An overwhelmingly sad book about the worlds most heroic dude. A study in ressentiment. Rome’s summer in the east, before its very slow descent, produces an actual hero; and absolutely everyone hates him. Ok maybe not everyone, but surely the core of the story is the staggering level of fear and resentment so many Romans feel towards their military saviour, especially the Emperor Julian.
Julian and Belisarius
The toxic relationship between Belisarius, (brave, rational, Roman, focused, moisturised), and Julian (cowardly, clever, fanatical, irresolute, possibly possessed by a demon, flaky skin), is the core of the story. The more of a Paragon Belisarius, is and the more capable, unbribable, virtuous and honest he is, the more Julian absolutely hates, resents, fears and despises him.
This core personal resentment of Julian, and the slightly deranged, almost inhuman passive acceptance of this by Belisarius, is just the axis of a wider and deeper resentment. People have always loved to hate their heroes, in some sense, the yearning for a hero is a product of the same weakness that produces the ressentiment of the hero. We must either become our own heroes or despise those we erect above us.
Never was there a society more desperate for a hero, or less willing to accept one, than the Constantinople of ‘Belisarius,’ - the man is adored when he is absent, hated when he is close, despised for his virtue, loved again once he has been shamed and ruined - it is the story of celebrity writ large, though, purely as-a-narrative, Justinian’s utterly deranged resentment does make this a much more interesting story. He is almost comically disruptive to his own schemes when they go too well, it does give the book a central ‘villain’ (most of the Gothic generals aren’t really up to it), and the later relationship between the two, with Belisarius,’ almost perverse levels of aggressive loyalty, almost increasing the more badly Justinian treats him, adds a tone of dark comedy.
Likewise; doomed
One reason ‘THA WEST’(tm) cares a lot less about Byzantine/Eastern Rome history may be because it is inexpressibly sad for a long long time. Its hard to inhabit long a story of reversals and ruination. Julian’s war in Italy destroys much of the old Roman culture it was there to save, making the victory nul. The material and moral erosion is gigantic.
Constantinople itself, and the culture it represents, is craven deluded, hysteric and obsessed by the most deranged trivialities (no-one and nothing on this earth will ever make me believe that it actually matters exactly what view of the Trinity you have). The moral quality of its people; backstabbing and short sighted to an extent you would not believe was actually sustainable, (long term it wasn’t), seems deeply current. This is an age after the big dreams have fled. A lack of idealism is one thing but no-one seems to actually genuinely believe in anything. (This may not be a true history but this is the sense of the book.) I know Byzantine became a byword for crazed levels of intrigue but good god they earn the title.
Above all, no-one has any ideas, at least not ones related to reality. No-one has any sense of the Christian world as a unified thing and no sense of a future for the Roman Empire. Even if Belisarius, manages to tape bits of it back together with raw charisma, effort and intelligence, they no idea of what to build, anywhere, except fortifications in the wrong place and a gigantic (admittedly, insanely beautiful), Cathedral in Constantinople.
The constant ethnic changeover creates a slight air of cosplay, of varied peoples adopting older patterns, with more or less effectiveness or utility, and putting on the clothes of a fallen culture, while the ethnos that made that culture lies quiescent, utterly indifferent, ready to be ridden over. Belisarius is a Perfect Roman, from the old stories, but he’s not actually Roman, or even really Greek, instead he is an Illyrian-Roman or Thracian-Roman. The actual Romans; in Rome, just want to be left alone, so their future, and the future of Rome will be decided by a contest between a Thracian and a German, both of whom have reasonable claims to be defenders of Roman culture.
Obviously has nothing to do with modern Britain. Neither does the character of Justinian; clever, manipulative, inconstant, idealistic about all the wrong things and treacherous and vague about all the important things, have anything to do with any U.K. leader, either in the 2020s or 1930s.
Ambivalent Military History
Robert Graves combines experience, interest in ambivalence to fascinating effect. It feels as if he has, in some ways, a distinctly un-military personality, yet, as a scion of the Great War, he has more actual direct military experience than 90% of other historical authors. He knows a lot about military affairs and he knows a lot first-hand, yet he is not very ‘pumped up’ about them. This intelligent awareness and emotional ambivalence is mirrored in the character of the narrator, through who’s eyes we see the hero - a Greek eunuch slave.
I’m reminded of the line from Frieren where someone asks the great mage Frieren if they actually enjoy magic; “only somewhat”.
The image of war that emerges is at times, like that of an epic; glorious, brave, deadly, magnificent, but combines this with a world-view which is not quite cynical, (the narrator is quite compassionate to most of his subjects), but detached, and through this we get an image of deep historical contingencies, of miscommunications, strange events, odd ideas, of people going the wrong way and getting the right thing, or doing the right thing and getting the wrong result - much is chaos.
A key story; in the attempt to conquer Carthage, Belisarius arrives by ship in Africa. He sits down with his generals to discuss what to do next. The Generals want to advance along the coast, shadowed by the ships. Belisarius, disagrees and, using calm reason, persuades them to his own plan of advancing inland. Now, ultimately, the Roman army encounters the Vandals they are there to fight, and in fact they win, but the way in which this happens, is utterly chaotic, disordered, comic, strange.
A random encounter leads to the death of a figure in shining armour. The Romans advance, are cut off, the Vandals advance, miss the Romans, find them. They find the body of the man in shining armour; he is the son of the Vandals king. The king is so distraught by this that he breaks down in grief and becomes totally unable to command his army. During this grief, Belisarius, attacks, wins, re-unites the Romans, advances on Carthage and is let into the city.
On considering events, Belisarius, realises he made exactly the wrong choice; his army was broken up and if the Vandal King had not been grief stricken, the Romans should have lost, so he should have advanced along the coast. However, on examining the defences of Carthage, he realises that if he had advanced along the cost, he would have run into them, and there would have been nothing he could do against them - so he still would have lost.
There were no good choices, logic failed, he won. Strange for us, but for this most rational and reasonable of men, who bent enormous energy into making a sane, disciplined fighting force, and using them calmly and rationally, truly troubling - none of his ideas actually worked, or if they did, they did not work in any way he expected. There is a fundamental chaos under human affairs, which no plan may outrace.
The Strange Character of Belisarius
He never betrays the Emperor, even when, perhaps, for the good of Rome, he should have. Likewise he never betrays his wife, his men, or stabs anyone in the back. Eventually he suffers the final humiliation of a circus-trial for crimes he did not commit, (if he actually had, perhaps Julian would have been able to tolerate him), and is blinded. The general suffers, at all times, in quiet self-possessed dignity. Truly moisturised and unbothered. Its a bit creepy!
It is perhaps the fact that for Belisarius,, the question of the meaning of his life was a solved one, that makes him, when he stands alone before the viewer, a slightly un-interesting character. Like Galahad, since he is already right, and knows what he must do, the only interest comes in how, and in the rogues gallery of people around him, of which the most captivating is his wife, Antonia;
Antonina
She is perhaps the actual Protagonist of the book. (Though if graves had called it ‘Antonina the ginger witch’ I doubt sales would have been as high.
Since the slave who tells the tale is hers, we hear her story from the start, the dancing girl daughter of a man betrayed; here the strange, intense, pseudo-ethnic and religious resentments of the Coliseum crowd, and their curious effect on Imperial History, come into play. Antonina’s father was a Green, (or possibly a Blue), betrayed by the villainous Cappadocian John, he turns to the Blues (or possibly the Greens), and loses everything, linking Antonia in this with the Empress Theodosia, the resolute wife-to-be of Justinian, and setting a deep, deep resentment of both the Blues and Cappadocian John.
Graves springs more fully into life describing the life and dramas of the court, the lives of these clever, shifty, practical, sometimes insincere women. Antonina meets Belisarius, as a nearly-naked dancing girl and is set up with him again, later in life, by Theodora. This subtle, brave deceptive woman forms a politically-practical shadow to Belisarius. (An odd mirror to the relationship of Justinian and Theodora). They are never better than when working together, it is sad when they are parted, (Antonina being slutty and unwise), and their reunion later in life is one of the few purely happy moments in a story otherwise set against a fading empire.
"‘That evening I sought out Belisarius at his mean lodgings. Though weak from a return of his malarial fever, he rose from his couch to welcome me. With a smile that concealed the depth of his feeling, he asked: ‘And are you not afraid to visit me, Eugenius, old friend?’I answered: ‘No, Illustrious Lord. With the message that I bring I would have risked passing through fire or a camp of Bulgarian Huns.’He grew a little impatient: ‘Do not address me by titles of which I have been deprived. What is the message?’I related, as from myself, all that I had agreed with my mistress to say. He listened most eagerly, crying ‘Ah!’ when I told him that his wife had asked pardon of God. Then I showed him the State papers in which Photius’s confession was recorded - having bribed the copying clerk to the Assistant-Registrar for a day’s loan of them. Belisarius read them hastily, and then again with great care, and at last he beat his breast and said: ‘For my jealous rage and my credulity I deserve all that I have suffered. But alas, Eugenius, it is too late now. our mistress will never forgive me for what I did to her at Daras, even if I make her a full apology.’I urged him to be of good courage: all would yet be well. Then I repeated my mistress’s message, which at first he would not believe to be authentic. he said: ‘If your mistress Antonina will indeed listen to any words of mine, tell her that the fault was wholly on my side - but that it was only an excess of love for her that made me guilty of such madness.’That night Belisarius and my mistress met secretly at his lodgings. Nobody but myself knew of it. Both embraced me, kissing me on the cheeks, and said they owed their lives to me.”
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