#belisarius

Rereading Foundation and Empire now, where I know much more of actual Roman history, I recognize that the Emperor and the General is based on Justinian and Belisarius. Which naming the General Bel Riose might have been a clue.

#Reading #Foundation #Belisarius #Asimov #BelRiose #History

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

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 Ad Decimum near Carthage, North Africa took place in September 533 CE and was the first major battle of the Vandalic War (533 - 534 CE) between the forces of the Byzantine Empire and the Vandal Kingdom. https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1280/battle-of-ad-decimum/ #History #Belisarius #ByzantineEmpire #JustinianI