Count Belisarius/Lawrence of the Arabs

by Robert Graves, Scott Ashley (Editor), Scott Ashley (Editor)

First published in 1938, Count Belisarius is one of Robert Graves's most consistently popular novels. A historical romance of the sixth century AD, this tells the story of Belisarius, the last of the great generals of the Roman Empire, who reconquered Africa and Italy for the emperor in Constantinople, only to be rewarded with suspicion and humiliation. Lawrence and the Arabs also tells of a military hero, but one whom Graves knew personally and who was still living when this first authorized biography was published in 1927. Both as an attempt to tell the story of the Arab Revolt and Lawrence's place in it, and as an installment in the growth of the legend of Lawrence of Arabia, it is an important historical and literary document. Read together, these books show Graves exploring the nature of heroism in a world grown profoundly suspicious of heroes.

Genres: Historical Fiction

360 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1938

About the author

Robert von Ranke Graves was an English poet, soldier, historical novelist and critic. Born in Wimbledon, he received his early education at King's College School and Copthorne Prep School, Wimbledon & Charterhouse School and won a scholarship to St John's College, Oxford. While at Charterhouse in 1912, he fell in love with G.H. Johnstone, a boy of fourteen ("Dick" in Goodbye to All That) When challenged by the headmaster he defended himself by citing Plato, Greek poets, Michelangelo & Shakespeare, "who had felt as I did".

At the outbreak of WWI, Graves enlisted almost immediately, taking a commission in the Royal Welch Fusiliers. He published his first volume of poems, Over the Brazier, in 1916. He developed an early reputation as a war poet and was one of the first to write realistic poems about his experience of front line conflict. In later years he omitted war poems from his collections, on the grounds that they were too obviously "part of the war poetry boom". At the Battle of the Somme he was so badly wounded by a shell-fragment through the lung that he was expected to die, and indeed was officially reported as 'died of wounds'. He gradually recovered. Apart from a brief spell back in France, he spent the rest of the war in England.

One of Graves's closest friends at this time was the poet Siegfried Sassoon, who was also an officer in the RWF. In 1917 Sassoon tried to rebel against the war by making a public anti-war statement. Graves, who feared Sassoon could face a court martial, intervened with the military authorities and persuaded them that he was suffering from shell shock, and to treat him accordingly. Graves also suffered from shell shock, or neurasthenia as it is sometimes called, although he was never hospitalised for it.

Biographers document the story well. It is fictionalised in Pat Barker's novel Regeneration. The intensity of their early relationship is nowhere demonstrated more clearly than in Graves's collection Fairies & Fusiliers (1917), which contains a plethora of poems celebrating their friendship. Through Sassoon, he also became friends with Wilfred Owen, whose talent he recognised. Owen attended Graves's wedding to Nancy Nicholson in 1918, presenting him with, as Graves recalled, "a set of 12 Apostle spoons".

Following his marriage and the end of the war, Graves belatedly took up his place at St John's College, Oxford. He later attempted to make a living by running a small shop, but the business failed. In 1926 he took up a post at Cairo University, accompanied by his wife, their children and the poet Laura Riding. He returned to London briefly, where he split with his wife under highly emotional circumstances before leaving to live with Riding in Deià, Majorca. There they continued to publish letterpress books under the rubric of the Seizin Press, founded and edited the literary journal Epilogue, and wrote two successful academic books together: A Survey of Modernist Poetry (1927) and A Pamphlet Against Anthologies (1928).

In 1927, he published Lawrence and the Arabs, a commercially successful biography of T.E. Lawrence. Good-bye to All That (1929, revised and republished in 1957) proved a success but cost him many of his friends, notably Sassoon. In 1934 he published his most commercially successful work, I, Claudius. Using classical sources he constructed a complexly compelling tale of the life of the Roman emperor Claudius, a tale extended in Claudius the God (1935). Another historical novel by Graves, Count Belisarius (1938), recounts the career of the Byzantine general Belisarius.

During the early 1970s Graves began to suffer from increasingly severe memory loss, and by his eightieth birthday in 1975 he had come to the end of his working life. By 1975 he had published more than 140 works. He survived for ten more years in an increasingly dependent condition until he died from heart

Reviews

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lawrence And The Arabs (not of as in the title on GR). I read this first as I was in the mood for a bit of history. Graves is a strange biographer. There are numerous asides when he recalls conversations or thoughts that wander from the subject under discussion, but once you get used to this it all becomes rather easy going. There is a lot of war detail, but again it is not dry, sometimes even funny, in a tame kind of way. He knew Lawrence well, and although he tries to give an honest portrayal he does limit himself to what would have been acceptable at the time. Lawrence was alive when the book was written, and I believe it was an attempt on his part to give a truthful account after other publications had dealt with his heroic exploits during the First World War. There is also a chapter later on which makes for poignant reading concerning Lawrence's love of riding his motorcycle at great speed through the English countryside. But how was Graves to know what was soon to occur?

I think Count Belisarius was paired with Lawrence as there is a lot of battle description, and, at least in the beginning, set in the western part of the Roman Empire. The time is the early to mid 6th Century. For the most part Justinian is emperor, a man who is more concerned with his immortal soul and his position as emperor than he is with keeping the empire together and in defensible order. The capital has moved to Constantinople and the principal religion is Christianity. Belisarius works his way up to Commander, leading his undermanned army against the Persian King who had been attacking the western borders. Having succeeded here, Belisarius is sent to combat more problems in Africa, and then Italy, where he he faces overwhelming odds due to the emperor not sending the troops he requests. After many years of battles and sieges he is summoned back to Constantinople under suspicion of betrayal. To me the main theme of this book is how factional Christianity basically undermined an empire that was once united under its belief system and gave precedence to its army and civic organisations. The people seemed more concerned in following the whims of Justinian's changing views on religion, along with their loyalty to either the Blues or Greens in the chariot races, than much else. This and resting on their laurels resulted in the empire being open to attack on all sides, without an experienced army, or commanders (with the exception of Belisarius) who were able to put up a worthwhile defence. It's no surprise that the end was now in sight.