More Byzantine Events: Count Belisarius by Robert Graves

Count Belisarius by Robert Graves

published 1938

 

So I did a post on a book called You with the Roses by James Wellard, about the life of the byzantine empress Theodora. In the comments, stalwart blogfriend Roger Allen mentioned that Theodora’s sister Antonina had married a legendary general, Belisarius, and that Robert Graves had written a historical novel about him – and another blogfriend, Lucy Fisher, mentioned this book too. She remembered  Antonina, a 14 yo entertainer, walking on her hands at a party.

That original post was partly about my childhood love of libraries and we discussed the fact that stock was a lot more fixed in those days, much less turnover. And there were books I saw all the time, without picking them up – and one of them was Count Belisarius. (I shut my eyes and visualized the spine, and then found a picture of that online…) I worked out that it was very familiar because one of my key authors back then was Graham Greene, and I would have been looking for his books all the time, and taking in Graves in the shelf above as it might be.

It seemed a given that I was going to have to read this book finally, all these years later….

It’s a long book, 500+ pages, and some of it is very entertaining and some of it isn’t. A lot of it is about battles and campaigns and wars, and that does nothing for me. It is like hearing of long ago football matches, and the tactics used. Just tell me the final score, if you must.

Also chariot races: there is this bit of description, which I think speaks for itself:

It would be out of place to give a full account of the race; but let me at least describe the seventh and last lap of it. First one Colour had led, then the other, then the first again. By the end of the fifth lap, when the competitors had already covered a full mile, the position was that the first Green chariot was in the inside berth… blah blah blah.

 

I mean, really? 'First one led, then the other...'

Belisarius did have a very strange and interesting life, and the book promises well in the opening chapters: born around 500 CE, he is a young man making his way across the Near East, a real enough person. But the older he gets, the more blank he becomes. He was a great general and seems like a man of honour who tried to do the right thing. He was tossed about by the politics of the day, And there was a popular legend for many centuries that he ended up begging in the streets. Graves goes along with this, although modern scholars apparently think the story apocryphal.

According to this book, he encouraged the use of stirrups by his men – one of those inventions/changes that military historians think was pivotal and changed the world.

#spoilernotspoiler, though not for this book: I guess the Palace where the Emperor and Empress live is the one featured in this book (given historical changes) – though to know that is to spoiler the book I’m linking to. [as I explain in the post, the actual title of the film made of the book spoilers it too…]

The book is narrated by Eugenius – an invented character. He is a eunuch who serves Belisarius and Antonina, and whose character cheerfully comes through. I particularly liked this when they are trying to escape a siege situation:

On the last night of November we slipped out of the city, 1,500 of us, by the Appian Gate. I, for one, was so happy to be away that I began to sing a Hippodrome song, ‘The Chariots Fly’, forgetting the order of silence; an officer struck me roughly over the shoulder with the flat of his sword, and I ceased singing in the middle of my verse.

Overall I would say that I am glad I read this, but I won’t be reading it again. If you are excited by descriptions of military campaigns (and he is supposed to have been one of the greatest generals of all time) then you might enjoy it. The rest of you: I read it so you don’t have to.

Count Belisarius in the mosaics at Ravenna, Wikimedia Commons,

 

Bust of Belisarius by Jean-Baptiste Stouf  Wikimedia Commons

 

Jacques-Louis David, Belisarius begging for alms. Also Wikimedia Commons