Really, the Roman Empire in the middle of the sixth century was in
pretty good shape. Yes, the capital city
is now Constantinople, because Rome itself over in Italy has been sacked by
barbarians several times.
But under the Emperor Justinian, almost all
of the land Rome held at its height had been recaptured. The various barbarian tribes had either
melted away, been pushed back into the hinterlands, bought off with tribute
money, or given land within the Roman Empire and granted Roman citizenship.
But various threats to the
Empire were about to erupt. Some of them
were military in nature—those Germanic tribes were happy with tribute money, but
who knows for how long? In Asia the
Turks and the Persians were itching to take some land away from the
Romans. And when they weren’t fighting
outsiders, the armies and politicians of the Roman Empire regularly fought among
themselves.
But other dangers, more
difficult to predict and see, were about threaten Constantinople’s existence. For if all these factors start happening at
once, who knows if the Roman Empire will survive?
What’s To Like...
Nick Holmes divides The End of Antiquity into three sections, namely:
Part 1. The Ice
Age Cometh: Chapters 01-08;
5%-27%.
Part 2. The Last
War of Antiquity: Chapters 09-16; 27%-54%.
Part 3. The Children
of Hagar: Chapters 17-27; 54%-87%.
The series' timeline segues smoothly
from the previous book, Justinian’s Empire. Justinian passes away here in Chapter 3, and a
bitter internecine war of succession erupts.
Eventually a Roman general named Maurice takes the throne and does a decent job of restoring the empire to its former glory. Maurice
is one of two main emperors focused on by this book, the other being
Heraclius. I had never heard of either
of them, so this was quite an enlightening read for me.
I love the attention Nick Holmes
gives to a new force in the region—the incredible rise of Islam from out of
nowhere to being the Roman Empire’s main threat. There’s a lot of complex interplay
between the Christian, Moslem, Jewish,
and Persian religions, further impacted
by a deep hatred between two major Christian sects: the Monophysites and the Chalcedonians. The net result was a lot of "killing for God", further weakening the Empire.
But things get further complicated. We now have evidence that the Earth was hit by something called the “Late Antique Little Ice Age” somewhere around AD 536, which caused massive crop failures in most of Eurasia. The affected areas were subsequently hit with a deadly plague, probably a variant of the "bubonic plague", aka the “Black Death”, which greatly reduced their populations.
Nick Holmes proposes that the global
cooling was actually a boon for certain select civilizations thrive. We’ll let you read the book to find out just who and where these lucky areas were, and why they’d prosper from global cooling when everyone else was suffering.
The End of Antiquity closes
with a conflict called “The Great Siege of Constantinople”, which lasted two years,
and ended on a high note for the Byzantine (aka “Roman”) Empire by the
defeat of a major Arab fleet and army. For now, the Empire survives, and I’m wondering if the next book in this series will take us to
AD 1453, a pivotal date in the history of Byzantium.
Ratings…
Amazon:
4.3/5
based on 76 ratings and ?? reviews.
Goodreads: 4.40/5 based on 40
ratings and 3 reviews.
Excerpts...
Its central character was the ambitious
Lombard king Alboin who vied against his bitter foes, the Gepids (another
Germanic tribe), while harbouring a passion for the Gepid king’s beautiful
daughter Rosamund. In 566, he allied
with the Avars, and with their help defeated the Gepids and killed their
king. Rosamund was captured and, against
her wishes, he married her and, according to legend, at the wedding celebration
he forced her to drink from a cup made from her father’s skull. As Alboin was soon to discover, this wasn’t
the best way of ensuring a happy marriage. (loc. 449)
If Arab victory over the Romans was a
surprise, even more surprising was their victory over Persia.
The historical relationship between Persia
and Arabia was much closer than that between Rome and Arabia. For the Romans, Arabia had always been of
limited interest. It was on the
periphery of their empire and their consciousness. They regarded it a little like they regarded
ancient Scotland, or Caledonia as they called it. Everyone knew where it was but no one wanted
to go there. (loc. 2441)
Kindle Details…
The
End of Antiquity is priced at $6.99 right now, as are the other
four books in the series. An earlier
work of the author, The Byzantine World War is
available for just $2.99.
“We beseech that
they be received in appropriate manner by your superabundant Majesty, and be
allowed to return to us.” In other
words, please don’t chop their heads off. (loc. 1329)
I admit it, I’m hooked on
this series, and The End of Antiquity only
reinforced that. There is no profanity
in the text, and no any adult situations.
The closest we come to such a thing is given in the first excerpt given above.
A quibble might be made that
the “Rome” of the “Roman Empire” doesn’t get much ink here. But hey, although it’s been snatched away from the
barbarians, it doesn’t really play a significant part in the events of the 6th-8th
century Roman Empire.
Nick Holmes’ writing style is
both scholarly and folksy, an example of which is
given in the second excerpt above. His
books are somehow informative without being dry, which is not an easy thing to do. Here’s hoping that Book Six is coming along
nicely.
9 Stars. One last thing. One of the weapons that the Byzantines used to destroy the Arab fleet besieging Constantinople in 716-718 AD was something called “Greek fire”. The formula for making Greek fire has been lost in the fog of Time, and no one yet has ever been able to rediscover it. Rediscover it somehow, and you will achieve Fame and Fortune.
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