Customer Reviews

Count Belisarius

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If you loved "I, Claudius" please read this book as well! It's about the sixth century Byzantine general Belisarius in the service of the great emperor Justinian. Belisarius is the scorge of the Vandals, the Persians and the Goths, but they are not the only enemies he has. Back in Constantinople the emperor, jealous of his succes, is continuously plotting against his loyal subject. If it weren't for the friendship between Belisarius' wife and the empress Theodora, things would have looked much bleaker for the Roman empire because Belisarius is doing just fine in kicking the barbarians back to the frontiers of the old empire. Fans of historical novels and Graves will find much to enjoy here and in the process learn a lot about a relatively unknown period in the history of the Roman empire, namely the one after the fall of the Western Empire and between the actual Byzantine period. This is a period when the emperors in Constantinople still considered themselves to be masters of the entire mediterranean, if not in actuality , then at least in name and constantly strove to reassert their authority. In conclusion this is a real pearl and not to be misssed by fans of Graves or for that matter by anybody interested in reading great historical novels. Remco Groeneveld

This was a fine book by a great author. While "Goodbye to All That" undoubtedly was Graves' best work, "Count Belisarius" runs a close second. Graves takes us on a journey through the unbelievable achievements of this extradorinarily virtuous man who was so little appreciated by his emperor. Graves puts his own spin on some of the historical events in the novel - or at least he disagrees with some earlier historians - but the novel is well written and gives a great insite into the causes for Rome's decline and eventual collapse.

This book may not be one of Graves' best but in the spirit of Gibbon, he captures his sources well. However, for entertainment and a more immediate sense of the history, you may find it more worth your while to read Graves' source: Procopius, The Wars (not The Secret History!). It is less sentimental and gives a more edgy account of Belisarius' struggles and incomprehensible end.

Mine is a biased judgement. This book started me off on a lot of very fruitful and productive thinking about Graves's novels. It's funny, gripping and a wonderful blend of rewriting of the 18th century sentimental classic by Marmontel with contemporary anthropology, classicism and a touch of personal speculation. The narrative context is entirely plausible and the story shows that Roman politics were as sordid and twisted as ever even after the Roman conversion to Christianity.

I've read through quite a few reviews here and can't wholeheartedly disagree with most of them. It is true that the plot of this novel can get a bit tedious, and I also agree that the character development is a bit lacking, especially when compared to "I, Claudius" or "Claudius The God . . . " For what it is though, a history of the life and times of the Byzantine Empire's most able general, it is quite good.

This novel is certainly not a good place to start for those new to Robert Graves. New readers would likely decide that Graves' writing style is a bit dry and cumbersome. No, this is really a novel for the seasoned Graves scholar---and honestly, only for those who have a genuine interest in the Eastern Roman Empire.
For those who do, however, this is an absolute treasurebook. In fact, a script of this novel would be suitable material for a History Channel documentary while his others were obviously suitable for the BBC.

It would probably be unfair to compare "Count Belisarius" to the likes of the two Claudian novels, but comparisons are made nonetheless. For the character of Claudius, Graves obviously had to "fill in some blanks." In doing so, he truly brings the character to life. This is not to say, however, that Graves took too many poetic liberties in developing the character---quite the contrary. Graves was, for all practical purposes, an historian. In other words, he always did his homework and when he does have to fill in bits of missing information, he does so in a way that one might logically expect that character to behave/react/decide etc. The same can be said for Belasarius. With Belisarius, however, Graves did not have to be nearly as "creative" as with Claudius, since the details of Belasarius' life are more concrete. Perhaps this attributes to the novel being a bit dry---more factual perhaps, but without the drama.

For the most part, I see in Belisarius a character whose fate was not too different than that of Claudius, or at least his brother Germanicus. Justinian could have easily sufficed for a Caligula, while Theodora reminds one at times of Claudius' grandmother, Livia. This is not necessarily an invention of Graves, but rather my own subtle comparison between several characters with similar attitudes and fates.

Again, this novel should almost be placed in non-fiction since it holds to historical fact almost flawlessly---not exactly, but almost. For this reason, it's a bit tedious as a novel but makes an excellent read for the historian.

I have had a copy of Count Belisarius for many years and have recently been re-reading the novel, hence this review. I, Claudius and Claudius The God have, unfortunately in my view, stolen all the attention so that Robert Graves' other novel tend to be forgotten. Books like Hercules, My Shipmate deserve to be as popular as Claudius and, likewise, Count Belisarius.

Unlike Claudius, the events of the book are related by the eunuch Eugenius, who is a trusted slave to the family of Antonina. The book relates a lot of history in the opening chapters as the political setting of the Eastern Empire is brought up to date by Eugenius; he then describes the early years of his mistress Antonina and Belisarius, and how they meet at the banquet of Belisarius' uncle Modestus - love at first sight. The book continues describing the rise to prominence of Belisarius, his wars against the Persians, Vandals and Goths and his relationship with Antonina. Theodora and Justinian receive more attention at the beginning of the book and certainly less as the story is told but the book is about Belisarius and the focus is his career.

Mr. Graves writes beautifully. One of the memorable passages describes the surrender of the Vandal king Geilimer who had been suffering great privations hiding out with the Moors.

"I (Eugenius) was present at the meeting, in attendance on my mistress, and I was witness of King Geilimer's pitiful and strange behavour. For, as he came toward Belisarius, he smiled, and the smile changed to hysterical laughter, and the laughter to weeping. There were tears in Belisarius' eyes, too, as he took the former monarch by the hand and led him into a neighbouring house for a drink of water. He laid him down on a bed and comforted him as a woman comforts a sick child."

Robert Graves goes beyond simply relating Procopius' Secret History; he is Eugenius and provides us with a balanced view of the events in the life of Belisarius and Antonina; the gossip of Procopius, like Antonina's relationship with her god-son Theodosius, is tempered by what probably was a minor indiscretion in a complicated relationship. A lesser writer would have had Antonina and Theodosius in bed. For me, Robert Graves brings the period of the 6th century to life and creates real people of the people inhabiting this time. If the book seems boring perhaps it is because the times are less familiar than the early Roman empire and peopled with individuals to whom it is difficult to relate. Perhaps, too, the bickering between Orthodox and Arrian Christians is of small interest to many readers but I have found it of interest that Christian's in the early centuries of the faith were more at odds than one would think.

So if you have not read Count Belisarius I can without hesitation recommend the book as some of the finest writing of Robert Graves.

The more reviews I read and compare to my own impression of the same text and moving images, the less I understand about how people process information and come to conclusions. I couldn't disagree more with some of the reviewers below.
Count Belisarius is richly detailed, filled with anecdotes and unfolding the "reality" of the time, the 6th century, and what it could have been like living in the Eastern Roman Empire and Constantinople/Byzantium. I find myself re-reading paragraphs because of the richness of the language, the images evoked, the deep characterization and the fascinating stories the narrator tells within the novel. I haven't read Procopius, he is on the shelf with the rest of my classics books, but my impression is that Graves has sifted through the source material with a fine toothed comb.
I could make a comparison to Gary Jennings, another master historical fiction writer, and his book, Raptor, which takes place about the same time as Count Belisarius. But Raptor, while a highly rewarding reading experience that I was sorry had to end, was hard to get started on, as many great books are in my experience.

This is a novelisation of the life of Belisarius, the great Byzantine general. It is basically a sober account of Belisarius's life as told by the slave of Belisarius's wife Antonina. Graves used Procopius's The Wars (and to an extent the Secret History [Anecdota]) as his main sources. He portrays the political situations, the fickle, tyrannic nature of the emperor Justinian, the machinations of court and horrors of war extremely well. Belisarius comes across as divine and stoic - this is taken to its extreme actually. However the book is informative and quite detailed if you're interested in Byzantine history.

However as a novelisation it is missing something. At times it is a bit flat, reading like a plain historical account without too much insight into the characters involved - as one reviewer commented, you might as well read Procopius for this. I only found this fault at times and I think Graves's "coloured" view of Christianity and Byzantine life (as presented through the mouth of the slave Eugenius) was quite meaningful. Still, he could have done more to intertwine and make richer the characterisation of the four main people involved. Justinian, Theodora, Antonina and Belisarius make for such a grand group in their totality (just read any historical account of all 4 of them) that Graves could have done a lot more with the book.

Since I was a little kid I was always fascinated by the Roman and Byzantine Empires, in particular the latter. My interest in Byzantium was because it was a subject that was merely grazed over by my history teachers where as weeks and weeks were spent on Ancient Greece and Rome. Byzantium had an extremely interesting overview: a wealthy and powerful successor to the great Roman empire, beautiful archicture, defender of Christiandom, a long history, barely surviving the Muslim conquests, and even an attempt against all odds to reconquer the West. So began my interest in Byzantine history and I was thrilled to find that Robert Graves, author of one of my favorite novels, I Claudius, had written on the subject of Belisarius, widely regarded as one of history's most talented generals who undertook a massive campaign of conquest with a puny, albeit very well trained, army and repeatedly defeated armies of vastly numerical superiority.

The novel is written from the perspective of the Eunuch slave of Antonina, the cunning wife of the protaganist, Belisarius. The narrative reads much similar to I Claudius, with an almost endless ammount of historical background information on the subjects of religious discussion, relationships between the royal family, foreign affairs, etc. Graves' style, if I can describe this correctly, is almost similar to a classical story teller like Homer. His narrative contains numerous stories within stories. For example his backround on the relationships between the Roman and Persian Imperial families and his background on the families of Antonina and Theodora feature an almost inumerable ammount of tales featuring characters whose names and issues are not important in the least the main narrative. This is actually probably Graves' main weakness and it shows more in Count Belisarius than in I Claudius. His endless digressions often take away from the flow of the main narrative and in this reveiwer's opnion can tend to drag on and on like an old man who focus' on too many details when recounting the stories of his youth. Nevertheless, the stories themselves are interesting and are interwoven extremely well with actual historical events, such as the earthquake that destroyed the city of Antioch.

The characters themselves closely follow their historical counterparts, at least according to Graves' main source, the Greek historian Procopius, and are fairly well fleshed out in Graves' own unique style. They follow typical archetypes: Belisarius being the quintessential good guy. The true hero whose morals are inccoruptable, almost to his own detriment, much like the character of Germanicus in I Claudius.

Also similar to I Claudius are the extremely powerful female characters. This reviewer wonders if Graves' works were considered innovative for their time, because the female characters almost completely dominate the males. While this is an interesting aspect to Graves' stories, it is almost a little too much for this reviewer. The female characters, in particular Theodora and Antonina, are almost too perfect except for their questionable morals at times. Never erring, always in control, and almost always the moving force behind the "right" decisions for the empire(or our protagonists), the female characters are portrayed as too infallible to be beleivable. While history has shown that Theodora especially was considered to be a highly influential women and may indeed have been the true genius behind Justinian's reign of prosperity (or terror depending on your point of view), the male characters are given almost no credit for their achievements (save for Belisarius' military skills). Again I compare it to I Claudius, where the character of Livia is portrayed as almost solely responsible for the rise of the Roman Empire and almost no credit is given to talents of Augustus.

One final obersvation is on the character of Justinian himself, whom I beleive is the most interesting. Justinian, as portrayed by Graves, is the most human character with the most beleivable qualities. Highly intelligent and possessing tireless energy and capable of handling massive workloads, Justinian is also cowardly, superstitious, and petty. It is this complex nature that I find most interesting and closely parallels the documented behavior of the real emperor. For some reason I found this character the most interesting, compared to Graves' other extreme archetypes.

Other plus' for the novel are the epic scope and fictionalized details Belisarius' boyhood. The battles are also very detailed and the action flows swiftly and energetically. Again the historical research that went into this must have been painstaking, but the appreciation to detail is unmatched especially for such a sadly neglected historical period such as this.

In spite of it's flaws, Count Belisarius is an excellent novel. Entertaining and intriguing, this story should appeal to a vast audience. Again kudos to Graves' for touching on such a relatively uncovered but fascinating era of Roman history and doing so with style and verve. The story of Rome's last great general could easily be converted into a Hollywood movie, with Russell Crowe cast in the lead role as General Maximus...uh I mean Belisarius :)

Robert Graves was a marvelous historical novelist & poet (just read Hercules, My Shipmate, Homer's Daughter, or I, Claudius). But this particular effort falls regrettably flat. It does, however, read like much of the actual material from the period. But Byzantine stuff tended to be rather portentous & stuffy -- bureaucratese par excellence -- and Graves captures the very essence of it here. Unfortunately, it doesn't work all that well for a piece of fiction like this is trying to be. The sense of "realness" in the people just doesn't shine through. There's no solid dramatization of the action and everything is told like a slow and ponderous memoir -- true to the times but less than satisfying from the point of view of historical fiction. Nevertheless, if you like historical stuff & an authentic feel for the time, you might like this one. But I'd recommend some of the others already mentioned instead. Or The Golden Warrior by Hope Muntz -- a really taut, authentic historical piece depicting a very different, and even more dramatic, time. That one's also one of the best historical novels ever written. Just thought I'd mention it. -- Stuart W. Mirsky