Basilissa

NOWADAYS the aim of the historical novelist is to re-create the past in terms of the present, with implications throughout of the unchanging nature of historical event, and of the humanity that creates it. This story of the early life of the actress and courtesan who became the Empress Theodora is a lively example, full of apposite parallels with the contemporary world. Life in Byzantium is shown to be much like life in the capital of any modern empire. Diplomacy is conducted in the same way; there are the same problems of government, the same issues of peace or war, the same rival factions, the same clash of individual temperaments — while the Byzantine ballet might be performing in Monte Carlo or New York. The whole is told with great ease of narrative and dramatic spontaneity, from a description of a turbulent Fascist meeting to that of the old Empress taking the two girls to her own room and remarking: ‘This is the only place where I can be homey and put my feet up.’