57 Books Like The Bear of Byzantium

Byzantine history has only sporadically inspired historical fiction, although Empress Theodora, wife of Emperor Justinian, has had more than a few novels written about her. I’ve read and enjoyed many of them but this book is one of the best. Her dramatic life encompassed the deadly Nike riots, the building of the magnificent Hagia Sophia, and the Justinianic Plague. And did I mention that she was a courtesan prior to marrying Justinian? Martin’s Theodora is a glorious and sympathetic woman, even if flawed. The author tells her story wonderfully through the eyes of a court eunuch!

I had never looked at or had an interest in graphic novels until I saw this graphic novel about the mother of one of the Byzantine Empire’s most important rulers, Basil II. But if there was ever going to be one I would read, it had to be a Byzantine one! I loved it! The vivid artwork in this book is superb and tells of Theophano’s life from innkeeper’s daughter to wife of not one, but two emperors. If you want to ease into Byzantine historical fiction, this graphic novel is a great places to start. 

Anne Perry is a superb mystery writer who ventured once into the Byzantine world with this novel and I am so glad she did. The story takes place in 1273, twelve years after the overthrow of the Latin rulers who had occupied Constantinople since the horrific attack by the leaders of the Fourth Crusade in 1204. The city still struggles to recover and a young woman, Anna Lascaris, who has learned medicine from her father, decides to disguise herself as a eunuch to more easily find out who framed her brother for murder, which resulted in his exile to a distant monastery. Poisonous political intrigue swirls around Anna/Anastasius as she practices the healing arts while searching for clues about who was the true killer.   

Gordon Doherty is a prolific writer of ancient and medieval historical fiction, including this first in a three-book series, Strategos. Strategos was a title for a general in the Byzantine military. This first novel in the series starts the life of Apion, a boy living in Byzantine eastern Anatolia in 1046 as the Seljuk Turks begin their incursions into the empire’s borders. His life is shattered when a Seljuk raid kills the rest of his family, and the boy is taken in by a nearby Seljuk farmer. Apion lives with that farmer and falls in love with his daughter, Maria. A twist of fate leads him away from his home and into the military where he begins his rise in the ranks. The next two books lead our hero inevitably to the betrayals on the battlefield at Manzikert.   

A Greek bureaucrat is accompanied by two old members of the Varangian Guard escorting money from one part of the Byzantium Empire to another. Each night he has to put up with one or the other Norsemen telling him about the discovery of America: one thinks the other is his best mate when in fact the man hates him and spends most of the adventure trying to get away from him. Accompanying them is a young put-on squadie who, in later years, became known as Harald Hardrada, Christendom’s greatest warrior who spread war and fear throughout the north sea lands.

I found it all so funny and it encouraged me to stick quite a bit of humour in my all own writings, not that I needed much encouragement.

Lars Brownworth’s The Sea Wolves is a great place to begin your Viking voyage. Like any good Norse raid it is breathtaking and action-packed. It has a wide scope, colouring in all the corners of the Viking world, from the Vinland to Byzantium. It is easy to digest, and as swaggering as it is educational.

I was in love the moment I opened an abridged version of Gibbon’s magnum opus as a young history buff, and was even more delighted when I sought out the multivolume full experience.

Gibbon’s view of the Roman Empire is magisterial and his footnotes are a cranky delight; he’s up-front when his sources have axes to grind and sourly suspicious of his own motivations.

Sure, he’s an 18th-century British colonialist with all that entails. He’s also deliciously ironic, hilariously sardonic, and does his mightiest justice when he’s skewering folly and tyranny of any stripe.

Byzantine history often gets short shrift in studies of the Roman empire, but the empire in the East survived at its capital, Constantinople, for many centuries after the fall of Rome.

There’s a lot to learn from the political machinations recorded here, the selfish acts of emperors and scheming ministers, and the overweening ambitions of princes. This is real life, so there’s not a lot to admire, but as with all the books on this list, we’re talking about genuine historical individuals making lasting decisions that still affect us today.

This is a great rendering that takes us from the founding of the city of Constantinople in 330 to its fall to the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II in 1453.

This is an outstanding short introduction to Greek history – with a really neat gimmick. Instead of writing a standard kind of history, Cartledge picks on the eleven most prominent cities of ancient Greece and writes up their story in about ten or twelve pages. But the chapters are also organized chronologically, so that the first two cities, Cnossos and Mycenae, illustrate Greek prehistory. Then we move on to the Archaic Period (four places, including Sparta), then the Classical Period (three, including Athens), and then the Hellenistic period (one: Alexandria, the greatest city in the world before Rome). He ends with a leap into late antiquity and the eastern Roman empire with Byzantium. I’m always on the lookout for books that can turn people on to Greek history, get them to share my (and Cartledge’s) passion: this one does it brilliantly.

After reading about fascinating emperors, cities, and wars, one might begin to ponder larger questions like how the late Roman (early Byzantine) government functioned and what its society was like. This book is a detailed analysis of these issues.

To my mind, it is one of the best history books ever written about the early Byzantine Empire. It can be approached as a reference work, and one can seek out sections that seem interesting such as the conditions of service in the army, the social origins of the clergy, the taxation system, or the powers behind the throne.

The breadth and depth of Jones’ learning is impressive and on full display in this classic.