procopius himself says (I 310, 13) that two hundred and ten stadia is the journey of one day, it is apparent that 11,100 stadia is the journey of fifty-two or three days. But if you wonder why Procopius disagrees with himself, who says at I 309, 12, "Along the Asian part, from Calchedon to the river Phasis... the journey is completed in forty days," it seems he drew this from Arrian.

Concerning the Manuscripts.

All the manuscripts that contain Procopius’ books on the wars, if you omit the Constantinian excerpts, flowed from a single archetype now lost, which we conclude was not free from errors itself based on the common errors found in all manuscripts; I have denoted it with the letter x.