Golden Arrows of Nubia
Rather more of a novella than a novel, The Golden Arrows of Nubia sets out to tell the story of the African kingdom of Meroe’s resistance against Augustus’s Rome. The book was inspired, we are told, by the bronze head of that emperor found in modern Sudan, where it seems the top piece of a decapitated statue was contemptuously buried beneath a local temple.
It’s hard to pick a protagonist, since the point of view varies widely, but a main character is the kandake (queen) Amanirenas, a Boudicca-like figure whose royal husband dies in battle, leaving her and her teenaged son in charge of the kingdom—this at a moment when the Romans are eyeing Meroe as a possible nuisance to their province of Egypt. Gory battles ensue, followed by even more bloodthirsty victory celebrations (insert trigger warnings here). It won’t give away any plotline to say that Rome’s ambitions end in a peace treaty, sealed by the exchange of golden arrows.
There is a curious abundance of detail about the taste of every dish the personages eat, then the book ends with a long, extraneous story-within-a-story about a merchant’s adventures, told to another person. This would have made a more interesting book, frankly. But props to the author for dealing with an important but too little-known civilization like Meroe, which historically gave mighty Rome a run for its money.
