![]() ![]() A book packed with fascination on every page. For all Justinian's brilliance, his empire was undermined by a ubiquitous, deadly and unassailable enemy: bacteria carried by fleas on the black rats that accompanied the legion to every part of the empire. ![]() In a book teeming with examples of how the ancient world was pretty much like our own, we learn that Anthemius was the neighbour from hell, simulating an earth- quake to unsettle the orator Zeno who lived upstairs. He is the author of Justinians Flea: Plague, Empire. His architect Anthemius built the still-breathtaking Hagia Sophia in six years. William Rosen worked as an editor and publisher for twenty-five years before becoming a writer. His general Belisarius, ranked beside Hannibal and Napoleon by Liddell Hart, vanquished the Huns and quelled an insurrection sparked by rioting sports fans. ![]() A master tactician, he surrounded himself with supremely able men. Though unexceptional in appearance and oratory, Justinian had a grand vision for his threatened empire. Having shifted base to Constantinople, the Romans were obliged to cough up protection money to Attila, a wily negotiator as well as a fearsome warrior. We learn how the Visigoths took Rome a century earlier, via a Trojan-horse tactic involving the gift of 300 treacherous slave boys. Justinians Flea From the acclaimed author of Miracle Cure and The Third Horseman, the epic story of the collision between one of natures smallest. Rosen briskly sets the scene for the accession of Justinian in 518. ![]() Tackling an era from architecture to epidemiology, this enthralling epic concerns the greatest of the late Roman emperors. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |