Count Belisarius

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Count Belisarius is a historical novel by Robert Graves, first published in 1938, recounting the life of the Byzantine general Belisarius.

Like Graves' better-known works I, Claudius and Claudius the God, the book has been written by laying down as much detail as is historically known about Belisarius, and then filling in the gaps with credible fiction. As the Claudius books were based upon, for example, The Twelve Caesars of Suetonius, among an extensive bibliography, Count Belisarius is based on the History of Justinian's Wars and the Secret History of Procopius.

But whereas the books based on Claudius use an autobiographical style, this work purports to be a biography written by his manservant, and thus can be seen as a satire of hagiographies sometimes written by contemporaries of great historical figures.

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Last updated on Tuesday June 19, 2007 at 07:25:15 PDT (GMT -0700)
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