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In fact the characters are so engagingly drawn the book begs a sequel and a movie perhaps

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It is primarily remembered for subtle theological disputes sometimes concerning only one letter homoousios vs

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In german the term byzantine is a paraphrase of bizarre court rituals like the obligatory proskynesis in front of the emperor that survives in the muslim prayer tradition

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However the byzantine or late eastern roman empire had also a glamorous side which carol strickland brings back to life in her historical novel the eagle and the swan

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The heroine and main character is theodora the daughter of a circus bear keeper who started her career as a strip dancer and prostitute and ended up as empress and one of the most influential women of late antiquity

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The novel constructed as a story within a story in the tradition of chaucer and boccaccio is full of excitement and crackling eroticism painting a vivid picture of the time in which the roman empire under theodoras husband justinian briefly rose to old grandeur after the goths in italy and the vandals in africa had been defeated by his generals belisarius and narses

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In theodora’s times constantinople was the biggest city in the world with trade relations reaching from china to scandinavia

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The palace guard consisted of vikings varaegians that had migrated to constantinople from scandinavia through today’s russia a runic graffiti can still be seen today in the haghia sophia