The most popular song of the Epic Byzantine series, Belisarius’ viral success is a testament to the beauty of Greek island music from the Aegean sea.
Since the project began, fans of the series asked for a piece on the legendary Eastern Roman general. The obvious, standard idea would have been to create some orchestral piece of “epic” music in the tradition of grand Western cinematic works. Given the project’s mission of showcasing the modal, Byzantine-rooted traditions of Greece, Faraji instead opted to build the song from his usual, culturally-informed model.
The first step was building the main melody from melodic logic found in Old Roman Chant, an early form of liturgical Christian Chanting, modal and monophonic in nature, thus deeply structurally compatible with the living traditions of Greek music.
The second step was then finding living melodies in Greek folk that carry structural compatibility with Old Roman melodic formulae. North Aegean and Dodecanese-melodies provided such a thing. A basic melodic phrase was then composed, and given to Dimitris Athanasopoulos, a Cretan bagpiper, who was told by Farya Faraji to infuse the song with his Cretan sensibilities.
The result is the melody as we know it now: synthesised from melodic formulae that permeate the Aegean today, as well as early Medieval roots in Old Roman Chant.
The instrumentation then follows the usual parametres of Aegean folk music:
The tsambouna bagpipe carries the main melody.
The laouto provides the Ison, a drone in Greek folk music that keeps to the tonic and fifth of the octave throughout the song, before descending to the subtonic and fourth in moments of cadence. Whilst the laouto is often used to provide Western-style chords, some more archaic musical traditions like Ikariotiko maintain the usage of the Ison. Here is an example of Dimitrios Dallas employing the laouto to provide the Ison accompaniment.
The davul and darbuka provide the syrtos dance rhythm found in the region.
A mantoura also accompanies the main melody, which is a small reed instrument, often no larger than a drinking straw.
The song went viral on TikTok in 2024, and comically, was misunderstood as a religious Orthodox Chant from the Middle-Ages. Belisarius is not a religious Orthodox Chant. It is a ballad in the style of Greek epic narrative ballads, using the current, living tradition of Greek music.
This 2025 interview conducted by Farya Faraji with Yannis Pantazis explores the bagpipe traditions of Greece in more detail: