Uploaded May 2026 | Updated September 2026, 27 minutes ago
This is the story of Flavius Belisarius, one of the greatest generals of the Roman Empire and of human history. It is the true story of how Rome was besieged by the Ostrogoths in 537 AD, against a much smaller force of Romans.
Some notes:
-The AI isn't perfect of course, and there are some weird morphs from time to time, and sometimes it just didn't want to show the correct armors and weapons, and after 200 tries I gave up and just accepted imperfection. Also, stirrups were not yet used by the Romans in 537, but I couldn't get the AI models to animate horses without stirrups. Simply imagine that there aren't any stirrups :)
-Every city scene you see has been trained on a real environment of Rome. Every street, every angle, every shot is a real place that existed in Rome, and this is how it probably looked around 537 AD. I used Italo Gismondi's famous Rome model to train the AI in every scene that features an environment in the city or near the Aurelian walls, also outside the Aurelian walls.
-I took some liberties with Antonina. We don't know much about her, and most of what we know comes from Procopius, who really hated her. So we can't really trust a lot of what he was writing in his "Secret History". In my book, he was jealous of her, and made her look as evil as possible. He lied about her age, about her bewitching Belisarius, even the affairs are probably exaggerated or invented. We know that she was born somewhere from the 490s to the early 500s. So she might have actually been Belisarius' age, mid to late 30s. Procopius never published the "Secret History", so Belisarius didn't know that one of his closest advisors harbored this secret hate against his wife, and to an extent against him, in his later years. Tragic.
-This is intended as a movie and not a pure documentary, so it has some dramatized scenes and some artistic interpretations.
I hope you enjoy this second part of the series.
Thanks for watching and all the best,
Sebastian
P.S: Everything you see and hear was done by myself.
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Enter the code "Maiorianus" to get a 20% discount on every purchase. The ideal present for any fan of Rome 😉!
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#Maiorianus
🔴 YOU WANT TO SUPPORT THIS CHANNEL? 🔴
🤗 Join our Patreon community: patreon.com/Maiorianus
😉 Or become an official Maiorianus member on YouTube: youtube.com/c/Maiorianus461/join
⚔️ SPQR Shop, excellent hand-crafted Roman rings and other items:
spqrshop.com/?sca_ref=4770010.FM16q4LJHr
Enter the code "Maiorianus" to get a 20% discount on every purchase. The ideal present for any fan of Rome 😉!
🎁 The official Maiorianus merch store is now OPEN:
maiorianus.myspreadshop.com
The wonderful background music is by Adrian von Ziegler: youtu.be/USz9cwVSaqg
Disclosures: Some links in the description are affiliate links which means that if you purchase something by clicking on one of them, your host Sebastian will receive a small commission at no additional cost to you. In this way you will be supporting the channel to improve the video production quality at no extra cost to you.
🤗 One-Time Donation?
- PayPal: paypal.me/Maiorianus
🔗 Share the video with anyone who might be interested (it helps a ton!)
📬 Contact us: maiorianus.sebastian@gmail.com
For Sponsorship Requests please visit: app.thoughtleaders.io/#/reserve?channelId=683350
#Maiorianus
🎦 All the tech I use to record videos: amzn.to/3EEV5lc
📚 My favorite history books: amzn.to/4hCx5he
👏 Roman banners and statues: amzn.to/3X3AnBS
This is the story of Flavius Belisarius, one of the greatest generals of the Roman Empire and of human history. It is the true story of how Rome was besieged by the Ostrogoths in 537 AD, against a much smaller force of Romans.
Some notes:
-The AI isn't perfect of course, and there are some weird morphs from time to time, and sometimes it just didn't want to show the correct armors and weapons, and after 200 tries I gave up and just accepted imperfection. Also, stirrups were not yet used by the Romans in 537, but I couldn't get the AI models to animate horses without stirrups. Simply imagine that there aren't any stirrups :)
-Every city scene you see has been trained on a real environment of Rome. Every street, every angle, every shot is a real place that existed in Rome, and this is how it probably looked around 537 AD. I used Italo Gismondi's famous Rome model to train the AI in every scene that features an environment in the city or near the Aurelian walls, also outside the Aurelian walls.
-I took some liberties with Antonina. We don't know much about her, and most of what we know comes from Procopius, who really hated her. So we can't really trust a lot of what he was writing in his "Secret History". In my book, he was jealous of her, and made her look as evil as possible. He lied about her age, about her bewitching Belisarius, even the affairs are probably exaggerated or invented. We know that she was born somewhere from the 490s to the early 500s. So she might have actually been Belisarius' age, mid to late 30s. Procopius never published the "Secret History", so Belisarius didn't know that one of his closest advisors harbored this secret hate against his wife, and to an extent against him, in his later years. Tragic.
-This is intended as a movie and not a pure documentary, so it has some dramatized scenes and some artistic interpretations.
I hope you enjoy this second part of the series.
Thanks for watching and all the best,
Sebastian
P.S: Everything you see and hear was done by myself.
🔴 YOU WANT TO SUPPORT THIS CHANNEL? 🔴
🤗 Join our Patreon community: patreon.com/Maiorianus
😉 Or become an official Maiorianus member on YouTube: youtube.com/c/Maiorianus461/join
⚔️ SPQR Shop, excellent hand-crafted Roman rings and other items:
spqrshop.com/?sca_ref=4770010.FM16q4LJHr
Enter the code "Maiorianus" to get a 20% discount on every purchase. The ideal present for any fan of Rome 😉!
🎁 The official Maiorianus merch store is now OPEN:
maiorianus.myspreadshop.com
🤗 One-Time Donation?
- PayPal: paypal.me/Maiorianus
🔗 Share the video with anyone who might be interested (it helps a ton!)
📬 Contact us: maiorianus.sebastian@gmail.com
For Sponsorship Requests please visit: app.thoughtleaders.io/#/reserve?channelId=683350
#Maiorianus
🔴 YOU WANT TO SUPPORT THIS CHANNEL? 🔴
🤗 Join our Patreon community: patreon.com/Maiorianus
😉 Or become an official Maiorianus member on YouTube: youtube.com/c/Maiorianus461/join
⚔️ SPQR Shop, excellent hand-crafted Roman rings and other items:
spqrshop.com/?sca_ref=4770010.FM16q4LJHr
Enter the code "Maiorianus" to get a 20% discount on every purchase. The ideal present for any fan of Rome 😉!
🎁 The official Maiorianus merch store is now OPEN:
maiorianus.myspreadshop.com
The wonderful background music is by Adrian von Ziegler: youtu.be/USz9cwVSaqg
Disclosures: Some links in the description are affiliate links which means that if you purchase something by clicking on one of them, your host Sebastian will receive a small commission at no additional cost to you. In this way you will be supporting the channel to improve the video production quality at no extra cost to you.
🤗 One-Time Donation?
- PayPal: paypal.me/Maiorianus
🔗 Share the video with anyone who might be interested (it helps a ton!)
📬 Contact us: maiorianus.sebastian@gmail.com
For Sponsorship Requests please visit: app.thoughtleaders.io/#/reserve?channelId=683350
#Maiorianus
🎦 All the tech I use to record videos: amzn.to/3EEV5lc
📚 My favorite history books: amzn.to/4hCx5he
👏 Roman banners and statues: amzn.to/3X3AnBS
