Porphyrios - The Terror of Late Antiquity @TheFallofRome

Uploaded February 2026 | Updated September 2026, 14 minutes ago

The sixth century historian Procopius, in both his History of the Wars, and The Secret History, mentions a sea monster--a gigantic whale--named Porphyrios that dwelt in the Bosporus Strait and the Black Sea, and which terrorized the shipping lanes around Constantinople for about fifty years, and which causes significant headaches for the Emperor Justinian & the Roman navy. Our information is fairly limited, but what can we say about this real life Moby Dick?

SOURCES:
The Secret History, Procopius
The History of the Wars, Procopius
A Cabinet of Byzantine Curiosities, Kaldellis

Porphyrios - The Terror of Late Antiquity

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