Procopius in the context of "Selçuk"

Ammianus Marcellinus, occasionally anglicized as Ammian (Greek: Αμμιανός Μαρκελλίνος; born c. 330, died c. 391 – 400), was a Greek and Roman soldier and historian who wrote the penultimate major historical account surviving from antiquity (preceding Procopius). Written in Latin and known as the Res gestae, his work chronicled the history of Rome from the accession of Emperor Nerva in 96 to the death of Valens at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. Only the sections covering the period 353 to 378 survive.

The history of Denmark as a unified kingdom began in the 8th century, but historic documents describe the geographic area and the people living there—the Danes—as early as 500 AD. These early documents include the writings of Jordanes and Procopius. With the Christianization of the Danes c. 960 AD, it is clear that there existed a kingship. King Frederik X can trace his lineage back to the Viking kings Gorm the Old and Harald Bluetooth from this time, thus making the Monarchy of Denmark the oldest in Europe. The area now known as Denmark has a rich prehistory, having been populated by several prehistoric cultures and people for about 12,000 years, since the end of the last ice age.

Denmark's history has particularly been influenced by its geographical location between the North and Baltic seas, a strategically and economically important placement between Sweden and Germany, at the center of mutual struggles for control of the Baltic Sea (dominium maris baltici). Denmark was long in disputes with Sweden over control of Skånelandene and with Germany over control of Schleswig (a Danish fief) and Holstein (a German fief).

The Little Hagia Sophia mosque (Turkish: Küçük Ayasofya Camii), formerly the Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus (Ancient Greek: Ἐκκλησία τῶν Ἁγίων Σεργίου καὶ Βάκχου ἐν τοῖς Ὁρμίσδου, romanized: Ekklēsía tôn Hagíōn Sergíou kaì Bákchou en toîs Hormísdou), is a former Greek Orthodox church dedicated to Saints Sergius and Bacchus in Constantinople (modern Istanbul), built between 532 and 536, and converted into a mosque during the Ottoman Empire.

This Byzantine building with a central dome plan was erected in the sixth century by Justinian; despite its Turkish name, it likely was not a model for Hagia Sophia ("Holy Wisdom"), with which its construction was contemporary, but it is nonetheless one of the most important early Byzantine buildings in Istanbul. It was recognized at the time by Procopius as an adornment to the entire city, and a modern historian of the East Roman Empire has written that the church "by the originality of its architecture and the sumptuousness of its carved decoration, ranks in Constantinople second only to St Sophia itself".

Quemedava was an ancient Dacian city in Dardania mentioned by Procopius.

The first plague pandemic was the first historically recorded Old World pandemic of plague, the contagious disease caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Also called the early medieval pandemic, it began with the Plague of Justinian in 541 and continued until 750 or 767. At least fifteen to eighteen major waves of plague following the Justinianic plague have been identified from historical records. The pandemic affected the Mediterranean Basin most severely and most frequently, but also infected the Near East and Northern Europe, and potentially East Asia as well. The Roman emperor Justinian I's name is sometimes applied to the whole series of plague epidemics in late antiquity.

The pandemic is best known from its first and last outbreaks: the Justinianic Plague of 541–549, described by the contemporary Roman historian Procopius, and the late 8th century plague of Naples described by Neapolitan historian John the Deacon in the following century (distinct from the Naples Plague of the 17th century, during the second plague pandemic). Other accounts from contemporaries of the pandemic are included in the texts of Evagrius Scholasticus, John of Ephesus, Gregory of Tours, Paul the Deacon, and Theophanes the Confessor; most seem to have believed plague was a divine punishment for human misdeeds.

The plague of Justinian or Justinianic plague (AD 541–549) was an epidemic of plague that afflicted the entire Mediterranean Basin, Europe, and the Near East, especially the Sasanian Empire and the Byzantine Empire. The plague is named for the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I (r. 527–565) who, according to his court historian Procopius, contracted the disease and recovered in 542, at the height of the epidemic which killed about a fifth of the population in the imperial capital Constantinople. The contagion arrived in Roman Egypt in 541, spread around the Mediterranean Sea until 544, and persisted in Northern Europe and the Arabian Peninsula until 549. By 543, the plague had spread to every corner of Justinian's empire.

The plague's severity and impact remain debated. Some scholars assert that as the first episode of the first plague pandemic, it had profound economic, social, and political effects across Europe and the Near East and cultural and religious impact on Eastern Roman society. However, scholars such as Mordechai and Eisenberg have argued that the Plague of Justinian was overstated by primary sources and while would have been incredibly impactful on a personal level, did not have a severe or even a long lasting impact on the population of the Mediterranean in the Age of Justinian.

The Vandalic War (533–534) was a conflict fought in North Africa between the forces of the Byzantine Empire (also known as the Eastern Roman Empire) and the Germanic Vandal Kingdom. It was the first war of Emperor Justinian I's Renovatio imperii Romanorum, wherein the Byzantines attempted to reassert Roman sovereignty over territory formerly controlled by the Western Roman Empire.

The Vandals occupied Roman North Africa in the early 5th century and established an independent kingdom there. Under their king, Geiseric, the Vandal navy carried out pirate attacks across the Mediterranean, sacked Rome in 455, and defeated a Roman invasion in 468. After Geiseric's death in 477, relations with the Eastern Roman Empire were normalized, although tensions flared up occasionally due to the Vandals' adherence to Arianism and their persecution of the Nicene native population. In 530, a palace coup occurred in Carthage due to a defeat against the Moorish war chief of the Frexes tribe Antalas, for which Gelimer blamed Hilderic, and the Vandals overthrew the pro-Roman Hilderic and replaced him with his cousin Gelimer. The Eastern Roman emperor Justinian took this as a pretext to intervene in Vandal affairs, and after securing the eastern frontier with Sassanid Persia in 532, he began preparing an expedition under general Belisarius, whose secretary Procopius wrote the main historical narrative of the war. Justinian took advantage of rebellions in the remote Vandal provinces of Sardinia and Tripolitania. These not only distracted Gelimer from Justinian's preparations but significantly weakened Vandal defenses through the dispatch of the bulk of the Vandal navy and army under Gelimer's brother Tzazo to Sardinia.

The Battle of Tricamarum took place on December 15, 533 between the armies of the Byzantine Empire, under Belisarius, and the Vandal Kingdom, commanded by King Gelimer, and his brother Tzazo. It followed the Byzantine victory at the Battle of Ad Decimum, and eliminated the power of the Vandals for good, completing the reconquest of North Africa under the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I. The main contemporary source for the battle is Procopius, De Bello Vandalico, which occupies Books III and IV of his magisterial Wars of Justinian.

The Castle of Oblivion (Old Armenian: բերդ Անուշ berd Anush), also known as the Prison of Oblivion or the Fortress of Oblivion, was a castle and political prison of the Sasanian Empire located in Khuzestan in southwestern Iran. According to the Buzandaran Patmutʻiwnkʻ and Procopius' Persian War, the name referred to the fact that it was forbidden to mention the name of the castle or its prisoners. It may be identifiable with the fortress of Agabana mentioned by Ammianus Marcellinus as the place of Arshak II's imprisonment. According to Claudia Ciancaglini and Giusto Traina, the Armenian form berd Anush is a borrowing from an unattested Middle Persian name which may be reconstructed as *anōš bard. The form Anyush is a later reinterpretation or Armenianization of the original word, identifying it with the common word anyush 'forgotten'. Ciancaglini argues that the original meaning of the name was not 'Castle of Oblivion'—a sense derived from the Armenian etymological reinterpretation—but rather 'immortal, imperishable fortress' (from Middle Persian anōš⁠ 'immortal').