Tag: book-reviews

Manda Scott, The Eagle of the Twelfth, (Transworld Digital, 2012)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12515759-rome

Demalion of Macedon and the Eagle standard, beautiful writing about ancient Rome

Feb 57 CE, Hyrcania on the Caspian Sea. The Vth Macedonica faces Vardanes II and seventeen client kings. Demalion of Macedon, our narrator, clerks for Sebastos Abdes Pantera, his commander. Pantera shoots an arrow killing Vardanes, allowing Vologases to reclaim the throne of Parthia. Pantera gets Demalion and Cadus promoted to positions in the XIIth.

They dye their tunics with madder to mark a successful training manoeuvre in the mountains, giving their cohort a nickname, the Bloody First. They come under the command of Corbulo, governor of Syria, a good leader; then Lucius Caesennius Paetus, governor of Cappadocia, a poorer one. Paetus sends them into a Thermopylae-like defeat at the Battle of Rhandeia.

Book 2 left us breathless with a new king of Israel anointed and Roman legions on the march.

Now, Demalion and the disgraced XIIth suffer another devastating defeat at Beth Horon in Judaea under Cestius Gallus, another poor general. What’s worse, the rebels have stolen their eagle standard, the symbol of their military pride. Retrieving it is almost more important than victory.

Three-fourths of the book follow Demalion’s military life, then the last fourth brings Pantera back into the story. I found this disjunct a bit disconcerting, and after all those pages, we’d forgotten Pantera’s motivation.

As with the first two books, Scott crafts the known history into an entirely new plot, with deep understanding of the culture.

I’m not normally a fan of ‘military fiction’, but the gorgeous writing makes it worth it, full of drama and emotion, like: ‘looking down on to the tops of their helmets… they seemed to ooze towards us, thickly, like so much mercury poured into a dish; a river of shimmering metal, dancing under the sun’; ‘the parade ground did not so much rock to our entrance as titter, and it was clear that at night we would be cold for lack of men around us.’ I loved Pantera’s assessment of Britannia, ‘a swamp surrounded by sea and full of women who fight like harpies’.

I’m excited to finally find a historical novel about the Jewish Revolt, albeit, unlike my novel,[1] one from the Roman point of view.

[1] The Lost Wisdom of the Magi

Manda Scott, The Coming of the King, (Transworld Digital, 2011)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19183790-rome

Christian legend and Jewish history in a new, surprising plot

Saulos convalesces among the Berbers after the Fire, the skin on his burned feet growing back. He plots revenge on ‘the entire Hebrew people’. He brings Iksahra to Caesarea, accompanied by her cheetah and four hunting birds, to tend King Agrippa (II)’s beasts.

Pantera arrives with Mergus. The message-birds had told them Saulos was travelling, and he knows they are. They travel with a Sabaean camel train, looking to sell their beasts to Yusaf ben Matthias.

Hypatia has a gift for Berenice from Poppaea.

The story brings the enmity between Pantera and Saulos from Book 1 to Judaea. The task at hand now is to save Jerusalem. Syrians and Hebrews riot nightly over the issue of a synagogue. Rebellion is in the air.

The references to Christian legends and names and events from Jewish history—Yusaf ben Matthias, Menachem ben Jehudah, Ananias ben Ananias—are tantalising, and they are crafted into a new, surprising plot.

Secret letters in code, graffiti symbols scratched into stone, passwords and countersigns, oracles and prophecies, message-doves intercepted by hunting falcons, tunnels with listening spaces inside palace walls—the plot is full of intrigue and drama. It ends on a cliffhanger, leaving us certain to buy Book 3.

The intricate cultural detail and subtlety of writing pulls you in. The understatedness of the language makes it sound believably ancient.

Beautiful writing: ‘[She] smiled at them covertly across the sea of strangers’ faces, and their smiles, covertly returned, had felt like splashes of colour in a grey winter’s day’; ‘a certain kind of individual, having met Pantera, was inclined to follow him closely, if not out of desire or admiration, then in the understanding that where he went, life was always interesting.’; ‘he was walking round and round the gold like a hen who has hatched her first egg and found she has given birth to a harpy.’

Manda Scott, The Emperor’s Spy, (Transworld Digital, 2010)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6940527-rome

Historical thriller with fabulous characters set in Nero’s Rome

Sebastos was twelve years old when he discovered his father was a traitor. The almonds were in bloom. He watched from a rock as his father the decurion led the three Hebrew women to the tomb. A rabbi and a Galilean Sicari followed.

‘He’s alive,’ the women reported to them. The Sicari produced silver from his purse.

‘The Galilean was everyone’s hero, even though he was an enemy.’

Pantera bears scars from his time in Britannia. Sent to battle Boudica, he instead joined the rebels.

A grubby urchin named Math watches the people off the ship in Coriallum and their belt-pouches. Math is apprenticed to Ajax the charioteer, and dreams of becoming a driver; he is mothered by Hannah the healer. He has been paid an entire sestertius to follow a man, oak-brown hair, eyes the green-brown colour of a river—Sebastos Abdes Pantera.

With an entire denarius, Pantera and the philosopher Seneca turn the boy to spy for them. There is a Sybilline prophecy, predicting that Rome will burn.

The entire Green chariot-racing team is taken to Alexandria, then Rome, to run for Nero.

The characters are from all corners of the empire. It was especially juicy to recognise some from Christian legend—the Galilean in the tomb, Saulos the Idumaean, Shimon the Zealot, the Sicari. They are twisted brilliantly and unexpectedly into the story of the Great Fire.

The writing is beautiful, subtle, with gorgeous metaphors like ‘Nero’s progress was that of a scythe through corn, leaving untidy rows felled in his wake’; ‘his hair…. was the white of old snow as it rots in spring, flat and greyly stained with the colours of his earlier life’. Scott demonstrates wonderful knowledge of the ancient Roman world; tantalising details are woven into the scenes, things I had not known before.

It’s hard to believe anyone ever dared write another novel about Nero’s Rome after this one.

Mary Ann Bernal, Forgiving Nero, (‎Whispering Legends Press, 2021)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57097873-forgiving-nero

The story of two star-crossed romances, with some liberties taken with history

(The fictional) Traian Aelius Protacius, guards the boy Lucius (Nero), sent to live with his aunt Lepida during the rule of Caligula while his mother Agrippina is in exile. Attending the boy is slave woman Vena, a secret Christian, to whom Traian is attracted.

Nero asks for a tutor to teach him the lyre (cithara). He performs for the children of slaves and freedmen. He longs for a world where he can play his music and marry Acte, but Agrippina sweet talks Claudius into betrothing him to his daughter Octavia, Nero’s adoptive sister.

Seneca tutors him in other studies. Paul of Tarsus visits Vena’s Christians.

This is the story of two star-crossed romances. Nero can’t marry Acte because his family demands his dynastic marriage to Octavia. Traian marries Vena, but it must be in secret due to her class as slave.

It twists history as we know it on quite a number of points: treats Octavia as in love with Nero (they hated each other); Nero’s music as proficient (his talent was described as mediocre); Nero trusts in his mother’s goodness (he banished her to rid himself of her influence and had her murdered); Camulodunum is a picture of peaceful assimilation (the Boudicca revolt showed, viscerally, how much the British tribes hated the invaders); Claudius is killed by his wife giving him poisoned mushrooms (that was Augustus); Britannicus is killed by poisoned water (it was hot soup that was cooled down by adding poisoned water); Domitius Ahenobarbus is some guy who gives Nero a villa (he was his biological father); Acte wants to be empress (Nero’s interest in her was already replaced by Poppaea by the time he rid himself of Octavia); Acte is interested in Christianity (that was Poppaea, who was interested in Judaism); Domitia Lepida generously offers her villa to Acte (there seems to be no reason for inventing this in either woman’s character arc); Agrippina burst through the curtains of her hidey-hole onto the Senate floor, shouting what was to be done (this was too outrageous even for Agrippina); Poppaea suddenly gets a brainwave that she needs to bear Nero a son (everyone would have known that the emperor needed an heir); Nero rejects proposals by midwives to perform a Caesarean section in order to save Poppaea’s life (Lex Caesarea prohibited performing the operation unless the mother was dead or dying, and the mother was not expected to survive).

I don’t mind non-historical invention in historical fiction, but there should be some point to it, some reason for the storyline to be different from what we are familiar with. This history is juicy enough without outright inventing stuff.

The alternating references to the emperor as Lucius or Nero are confusing. I get it that he changed after becoming emperor, but he should be referred to by one name in each timeframe.

The writing style tends to the Telling rather than Showing, the dialogue quite stilted. For such a familiar story, we really need the writing to offer something special. It gets poorer as the pages progress.

Conn Iggulden, Tyrant, (Michael Joseph, 2025)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/220160369-tyrant

Nero’s rise, from his mother’s wedding to her murder

On the emperor’s wedding day, Praetorians smash into the home of Junius Silanus Torquatus, accusing him of incest with his sister. He is Agrippina’s first persecution. She aims to wipe out the bloodline of Augustus. Claudius is officially adopting her son Lucius (Nero).

Nero and his friends torment their tutor to death with a wasp’s nest. He gets a whipping and a new tutor—Seneca. Agrippina gets Rufrius replaced as Prefect of the Praetorians by her favourite Burrus. The slaves address her as ‘empress’, and she calls herself ‘Augusta’ on coins. Nero dons the toga virilis, a year early, but his virilis ceremony is dominated by the whispers over his mother’s self-appointed title.

Agrippina sweet-talks Claudius into betrothing Nero to Octavia, his sister by adoption.

Nero is crazy for chariot-racing. He’s the son of Ahenobarbus, after all. At the races, he is smitten by the pale-skinned Greek freedwoman Acte. With Claudius away in the provinces, Nero sits some legal cases, with some wisdom. Among them are some Jews, followers of Iesus.

Agrippina poisons her husband just in time to raise her son. Nero comes to the purple and sends his mother to live in Misenum.

My favourite feature of Iggulden is the relationships. The dialogue on Nero’s and Octavia’s wedding night is heart-breaking. The conversation between his friends and him at the mock naval battle is full of psychological intricacy. The relationship between him and his mother is complex.

Conn Iggulden, Nero, (‎Penguin, 2025)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/198344721-nero

The story of Nero’s origins, surviving three emperors and a horrible family

Barbo (Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus) is readying his team of horses to ride for Rome. His wife (Agrippina), though pregnant with his child, finally, after nine years of marriage, hates him.

Sejanus is before Emperor Tiberius, pleading for his life. The corrupt prefect is thrown down the Gemonian stairs. Tiberius is dying.

Gaius (Caligula) takes his sister Agrippina by the arm, a bit too roughly. He wants to reminisce about their childhood, when he was happy. He seems scarred from his years on Capreae. The last living heir to the throne, he senses enemies all around him.

Caligula becomes emperor and wants his sisters by his side, to the dismay of their husbands. His megalomania increases by the day, until finally he pushes the Praetorians too far, and they assassinate him, choosing Uncle Claudius to replace him. Eventually, Agrippina gets her hooks into Claudius, and Nero becomes the emperor’s stepson. Nero’s relationship with his mother is strained from the beginning.

The only thing I didn’t like about this novel was the title. Lucius (Nero) is a child, shoved off into adoption in the slums; he survives three emperors and doesn’t re-enter the story until page 197.

The characters, monsters to a man (except Claudius, who is at least smart), are all believable, the intricacies of relationships are handled with subtlety, and the dialogue is good. We know them from history, but here we know them personally. We see the invasion of Britain also from the British tribes’ point of view.

The women are equally vicious, though more sympathetic. Messalina, upon Claudius’s inauguration, ‘pressing her hands together over her womb, like a little girl waiting for presents’. Agrippina, upon seeing her son again after her imprisonment, ‘her hands opening and closing like flowers at her side’.

I never tire of hearing the story of Rome’s emperors, and Iggulden tells it well.