Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War.

Chapter 62: A Generation of Blasting God

After confirming the strange metallurgical level of this world, Orville felt much more at ease when doing things.

He went straight to the person in charge of the forge and told him that he would occasionally come to rent the venue, hoping that he could be flexible.

This factory was owned by the state, and the person in charge was a state official. Its business mainly served the Roman people and the city's guards. Occasionally, dignitaries would suddenly have the whim to use it to make things. As long as it was not a critical period, the person in charge would turn a blind eye to such requests.

Because of his special status, Orville quickly obtained permission to use the full set of equipment here, but he had to pay extra to rent staff.

It was just a stopgap measure to deal with the situation for a while, so there was nothing much to say. Orville readily agreed and the matter was settled.

After doing this, Orville asked Belisarius beside him: "Do you know anyone who has good writing skills and is well-known?"

Belisarius thought for a moment and said, "Gaius Pliny Secundus is well-known. He is good at rhetoric, oratory, and biography. He is also an excellent soldier and has a high reputation."

Orwell naturally had some impression of Pliny the Elder, a famous figure in history. He was an encyclopedic figure and the founder of natural history. His book Natural History was still used as a textbook until the 16th century. He certainly met Orwell's requirements. However, as a senator of the Senate and old, Orwell might not be able to invite him. After all, he was not doing anything glorious.

"Is there anyone who is not so powerful? I would like to ask him to help me write something."

This stumped Belisarius, as he was not a native Roman and had little interest in literature and art. He could only name a few influential figures, but could not answer anything else.

Finally he scratched his head and said in embarrassment: "I don't know such a person, but if it's not well-known, I have a friend who always complains to me that he has talent but is not appreciated. If you are willing, I can take you to see him and see if this person is really capable."

"What's your name and where do you live?"

"Procopius lives in the civilian area below the Palatine Hill. It's not far from your residence, so you can go there on your way."

Orville's heart skipped a beat when he heard the name, but he finally nodded in agreement: "Lead the way, I'll go with you to take a look."
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Like most big cities in history, land in Rome is still very expensive, and not everyone can afford a decent single-family house in the wealthy area. In fact, even some prominent families with a long history or upstarts may not have their own houses in the wealthy areas of the city.

Vespa, for example, used to live in a single-family house in a working-class area, while some people lived in mansions or farms in the suburbs, where the land was cheaper.

The person Orville was going to visit lived in a single-family house in a civilian area, not a collective apartment, which meant that the owner's family was probably OK, but not particularly good. Procopius was a thin, pale-skinned, gloomy man who seemed a bit cynical, but Orville would not underestimate him at all, or rather, he did not dare to underestimate him, and shook hands with him solemnly.

[Philippolis Procopius, the gloomy and learned scholar]

Diplomacy: 16
Military: 9
Management: 15
Strategy: 13
Knowledge: 26
Sometimes a person is knowledgeable, writes impartially, and is serious, which is certainly good and worth learning and thinking about. However, such a person may also have dark thoughts, be stuffy and vulgar, and Orwell could not think of a more appropriate example than Procopius.

To describe him with an accurate word, Orville would like to call him: the god of trolling.

He should be a person of the same era as Belisarius. He followed Belisarius in his campaigns as his secretary and advisor, and wrote Belisarius' experiences into "History of War", which is detailed and credible. As a court writer of the famous Emperor Justinian, he is considered to be the last important historian of the classical era and a historical figure of some status.

However, he became famous in later generations not for his historical contributions in this area, but for a book he wrote later, "Secret History". Perhaps he had accumulated too much resentment towards Emperor Justinian, Queen Theodora and others during his career, so he criticized the couple in this book. In addition, he basically criticized everyone around him, from Belisarius to the people watching plays in roadside theaters.

He did not hesitate to give negative reviews to this emperor who had a good reputation in history and criticized him in the book, such as "he did bad things and was easily tempted by others to do bad things", "he was morally stupid and evil", "he was dishonest, cunning, hypocritical, two-faced and false", "he was like a slave of the lowest quality", "he was fickle and keen on assassination, robbery and quarreling", "nature seemed to transfer and concentrate the bad qualities of all other people into this man's soul", "he easily drove wealth out of the Roman world and brought poverty to everyone", and many more.

This is no longer a question of unfairness, it's basically all emotion without any rationality, the emotions are so abundant that they drown out everything.

As for Justinian's queen Theodora, the text should be described as "full of sexual fantasies" in a more polite way. It is difficult to put it in an impolite way, so I will not discuss it for now. In short, the two of them are described as a thief and a whore.

On this basis, he also claimed that Justinian's mother had an affair with the devil and gave birth to Justinian, and that Justinian and Theodora were possessed by demons. He repeatedly emphasized Justinian's demonic image and used all means to severely discredit the image of the two. It can be said that the impact was far-reaching.

If this were just an ordinary unofficial history, it would be nothing, but the problem is that Procopius was indeed Justinian's official writer, and he really wrote very detailed and credible works. This greatly enhances the credibility of these words, plus the writing skills are very good, and there are indeed some true and false things in it. As far as Orwell knows, such a far-reaching and bad situation is the only one in history.

He was actually a little afraid of the other party, afraid that he would also be given a wild history package, because people's words were scary.

Orville considered and spoke: "I am Prince Orville Flavius ​​Vespasianus. I came here after being introduced by Belisarius. He said that you have a good foundation in writing?"

Hearing that the man in front of him was the prince, Procopius was a little bit unconvinced. After confirming with Belisarius, he smiled and said, "I have received a complete Greek education, and I am still very confident about it. But I am not very good at rhetoric or poetry. Smart people are good at rhetoric, and creative people are good at poetry. I am a pragmatic person, so I am good at history."

(End of this chapter)