I enjoyed his I, Claudius and Claudius the God, set in first century Rome. I have very little feel for what Byzantium was like, and figured that this would give a flavor of that world, assuming Graves did his homework correctly.
Naturally I can’t swear that Graves’ portrayal of Justinian’s era is accurate—in fact I get the impression that some of Graves’ own skepticism infuses attitudes in the book. But the characters and attitudes are suitably alien, and generally drawn with skill. The usual thumbnail description of the Blues and Greens of Constantinople as chariot team fans brings to mind British soccer hooligans, but the ancient groups as Graves shows them were amalgams of many different divisions: not just sporting. The sporting divisions, in a land without our freedom of speech, gave cover to political and religious partisans as well.
The title character suffers somewhat from his success: he was apparently such a dedicated and able general that not much of his personal life shows—quite possibly because the dedication that made him great demanded so much of it. And had he been less devoted to Rome and his duty he’d undoubtedly have become emperor himself, and not achieved so much on the battlefield—expanding Byzantium’s empire by almost half. The unfortunate side effect of this is to make the character less engrossing than he might otherwise have been—though Graves tries.
Much of the book is set on the field in wartime, and although the ways of ancient armies are sometimes odd—army groups change sides, and the rivalries of other generals sabotage the campaign common to them all(*)—some things are very similar: armies run on money, and training beats numbers.
Justinian is described alternately as nearly a demon and as a superstitious and irresolute man who cannot abide owing favors to anyone. If the details of his handling of the wars and the generals are accurate (and I assume a lot of that info is still available), he was a disastrously bad leader.
If you’re interested in the era, read the book.
(*) OK, maybe that’s not so alien, with the State Department against the CIA against the Army against the White House sorts of things we’ve seen in the past few decades.
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