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March 28, 2010
Belisarius = Big B. O.
Victor Hanson has a concept for an HBO mini-series. Check out the pitch for "Last of the Romans":Why not the saga of the Byzantine general Belisarius? His 30 year career (529-559) saw the Last of the Romans (a native Latin speaker from Thrace) fighting to save the beleaguered eastern empire in Mesopotamia against the Persians, only to return home to rescue his emperor Justinian from the Nika riots in the Hippodrome. Then he left for North Africa and in months destroyed the century-long Vandal Empire whose ravages so underline the last thoughts of Augustine. After that he sailed for Sicily, and for a time reclaimed for the idea of Roman Italy from the Po to southern Sicily -- only to go eastward again to meet the Persians, and then back again to a now collapsing Italy, and then, of course, back to Constantinople to internal exile, trials, and humiliation, only in forced retirement to save the city from a raid of Huns that earned him another rebuke -- all during a time that saw deteriorating Byzantine power, chaos in the defunct Western Empire, a raging bubonic plague that killed 300,000 in Constantinople, the dome of Santa Sophia collapsed and for a time in ruins, and an emperor Justinian and his often lethal wife Theodora who alternately rewarded, recalled, punished, ruined, incarcerated, and reprieved the old general, whose conniving older wife Antonia, a court intimate of Theodora, at times tried to protect her spouse, at times seemed as much against as for him.
Posted by Vanderleun at March 28, 2010 12:22 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.
Your Say
Absolutely.
A series about Belisarius should be made. No better material exists anywhere in history.
And it really was a long time ago in a universe far away.
Yet his era is almost never mentioned while it seems as if a dozen productions of Sense And Sensibility are made each year.
I hope they keep it reasonably close to history. But I suppose we will learn he was gay, wanted women to get equal pay, and supported open borders and civil rights for all invaders.
I don't have cable TV. But I do buy the DVDs of series that seem interesting when they come out the following year.
Sometimes I get fooled, but now I can sample a series online before I buy.
Posted by: KTWO at March 28, 2010 4:21 PM