The Will of Augustus: Aemilia Secunda and the House of the Vestals
Aemelia, the daughter of rising Roman politician Gaius Aemilius Papus, is suddenly inducted into the ranks of the Vestal Virgins when her father falls from favor with the emperor Augustus. The move is her mother’s idea, a desperate gamble to curry favor with Augustus, since the emperor has advocated many times that well-born families put their daughters forward for Rome’s sacred order of Vestals.
Through Aemelia’s experiences with the order – and through her close connection with her twin brother Marcus Septimius – Karen Powell is able to show her readers many sides of the turmoils and daily living experiences of life in Rome at the time of Augustus. Event follows event in a well-paced dramatic structure that makes great use of Powell’s obviously extensive research, especially into the world of the Vestals. Her characters, particularly the twins Marcus and Aemelia, are fleshed-out and believable, and since the Vestals held the safekeeping of wills and estates – including that of the emperor – Aemelia eventually finds herself at the heart of state affairs in a sequence of events that never strays from the plausible.
This is a first-rate novel set in ancient Rome – strongly recommended.
e-version reviewed
