Count Belisarius

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Barker, John W. (1966). Justinian and the later Roman Empire. University of Wisconsin Press. p.75. ISBN 978-0-299-03944-8 . Retrieved 28 November 2011. On December 9, 536 AD, Byzantine Count Belisarius entered Rome through the Asinarian Gate at the head of 5,000 troops. At the same time, 4,000 Ostrogoths left the city through the Flaminian Gate and headed north to Ravenna, the capital of their Italian kingdom. For the first time since 476, when the Germanic king, Odoacer, had deposed the last Western Roman emperor and crowned himself ‘King of the Romans,’ the city of Rome was once more part of the Roman empire–albeit an empire whose capital had shifted east to Constantinople. Graves writes in the style of Classical authors. The conceit is that this is the biography of Belisarius as written by his wife’s trusted domestic slave, and it possesses many of the flourishes and literary devices common to that period. But if I’m going to read something of that sort, I’d rather just go to the source itself and read some Procopius directly. Of course, if I did that, I would miss out on the fact that Count Belisarius is actually more a biography of the military leader’s remarkable wife, Antonina, and her close childhood friend, the Empress Theodora. This is a nice approach – both women are fascinating figures in their own right, but it wasn't enough in itself to really hook me.

Despite the potentially dramatic psychology of the relationship between Belisarius and Justinian, you end up not really caring. Belisarius is purely noble, Justinian purely loathsome - no nuance is on show. His name is mentioned, and his "ancient palace"/"sunken city" ruins—below a Mosque in Istanbul—are a playable level in Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb.During the upcoming campaign, Totila mostly wanted to avoid sieges. [15] The Byzantines had proven themselves adept at sieges, but he had proven multiple times he could defeat them in open battle. Therefore, he razed the walls of towns he took; he wanted neither to be besieged there nor to have to besiege them later. Belisarius, on the other hand, wanted to avoid battle; he had entirely avoided battle after the battle of Rome. With forces as small as his, he wanted to avoid losing too many men and instead avoid the Goths from making progress through other means. The Emperor Justinian was determined to drive out the barbarian invaders holding the western provinces of the Roman Empire. The obstacles were enormous and after the disastrous fiasco of 467, and he needed someone to successfully lead the army in this new invasion. A young general from Thrace named Belisarius had just made a name for himself on the Eastern Front by defeating a Persian army nearly twice his size. Justinian felt he had found his man.

Belisarius: A Tragedy: by Margaretta Faugères (1795). Though she wrote it as a play, Faugères "intended [this work] for the closet," i.e., to be read and not performed. Her preface voices complaints about "maledictions" and long-winded rhetoric in popular tragic drama, which she says tend to bore and even outrage a reader, and announces her intent to "substitute concise narrative and plain sense." The drama's plot and character development are secondary to moral conflicts, mainly between vengeance and mercy/pity, respectively associated with pride and humility. Every other character, almost without exception, is quite repulsive and unlikable and all betray Belisarius in one way or another (Justinian, Theodora, and even his beloved Antonina). This is a tale of a tragic hero, whose very unbending moral goodness is seen as his only weakness in a world that is neither worthy of him nor appreciates him. His eventual, inevitable, final fall and death is suitably heart breaking and reads like something from a Greek tragedy. Source for a handbook: Reflections of the Wars in the Strategikon and archaeology" in: Ancient Warfare edited by Jasper Oorthuys, Vol. IV, Issue 3 (2010), pp. 33–37Fighting continued all morning, the fiercest opposition allegedly coming from Naples’ Jewish population, who expected to face persecution under an intolerant Christian regime. In consequence, when resistance broke down, the angry Isaurian troops swept through the city slaughtering civilians. Belisarius had hoped to avoid such a massacre, but it did help him to avoid further bloodshed for some time thereafter. As word of Naples’ fate spread, several other Italian towns opened their gates to the Byzantines, and Pope Silverius sent word to Belisarius that he would be welcomed in Rome. Originally published in 1936, Count Belisarius has not basked in the same limelight as Robert Graves’s two earlier masterpieces set in the early Roman Empire. Instead, in Count Belisarius the focus shifts east from Rome to Constantinople. The cast is full and complex but essentially can be summarised as a foursome: the Emperor Justinian and his wife, Theodora, whose closest friend, Antonina, marries Justinian’s general, Belisarius. Both Hughes and Brogna agree 600 men entered the city. Brogna claims Belisarius sent men to find another entrance into the city. Hughes claims the entrance was found by an Isaurian studying the building techniques of the ancients and doesn’t mention an intentional effort being made by Belisarius. Written as a semi-historical account, Count Belisarius is perhaps better understood as a love ode to its protagonist, who always does the right thing . After the publication of Jean-François Marmontel's novel Bélisaire (1767), this account became a popular subject for progressive painters and their patrons in the later 18th century, who saw parallels between the actions of Justinian and the repression imposed by contemporary rulers. For such subtexts, Marmontel's novel received a public censure by Louis Legrand of the Sorbonne, which contemporary theologians regarded as a model exposition of theological knowledge and clear thinking. [49] Belisarius Begging for Alms, as depicted in popular legend, in the painting by Jacques-Louis David (1781)