Martys
Belisarius, Volume Two
Two girls meet on the sand of the Hippodrome. One will become empress. The other will marry Belisarius.
Buy the paperback Kindle edition
Belisarius, volume two of two. 114 pages, full colour.
About the book
Constantinople, the sixth century. Theodora and Antonina are born to the arena and the stage. They make a pact, and for thirty years, what one of them wills, the other accomplishes.
This is Antonina's book. Around her, Justinian's reconquest remakes the Mediterranean: an empire Roman in name and Greek in speech, fighting to win back a West it can barely hold, commanded by her husband and paid for in ways the official histories prefer not to count. She follows Belisarius to war and fights her own beside his, in granaries and harbours and sealed letters, while keeping the secrets of a household the chronicles never entered.
The same years as Volume One, told from the other side of the door, in a painterly ink-and-watercolour style.
What is in the book
- Five chapters, each opening with a chronology of the household beside the empire
- Plates on the plague, the trial of 562, the three books of Procopius and the empire that continued
Sources
Procopius of Caesarea: the History of the Wars he published, and the Secret History he did not.
Look inside
Chapter one: the sand
The Hippodrome
The coronation, 527
Chapter two opens
Questions
Can I read Martys first?
It stands alone, but it is written as the second half of the diptych and reads best after Strategos.
How closely does it follow the sources?
It is built on Procopius: the History of the Wars he published, and the Secret History he kept hidden.
How was the book made?
The artwork is made with AI image tools under the author's direction, and the book says so. How these books are made
Hear when the next book is out
One email when a new book is out. Between books, now and then a short letter about one thing from the sources: a coin, a map, a passage, an experiment. Never more than once a month.