It can be difficult to access women’s stories from the classical period. The sources were not written by women, and their authors were not generally interested in women’s stories. This ancient neglect was compounded by historians who summarized or excerpted the classics and in the process minimized or eliminated the role of women. One suspects that, in an earlier era, this work would have been titled Belisarius and Antonina’s role would have been as a bit player to her husband’s leading role. This book and the way it recenters the story on their marriage and uses it to discuss a woman’s life (albeit an elite woman) in this era is extremely welcome. It is not only good research but would make an excellent classroom text and has been reviewed with that usage in mind.
But what era is this? Parnell is insistent that Antonina was a Roman. The word “Byzantine” appears exactly three times, in a section of the introduction in which we are told it will not be used again and are instructed that Belisarius served “Roman emperors who ruled over Roman citizens and were the heads of state of a Roman government” (p. 2.) It is tempting to quibble with this, since the empire of Justinian was a very different entity from the empire of, e.g., Hadrian and there is no shame in acknowledging that. However, the book seems to have been positioned solidly in the Roman world for marketing purposes, and there is nothing wrong with eliminating some unnecessary nuance if it encourages people to buy and read excellent history.
Historians of the sixth century talk about Antonina and Belisarius the way many people share celebrity gossip, so their story is far from unfamiliar. However, the framing and argument here are unique. Parnell argues that, rather than being merely a wife, Antonina was Belisarius’s partner that they functioned as a “power couple” as they navigated the elite world. While Belisarius led on the battlefield, Antonina managed logistics (both household and military) and dealt with their enemies at court.
One of those enemies was the historian Procopius, who serves as the source for most of the information in this book, both his Wars (which were semi-official accounts of Belisarius’ military endeavors) and the Secret History (an invective that slanders everyone from the emperor down). Parnell has definite opinions about where Procopius is not to be trusted, and although not everyone may agree with him on every point, his reasoning is well thought-out and explained.
In the first chapter, “The World of Antonina,” the scene is set for the remainder of the book with a thorough discussion of Constantinople in the sixth century as Antonina would have experienced it: the theater, the hippodrome, and the Blues and Greens. There is a discussion of what we know about the lives of Antonina and Belisarius before their marriage, their courtship, and their wedding. Much of this is necessarily speculative, pieced together from hints dropped by Procopius and general knowledge about life among the sixth-century Constantinopolitan elite. However, the reasoning is solid and gives the reader a place from which to understand their relationship as the story progresses.
Chapter 2, “General of the East,” covers the period from 527 to 532, beginning with Belisarius’ appointment as commander of the Roman troops on the Persian frontier. During this period, Antonina is mostly absent from the narrative, and Parnell concludes (probably correctly) that she was occupied by pregnancy and caring for her daughter. It would have been helpful, here or perhaps in an appendix, to have a family tree. Although their family was small, it was unusually complex (Antonina had two children from a previous marriage, one biological child with Belisarius, and one adopted child with him) and this combined with the unfamiliarity of the names may confuse some readers.
This chapter discusses the major battles of the period and the diplomacy and politics surrounding Belisarius’s service in the East. The discussion of the aftermath of the battle of Callinicum would have been served by some discussion of John Malalas as a source. Parnell contrasts Malalas’ account with that of Procopius (pp. 45–46) and argues we should favor Procopius’ account but does not give us a real reason to trust either source. This is an unfortunate gap, because otherwise the discussions of the sources are excellent.
Chapter 2 ends with Belisarius’ role in the Nika Insurrection of 532, in which Justinian’s mismanagement of the hippodrome crowd ended in rioting and an atrocity that left 30,000 dead. Parnell argues that Belisarius’ loyalty, demonstrated by his role in putting down the riots and saving the emperor’s throne, was the reason he maintained his position, since he was, until that point, a mediocre general.
In Chapter 3, “Victory in Africa,” we find Belisarius, accompanied by Antonina, leading an expedition to restore Hilderic to the Vandal throne, although upon Hilderic’s death it became a war of conquest. Parnell argues convincingly that contemporaries would not have found anything odd about Antonina’s presence, although it certainly disturbed Procopius. Here we begin to see Antonina’s role in managing Belisarius’ household transform into military logistics, when she ensures that the water aboard the flagship is kept from spoiling, and we see her ensuring that the couple received their share (and perhaps more) of the wealth from the conquest.
This chapter includes the only bad argument in the book, on page 80. Here Parnell is discussing the accusation by Procopius that Antonina had an affair with the couple’s adopted son, Theodosius. Parnell rejects this accusation for three reasons: the lack of witnesses, its failure to be included into any other source, and that it is “too neat to be true.” This last is a grievous fallacy for a historian to fall into. Reality frequently produces sequences of events that would be rejected in a work of fiction for being “too neat to be true,” to the point that this has become common to note when discussing, for instance, the last decade of American politics. It is well known that Procopius engaged in fabulism in the Secret History: in one section he states that Justinian was a demon whose head would detach from his body to float around the palace at night; in another says that the emperor murdered a trillion people.[1] There are many excellent reasons to doubt Procopius and there is no need to resort to logical fallacies if one is disinclined to believe this story.
Chapter 4, “The Eternal City,” and Chapter 5, From Rome to Ravenna,” cover Belisarius’ conquest of the Ostrogothic kingdom of Italy (535–540). Most important for the argument are Antonina’s part in the deposition of pope Silverius (pp. 100–104) and Antonina’s role in gathering supplies and reinforcements for the army (pp. 110–112.) Although the sources are conflicted or, in the case of Procopius, outright hostile to her, Antonina clearly had a larger role in affairs than might be expected.
Antonina becomes an independent operator in Chapter 6, “Trying Times.” With Belisarius in the east dealing with a Persian invasion, Antonina stayed in the capital to entrap their political enemy, the praetorian prefect John the Cappadocian, into treasonous behavior. Although Parnell seems to believe that Belisarius and Antonina’s relationship was a partnership from the beginning, his narrative shows her acting with increasing confidence and independence, from merely preserving water on the way to Africa to deposing a pope alongside her husband to independently producing the downfall of the empire’s most important civil official. It may be that, on campaign in Africa, Belisarius learned about his wife’s hidden depths and found new roles for her, or that Antonina gradually discovered a talent for logistics and politics. Regardless, it feels more like an evolution than a continuous state.
The second half of chapter six is taken up by the implosion of Antonina and Belisarius’s family, as the accusation levied by Procopius against Antonina (that she was having an affair with their adopted son Theodosius) became public. Parnell cleverly proposes that these accusations were not invented out of whole cloth by Procopius, but were a fabrication of Photios, Antonina’s son by a previous marriage. Parnell argues that Photios and Theodosius had come into conflict over their future inheritance; since neither was a full, biological son, the two men had about equal claims to Antonina and Belisarius’s considerable wealth. Parnell believes that Photios may have slandered Theodosius to Belisarius, inventing the affair that Procopius then recorded in the Secret History. This explanation is well argued.
Chapter 7, “Italy Redux,” covers Belisarius’s disastrous campaign of 544–549. The Ostrogoths had been defeated but not eliminated by Belisarius’ first campaign in Italy and had risen up again. With the empire again at war with Persia and the plague burning through the cities, Justinian could spare no troops or funds for this campaign, and Belisarius and Antonina were forced to raise an army of volunteers as they passed through Thrace on their way to the war. At the end of this period, empress Theodora passed away, robbing the couple of an important patron.
Chapter 8, “Twilight of a Power Couple,” begins with the breaking off of the marriage pact between Ioannina, Belisarius and Antonina’s daughter, and Anastasios, the grandson of Theodora (but not Justinian), an incident with significance to discussions of gender and relationships. Belisarius was briefly General of the East again, but it is not clear that he ever went on campaign, and then retired to live a relatively quiet life until passing away in 565 at about the age of 65. He predeceased Justinian by only eight months. The final chapter, “Afterlife and Legend,” covers the legend of Belisarius, who has appeared in various works of fiction over the past 1500 years.
A minor aspect of this book worthy of mention is the maps: of the Mediterranean, the eastern, African, and Italian frontiers, and of Constantinople. They are both useful and unusually attractive. However, it would have been helpful to also have battle diagrams, which seem to have fallen out of favor generally but are still helpful for visual learners.
This book would also make an excellent text for a course in Roman, late antique, or (with apologies to Parnell) Byzantine history. It is well written and argued without being overly technical or full of academic jargon. It is easy to imagine pairing chapters with conflicting readings from Procopius to teach problems in working with primary sources. The book provides fodder for discussions of military, diplomatic, gender, and even environmental history.
Notes
[1] Procopius of Caesarea, Secret History, 18.4, 24.21–2, 24.26.