Belisarius: War with the Sassanids (5/6)

I hope you enjoy the latest episode of our Belisarius series! The great Roman general has returned triumphant from his war against the Goths in Italy, but there is bad news from the East, and an even greater catastrophe lurking on the horizon.. Don't forget you can get ad-free early access to all our videos at Patreon www.patreon.com/EpicHistoryTV

“I’m surrounded by idiots” -Belisarius

The deeper we go into this series, the further I'm convinced that Justinian did not deserve Belisarius' loyalty.

This series has impressed me so much, I was not expecting such a great story! Thanks for all your hard work, cannot wait for the next episode.

Khosrow took the Antioch prisoners and forced them to build a city that look just like Antioch and then named it Khosrow's Better Version of Antioch. Dude's pretty funny.

Hello everyone! I am your friendly series consultant and professional historian of Belisarius. I hope you all enjoyed the episode. From war with Persia, to climate events, to plague and political intrigue, there is a lot to take in! In this comment I provide a few bonus thoughts on the history behind the documentary. We begin with the great Persian invasion of the Roman Near East in 540. At around 4:25 in the video, we are told that after Justinian signed the Eternal Peace with Persia in 532, he stripped the East of its best troops. It is likely that the Army of the East, the mobile field army responsible for defending the frontier with Persia, was raided of its soldiers to provide the campaign armies for both Africa (533) and Italy (535). Poor planning by Justinian, or clever use of his peace with Persia? At around 5:42, we hear Procopius' praise of Belisarius from Wars 7.1.4. Belisarius was at this point at the height of his power, wealth, and reputation. It is likely that he was the most important man in the empire aside from the emperor. We have zero concrete evidence on the size of the army Belisarius was able to scrape together in the East in spring 541. The order of battle presented ca. 7:00 was created with educated guesses based on previous groups of soldiers that Belisarius commanded. The lack of concrete evidence from Procopius on the size of this army is one of the reasons I think it likely that the author had left Belisarius' service in 540. Other historians date that break to 541/2. See ca. 13:10 for discussion of Procopius' departure. Although we cannot be certain on the number of soldiers, I am relatively confident that Belisarius must have been able to scrape together at least in the neighborhood of 15,000 in 541. It seems unlikely he would have been willing to risk invading Persian territory with fewer. We are introduced to the insubordinate commander Peter ca. 8:25, when he camps too close to Nisibis and invites an attack. Fun fact: the same commander Peter is the snitch who reported to Theodora about the discussion of Belisarius regarding the throne in 542 (ca. 22:30). In 542, Belisarius made a rapid trip using the imperial post system to get from Constantinople to the eastern front (described ca. 11:30). The calculation for the length of this trip was derived using this excellent tool: https://orbis.stanford.edu/ The Late Antique Little Ice Age may have impacted the growing season of 536 and the next couple of years, as noted ca. 16:40. This could have contributed to the famine described in "Belisarius: Defeat of the Goths" at around 13:50: https://youtu.be/fRz_05kWYao The bubonic plague that emerged around 541 is known to history (rather unfairly) as the Justinianic Plague. The episode does a great job of discussing its horrors. It rejects the minimalist view that the plague had only a small impact on people and economy. The episode's interpretation of the plague is based partly upon the recent, excellent article of Peter Sarris, "New Approaches to the Plague of Justinian." It is well worth a read: https://academic.oup.com/past/article/254/1/315/6427314 The disgrace of Belisarius in 542, described ca. 23:00 is complete. He went from the heights of success in 540 to the depths of despair in 542. It is one of the features of his career which makes him so compelling. What an excellent depiction of the interrogation and disgrace of Belisarius and Bouzes at the hands of Theodora, created by series illustrator Miłek Jakubiec. I can feel the unpleasantness of the situation! We learn at the end of the episode (ca. 24:30) that Belisarius is restored to favor and given a new commission in 544. Justinian rarely gets credit for his mercy, but he exercised it regularly. If you are interested in this, read more here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343050126_Justinian's_Clemency_and_God's_Clemency If you wish to view this comment on Twitter, complete with screenshots to illustrate some of the points, you can check it out here: https://twitter.com/byzantineprof/status/1505166636399177730 That is all I have for now. What did you think of the episode? Do you think Belisarius and Bouzes actually discussed the throne during the plague outbreak of 542? Was it appropriate for Justinian and Theodora to disgrace them when they heard this rumor?

We need more ancient histories like the one you did on Alexander and Belisarius! This is simply amazing.

If only Justinian realized how loyal and valuable Belisarius was to him and the empire.

What an amazing man Belisarius was.. Even after all this disgrace, even after of being accused of treason multiple times, and yet, he once again marched his army in the name of his Emperor! Truly a marvelous feat! His place should be next to men like Caesar, Hannibal, Khalid ibn al-Walid and such. Great job once again Epic History TV! Thank you for this amazing series!

“I become dizzy as I write about such a great calamity, and transmit it to future times to remember.”

History marches released video: "You made my day" Epic History releases at the same day: "Best day of my life"

This has to be the best Byzantine history series out there so far. The visual and sound are excellent and so is the history behind it and the quotes.

The Belisarius series may be your best work to date. This is just superb writing, has great pace and is visually exciting. Great work!

I like to imagine the emperors of old where looking down at Belisarius in pride. He the perfect icon of Rome. Intelligent, confident , resourceful, loyal and manages to solve what seems like an impossible obstacle, just like Caesar. But another thing I noticed is even though Rome still has an impressive militarily at this point it’s also uncoordinated at the worst of times. Everyone seems to try and do their own thing at the same time and it leads to great catastrophes. Justinian I believe was just to be wary of Belisarius because I’m he didn’t have the hindsight we have now ,but it seems all his actions where done because of his wife making things sound worse than it actually is. Even though Belisarius was sent to defeat the barbarians, his greatest enemy was his fellow Romans and their ambitions clouding their thoughts

The entire reign Justinian of can be best defined as a struggle. Ever since he took up the purple he had to fight against his own subjects,his enemies,his inner circle and even life itself. Yet, despite all setbacks he still never gave up;a weaker ruler would have just abdicated and let the empire rot.

Everybody gangsta till Belisarius is recalled to service

The plague part was terrifying. It must had been a terrible experience for the ones that survived, not knowing why nor how 😢

After Khosrow destroyed Antioch and deported the citizens, he built a new city in his empire called "Wēh Antīōk Khosrow" or "Better than Antioch." Mod used is 555 Age of Justinian

Epic History TV is my favorite channel because their high quality content.

Khosrau making Justinian's team lose is the kind of petty shit I vibe with