Count Belisarius

Historical fiction

First published: 1938
Print length: 564 pagesFarrar, Straus, Giroux, 1982

Description

In the turbulent sixth-century Roman Empire, the general Belisarius leads campaigns intended to recover threatened imperial territory in North Africa and Italy. His life is narrated as a biography by Eugenius, a eunuch in the service of Belisarius’s wife, Antonina, giving the account the perspective of an intimate household witness as well as a military chronicler. Battles, sieges, long journeys, and encounters with invading armies form one half of the story; the other unfolds around Antonina’s connections to Emperor Justinian’s court, where personal allegiance and political intrigue shadow every victory. By joining battlefield strategy to domestic observation, the novel presents imperial history as a struggle not only for territory but also for loyalty, reputation, and survival within an unstable system of power.

Reading profile

About this profile

Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).

Writing: How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas: How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure: How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge: Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity: Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.

Writing style

Dense · Descriptive · Direct

Pace

Moderate

Tone

Detached · Earnest · Reflective · Tense

Structure

Framed · Linear

Focus

Character · Plot · World

Emotional intensity

4 / 5

Reading complexity

1–5 · higher means more demanding

Writing: 3 / 5
Ideas: 3 / 5
Structure: 3 / 5
Background knowledge: 3 / 5

Themes

Colonialism and empireLegacyMoralityPowerSurvivalWar

About Robert Graves

Robert Graves was an English poet and novelist whose unusually varied body of work also encompassed memoir, biography, classical translation, and speculative studies of myth and poetry. He earned much of his living from historical fiction, most famously I, Claudius and its sequel, which turn imperial Rome into an intimate record of family rivalry and political calculation. His direct, often witty storytelling makes remote history immediate without simplifying its intrigues. In Good-bye to All That, personal experience becomes a clear-eyed account of the institutions that formed him and the First World War that shattered their authority. Graves approached classical tradition both as a translator, valued for clarity and narrative appeal, and as an independent interpreter. The Greek Myths joins connected retellings to citations and commentary on variant sources, while The White Goddess ranges more freely across folklore, religion, ritual, and literary tradition in pursuit of a theory of poetic inspiration. Across genres, his characteristic method was to make the ancient or inherited past newly readable, then subject it to a strongly personal interpretation.

Book details

For the print edition listed above.

Publisher: Farrar, Straus, Giroux
Language: English
ISBN: 9780374517397

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