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The Life of Belisarius [Didactic Press Paperbacks] Philip Stanhope 9781546472285 Books

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At the beginning of the sixth century of the Christian era, the empire of Constantinople was beset with enemies and sinking to decay. The tide of barbarian invasion had lately overwhelmed one half of the ancient provinces of Rome, and these conquests, both by their effect and their example, threatened speedy downfall to the rest. The emperors became either hated from their reforms, or despised from their incapacity, and in either case their fate was the same. Frequent insurrections wasted the resources of the state, and deprived the government of all energy and enterprise; while the armies, turbulent and feeble, had thrown off the restraints of military discipline. It is the purpose of my narrative, to show how the genius of one man averted these dangers, and corrected these defects; how the tottering empire was upheld; how the successors of Augustus were enabled, for a time, to resume their former ascendancy, and to wrest from the hands of the barbarians their most important possessions...

The Life of Belisarius [Didactic Press Paperbacks] Philip Stanhope 9781546472285 Books

Product details Paperback 396 pages Publisher CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (May 3, 2017) Language English ISBN-10 1546472282

Tags : The Life of Belisarius [Didactic Press Paperbacks] [Philip Stanhope] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. At the beginning of the sixth century of the Christian era, the empire of Constantinople was beset with enemies and sinking to decay. The tide of barbarian invasion had lately overwhelmed one half of the ancient provinces of Rome,Philip Stanhope,The Life of Belisarius [Didactic Press Paperbacks],CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform,1546472282,HISTORY Ancient Rome

The Life of Belisarius [Didactic Press Paperbacks] Philip Stanhope 9781546472285 Books Reviews

BEST reference to guide oneself thru a very interesting career & consequently the river of history !!!!!

Hope readers will use it many times over!
I became intrigued with this little known historical figure after reading the massive Gibbons book. Although Lord Mahon wrote long ago i found his style easy to follow and, as this work is a straight historical piece, I believe he was impartial in his reporting and research. The Life of Belisarius itself would make a great movie. It has all the elements needed; a heroic and loyal figure, a decadent royalty, palace intrigue, adultrous relationships and warfare. All of this under crumbling empire and religion distorted by evil men. For history buffs I highly recommend it.
The history does a great job of portraying the life & loyalty of Belisarius to Justinian I's service. Bias of the author's time period is clear. Language is understandable despite clear OCR scanning 'best guess' language that noone bothered to correct in the e-book version.
The writing style was a pleasure in itself, a gift from a golden age of literacy. Would our present-day elites be capable of constructing such sentences...
Having read beforehand other reviewers' concerns about Lord Mahon's scholarship vis a vis what we know 200 years later, I was not bothered by possible historical inaccuracies. As for his presumed 19th Century British prejudice, I found his editorial interjections interesting, amusing, and often hilarious. Very much worth the read for those interested in Byzantium AND in 19th Century British elites' unabashed attitudes about our world then.
I gave this review 5 stars because the book itself is outstanding and many of the criticisms on here are asinine. However, do not, under any circumstance, order the hardcover edition from Kessinger Publishing. It is an abomination that looks like it was put together from a (crummy) laser printer in someone's basement. Many of the pages aren't even legible --and I mean that seriously you literally cannot read the text on many pages in the first half of the book. I'm returning my copy to and they need to stop selling books from this publisher. Just because someone sets up a publishing company reprinting public domain books in their mom's garage doesn't mean needs to sell their garbage.
This was a fine read. One comes away really respecting and admiring the last great Roman general. For me, I appreciate the perspective it gives me that sometime life is simply not fair, but that the strong / righteous / overcomers must simply keep on going anyway. One of the take-aways historically for me was to see the crumbling of a once mighty empire in its waning years. Very sobering when one considers what could happen to America in the future. JDM
Belisarius is probably the greatest General of all of Rome's great military geniuses. He warred successfully with the Persians, regained all of North Africa and Italy for the emperor Justinian. This man is worth an HBO series. His death came after he saved Constantinople from certain doom with a hand full of veteran soldiers and the untrained street mobs of the imperial city. They trained them into Roman legionnaires virtually over night to stop a barbarian invasion. Then in the end, in a fit of jealousy, Justinian blinded him and imprisoned him leaving there till he died.
Phenomenal work on one of the most important and undervalued leaders in western history. Belisarius, despite his human frailty, was a soldier's soldier, man's man, and brilliant strategist and tactician. No one else can claim such successes done with so little assistance. Lord Mahon pulls back the curtain on this oftentimes misunderstood and mysterious time period. Though like most of his contemporaries, as is common with 19th Century academia, there is a bit of overweening grandiosity latent in his prose. However, this does not detract from the subject matter. Over all the history reads like Game of Thrones and is thoroughly enjoyable, especially at $0.99. Original copies on go for upwards of $700.00. Just for a little perspective. Enjoy.