Word: belisarius
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...When Belisarius and the Eunuch Narses conquered Italy for Justinian in 540, they re-established Ravenna as the Western capital of the Byzantine empire. Justinian and Theodora, his empress, ordered it suitably adorned. The rendering of Christ in armor for the Archbishop's Chapel, a rare phenomenon in art, may reflect the warlike nature of the Byzantines, who held the view that Christianity could and should be spread by the sword. But the Ravenna Christ looks more loving than awesome. A beardless youth, He lightly treads the lion and the serpent while presenting His eternal promise...
...their story, the peasant emperor loses in stature and the prostitute empress takes on a regal aspect. Justinian is seen as a dull, lifelong scholar, a grubber for facts, a physical coward with an insatiable lust for power. He seldom left his palace, and depended on his great commander, Belisarius, to defend the empire. Of his many great projects, only two fully succeeded: the Justinian Code and the building of the magnificent Church of St. Sophia...
...fabulous pleasure boat named Cleopatra's Barge, and fervently supported Thomas Jefferson. One Crowninshield hanged himself on the eve of his trial in a sensational murder case. Another left an account of his travels (Journal of Captain John Crowninshield at Calcutta, 1797-1798, When Master of the Ship Belisarius*) that is far better than most fiction...
...almost bound to happen. Graves has been interested for years in the Imperial Roman period and the Near East into which Jesus Christ was born. Graves has written ingeniously learned novels about Rome (I, Claudius), Byzantium (Count Belisarius), the mythic age of Greece (Hercules, My Shipmate). His friend, the late great T. E. Lawrence, who spent the best years of his life between the Nile and the Promised Land, once amused himself by mapping the probable route of the Israelites in the Sinai desert. Graves's latest job is in the same line but not so modest...
...until that step of high statesmanship had been achieved would India's Viceroy be free to turn to another project -a biography of Belisarius, Byzantine conqueror of the North African Vandals...