Robert Graves had a unique and idiosyncratic approach to historical fiction. Best-known for I, CLAUDIUS but COUNT BELISARIUS, set against the background of Justinian's attempt to reconquer the Roman Empire in the West, is very much worth reading.

#HistoricalFiction #RobertGraves #RomanHistory #belisarius #justinian #Historicalnovel #Historicalnovels

Kosrau I (r. https://www.worldhistory.org/Kosrau_I/ #History #Belisarius #KosrauI #PersianCulture

Allegedly, #Prighozhin’s march on #Moscow has ended in a deal brokered by #Lukashenko, in which #Wagner Group forces will head to #Belarus and … become Lukashenko’s #Varangian Guard, or something? Assuming of course #Putin doesn’t wait for them to get strung out on the road and bomb them all to bits.

I can’t help but be struck by how antiquated all this feels. The Varangian Guard reference above is deliberate—the whole thing is #Byzantine in both the original and modern senses of that word. Shades of #Belisarius and #Justinian. Yes, I know I’m mixing up periods, and the analogy is inexact in all kinds of ways: history doesn’t repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes.

#Kings and #emperors and shifting personal loyalties, not cold-blooded calculation of national interests. It’s not the way #modern states make #war—even though #Ukraine may well be the first modern war of the twenty-first century, through future eyes. Something older, more visceral, rising from ancient slumber.

Hell of a time to be alive. I suppose that’s always true.

The Battle of Tricamarum (533 CE) was the second and last major battle of the Vandalic War (533 – 534 CE). https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1282/battle-of-tricamarum/ #History #Belisarius #ByzantineEmpire #VandalicWar

Flavius Belisarius (l. 505-565 CE) was born in Illyria (the western part of the Balkan Peninsula) to poor parents and rose to become one of the greatest generals, if not the greatest, of the Byzantine Empire.https://www.worldhistory.org/Belisarius/ #Belisarius #EmpressTheodora #Goths #History