Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a frequent subject of Victorian historical fiction and also popular throughout the 20th century. It was similarly popular in movies, though it fell out of fashion for a couple of decades until the game-changing success of Ridley Scott’s Gladiator, released in 2000. Since then the floodgates of fictional Rome have been torn open.
But Rome means different things to different people. For some it is a military story of imperialism and war in foreign lands. For others it is the victim-tale of the conquered (especially if the conquered happen to be British or Judaic). For others it is broadly cultural: how could people be so similar to us and so different? There is a broad strand of historicals that touch on the New Testament stories, including many new ‘gospels’ and a wealth of faith stories, as well as some militantly anti-Christian novels. There are Roman detective novels, military historicals, sea stories, epics, and literary novels.
Biographical novels are perhaps the richest vein – for literature and ‘box office’.
The Slave-Girl From Jerusalem
Genres:
AD 80. In this, the thirteenth Roman Mystery, the four friends, Flavia, Nubia, Jonathan and Lupus are in the port of Ostia. Jonathan’s ...Read Review
Dark North
Genres:
Were there Africans in the Roman Army? The Historia Augusta describes an Ethiopian soldier presenting Emperor Septimius Severus with an omen of ...Read Review
A Different Kind of Honor
Genres:
In 1879, Lt. Commander Peter Wake of the United States Navy is sent on special assignment to observe the forthcoming war between Peru, Chile ...Read Review
The Eagle in the Sand
Genres:
Simon Scarrow’s seventh novel has Roman legionnaires Macro and Cato sent to a fort in Judea to investigate disturbing rumours of a ...Read Review
In at the Death
Genres:
Rome, in the reign of the Emperor Tiberius: a young man, with everything to live for, appears to commit suicide and Marcus Corvinius ...Read Review
Roma
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Steven Saylor, the award-winning mystery writer of the Roma Sub Rosa series, undertakes the multigenerational historical saga in his latest novel, Roma. Pioneered ...Read Review
Farewell Britannia
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In this collection of linked short stories, Simon Young revisits the territory he occupied so beguilingly in A.D. 500, not only literally revisiting ...Read Review
The Fall of Rome
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Attila is dead. The Western Roman Empire is tottering. As every source of order crumbles, life, already brutish and short, is becoming more ...Read Review
The Charioteer of Delphi
Genres:
Children/Young AdultMystery/Crime
A.D. 80. In this twelfth Roman Mystery, Flavia, Jonathan, Nubia and Lupus are in Rome for the races in honour of Jupiter at ...Read Review
The Eagle’s Prophecy
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The first US edition of the sixth novel in Scarrow’s epic series of the Roman army begins in Rome, in the year ...Read Review
