I am something more than halfway through John Julius Norwich's Byzantium: The Early Centuries.

Heresy, heresy everywhere.  We're up to our necks in heretics: Arians, Nestorians, monophysites.

And all those barbarians: Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Huns.

Western Emperors, Eastern Emperors, and lots and lots of murder -- families, rivals, possible rivals, traitors, so-called traitors, and whole stadia full of people.

And that's just halfway through the first book of the trilogy.