Andreas Polymitis

ΒΥΖΑΝΤΙΟΝ · FOUR BOOKS, FOUR GAMES

Choose a life to survive

One game for each book, in the same simple form: a card, a choice, and four powers you must keep in balance. Push any of them too high or too low and the story ends.

ΠΥΡΦΟΡΟΣ

Hold the City

One year, one siege, the largest army the Caliphate ever sent. Keep the City fed, the walls manned and the fire ready, and decide whom to trust: Armenians, Bulgars, or the enemy’s own crews.

The four powersThe CityThe armyThe fireGrain

Coming for you: Maslama by land, the caliph’s fleets by sea, the winter, and hunger on both sides of the walls.

Ride for the CityLive now · thirteen endings · about ten minutes
City
Army
Fire
Grain
716 · AmorionCard 1 of 4
Artabasdos

Artabasdos

General of the Armeniakon

Promise me your daughter Anna, and the Armeniakon marches with you to the City.

Four books, two stories

Belisarius in the sixth century, told twice. Then Basileia: Herakleios saves the empire in the seventh century, and after his blood has lost it, a soldier from the Syrian frontier holds the City. Each book has its own page, with the art, the chapters, the essays at the back and its game.

ΒΕΛΙΣΑΡΙΟΣ · A DIPTYCH

ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΑ · A SERIES

Book one · October 2026

Basileus

In 626 two armies stand on either side of Constantinople, the Avars on land and the Persians across the water. The emperor is not there.

Open the bookPaperbackKindle

ΟΙΚΟΥΜΕΝΗ

Where the books happen

Map of the Mediterranean and the Near East, from Italy to Persia, with the places of the four books

Swipe the map sideways to see all of it

  1. 530Dara. Belisarius wins his first great battle, at the frontier fortress. Strategos
  2. 532Constantinople. The Nika revolt. The city burns, and the Hippodrome ends it. Strategos
  3. 533Carthage. Africa is won back from the Vandals. Strategos
  4. 537Rome. A year and nine days under Gothic siege. Strategos
  5. 540Ravenna. The Goths offer him the crown of the West. He takes the city for Justinian. Strategos
  6. Constantinople. Two girls meet on the sand of the Hippodrome. Martys
  7. 533Carthage. Antonina sails with the Africa fleet. Martys
  8. 537Rome. The walls are her husband’s problem. Everything inside them is hers. Martys
  9. 610Carthage. The son of the governor of Africa sails for the capital. Basileus
  10. 614Jerusalem. The city falls and the True Cross is carried off to Persia. Basileus
  11. 624Ganzak. Herakleios strikes into Persia and puts out the sacred fire. Basileus
  12. 626Constantinople. Avars on land, Persians across the water. The walls hold. Basileus
  13. 627Nineveh. The battle that breaks Persia. Basileus
  14. 630Jerusalem. The True Cross comes home. Basileus
  15. 641Constantinople. Herakleios dies. Within the year his widow and her son are maimed and exiled. Pyrphoros
  16. 655Phoinix. The Battle of the Masts. The fleet is lost, and the emperor escapes in another man’s clothes. Pyrphoros
  17. 663Rome. Konstas strips the bronze tiles from the Pantheon. Pyrphoros
  18. 668Syracuse. Konstas is killed in his bath. Pyrphoros
  19. 670sConstantinople. Kallinikos, an architect from Syria, brings a fire that burns on water. Pyrphoros
  20. 685Germanikeia. Konon, the future Leon III, is born on the Syrian frontier. Pyrphoros
  21. 695Cherson. Ioustinianos II, his nose cut, is sent to the edge of the empire. Pyrphoros
  22. 698Carthage. Africa is lost. Pyrphoros
  23. 704Phanagoria. His Khazar wife Theodora warns him of the assassins. Pyrphoros
  24. 705Constantinople. He comes back through the aqueduct and rules again. Pyrphoros
  25. 716Amorion. The caliph’s soldiers hail Leon as emperor before the City does. Pyrphoros
  26. 717Constantinople. 1 September. Greek fire takes the caliph’s fleet. Pyrphoros
  27. 718Constantinople. 15 August, the feast of the Dormition. The besiegers leave. Pyrphoros
  28. 726Thera. A volcano rises from the sea. The emperor reads it as a sign. Pyrphoros

Watch

Strategos · trailer · 1:12

From the frontier fortress of Dara to the walls of Ravenna. Seventy-two seconds, with wordless chant and lines taken from the book’s own captions. Films play from this site, so nothing loads from a video platform.

All films

When the next book is out

One email when a new book is out, and now and then a short letter between books, about one thing from the sources or one idea from the Lab. Never more than once a month.