I am aware that Eric Flint's books are, of course, alternate histories, but particularly the earlier books in his various alternate history works have a number of historical details that have interested me. For instance, the discovery in the first Belisarius book that stirrups, in the modern understanding, were not used on Byzantine cavalry was such a cool moment that my whole family now uses "stirrups!" as an exclamation when we realize something that seems blindingly obvious in retrospect.
So, leaving aside the clearly science fiction elements, does anyone know if the depiction of the Eastern Roman Empire and Indian Subcontinent in particular are reasonably accurate? I have some suspicions, given how the caste system in India seems to be using a classification that dated to much later, but things like the descriptions of different types of marriages in Persia, and the class system in Thrace, always fascinated me, and I'm trying to gauge whether to take it all with a grain of salt, or a whole barrel of it.
Whilst I do like Flint as a writer, his historical method leaves much to be desired.
First, he conflates two Roman battles into one. u/Albend goes into further detail, on a question from someone who's also read Belisarius.
Two, admittedly whilst just a line in Chapter 18 of Destiny's Shield, the description of hoplite combat is highly suspect, as it's basically the older, now shaky scholarly view on hoplites. I could swear there's a larger passage of hoplite praise somewhere, but I currently can't be arsed to find it. Of course, I am doing Flint something of a disservice here - most of the 'heretic' view came about after the Belisarius series had already come out. (If you really want to learn more about the newer view on Greek warfare, u/Iphikrates' flair profile has more than you'd ever thought you'd want to know about Classical Greek warfare.)
Three, Flint relies far too heavily on the stirrup myth, which is plain bollocks, as expanded on by u/PM_ME_UR_SADDLEBREDS. There's also a variant of the 'plate armour was heavy and unmaneuverable' myth, but applied to Byzantine cataphracts.
These are just the ones I can recall off the top of my head, and frankly, if Baen - home of military science fiction, for blight's sake - lets pass something that not only gets Roman military history wrong but also leans too far into the stirrup myth, I don't have great hopes for the non-military stuff.