Rome Fiction

AD 69. The year of the four emperors. Three emperors have ruled in Rome this year and a fourth, Vespasian, has been named in the East. As the legions march toward civil war, Sebastos Pantera, the spy whose name means leopard, returns to Rome intent on bribery, blackmail and persuasion: whatever it takes to bring the commanders and their men to Vespasian's side. But in Rome, as he uses every skill he has ever learned of subterfuge, codes and camouflage, it becomes clear that one of those closest to him is a traitor who will let Rome fall to destroy him.

A scandal is threatening to engulf the popular spa town of Aquae Sulis (modern-day Bath). The wife of Ruso's best friend, Valens, has been found dead in the sacred hot spring, stabbed through the heart. Fearing the wrath of the goddess and the ruin of the tourist trade, the temple officials are keen to cover up what's happened. But the dead woman's father is demanding justice, and he's accusing Valens of murder. If Valens turns up to face trial, he will risk execution. If he doesn't, he'll lose his children.

Sandra Vega, a forensic analyst with the Roman police department, mourns deeply for a marriage that ended too soon. A few months ago, in the dead of night, her husband, an up-and-coming journalist, plunged to his death at the top of a high-rise construction site. The police ruled it an accident. Sandra is convinced it was anything but. Launching her own inquiries, Sandra finds herself on a dangerous trail, working the same case that she is convinced led to her husband's murder.

As mysterious injuries, and even deaths, begin to appear in the medical ledgers, it's clear that all is not well amongst the native recruits to Britannia's imperial army. Is the much-decorated centurion Geminus preying on his weaker soldiers? And could this be related to the appearance of Emperor Hadrian? Bound by his sense of duty and ill-advised curiosity, Ruso begins to ask questions nobody wants to hear. Meanwhile his barbarian wife Tilla is finding out some of the answers....

It is AD 81. The Roman emperor Domitian seizes power. Afflicted by classic paranoia, the self-styled Master and God sees enemies everywhere - and he is right. The Senate loathes him, his advisers are terrified, he cannot trust his wife, and barbarians menace the frontiers. As he vents his suspicions, no one is safe.

Big, bold, and beautiful are three adjectives that describe Erika to a tee. Named after her mother’s favorite soap opera vixen, Erika Kane is self-assured, headstrong, and opinionated. But she’s also unlucky in love. Whenever Erika thinks she’s found everlasting love, it always ends up being short-lived - literally. She has three dead husbands to prove the point, and it’s earned her the title “The Black Widow”. But just when Erika is about to give up on true love, she learns that, just like in the soaps, love sometimes shows up when you least expect it.

In the fifth century, the Western Roman Empire has been overrun by German tribes. In a series of brilliant campaigns, Aetius, last of the great Roman generals, forces the Germans to settle peacefully. But his old friend Attila, leader of the Huns, has turned his attention to the West, and a confrontation between the two, now bitter enemies, is inevitable.

Rome, AD 270. In the wake of the emperor’s marriage ban, rumors swirl that there is one man brave enough to perform wedding ceremonies in secret. A public notarius and leader of an underground church, Valentine believes the emperor’s edict unjust and risks his own life for the sake of his convictions. But as his fame grows, so do fears for his safety. Iris, the daughter of a Roman jailor, believes regaining her sight will ease the troubles at home. Her last hope rests in searching out Valentine and his church, but the danger of associating with people labeled a threat to the empire is great.

Throughout the Roman Army, the brutal XIIth Legion is notorious for its ill fortune. For one young man, Demalion of Macedon, joining it will be a baptism of fire. And yet, amid all of the violence and savagery of his life as a legionary, he will come to love the Twelfth and the bloody-minded, dark-hearted soldiers he calls his brothers. But during the punishing Judaean campaign, the Hebrew army inflict a catastrophic defeat upon the legion - not only decimating their ranks, but taking away their soul - the eagle.

The extant letters of Pliny, written between AD 97 and 112, give us a unique insight into Imperial Rome under the early Antonine emperors. Organised into 10 books, the letters reflect a wide range of topics, mirroring Pliny’s own public and private interests. Among many other subjects, the letters also include an eye-witness account of the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79, with the final book containing the exchange of letters between the writer (whose career culminated as Governor of Bithynia) and the emperor Trajan.

After saving the Empire's richest province from a foreign army, Marcus and the men who protect him have been in hiding. Their lives will be forfeit if they are seen in Rome. But times have changed. Marcus's protector, the patrician legion commander Scaurus, has been summoned home by his mentor, a powerful senator who has decided he must act to save the empire from its debauched ruler's reign of terror. Rome is a hotbed of conspiracy and treachery and the senator is not the only contender for power. The emperor himself plans to destroy those he mistrusts, and no-one is safe.

"Caïus est un âne." La phrase inscrite par Rufus sur sa tablette remporte un grand succès en classe. Mais Caïus rougit de colère. Comment Rufus ose-t-il l'insulter, lui, le fils d'un richissime sénateur ? Pourtant, le lendemain, plus personne n'a envie de rire. La même phrase est tracée en lettres rouges sur la façade du temple de Minerve. Or, dans la Rome impériale, un tel sacrilège est terrible... Les amis de Rufus sont prêts à tout pour innocenter leur camarade : ils se lancent dans une enquête trépidante au cœur de la Rome antique !

Get ready to hop on a mythical time machine and zoom back to ancient Rome – and trust us, it's going to be a wild ride! Prepare to explore a world where emperors reign, gladiators clash, and gods and goddesses weave tales of power and intrigue. Oh and you can wave goodbye to those boring history books that feel like time machines stuck in slow motion!

As A Driven Leaf is a novel in which fictional and historical characters comfortably coexist. It is a gripping tale of the renegade Talmudic sage, Elisha ben Abuyah, caught in a personal struggle between his own faith and the compelling culture of Rome, circa 70 CE.

The incredible saga of Hannibal and his invasion of Italy in 218 B.C. is the subject of this third volume of Livy's magnificent history. As only Livy can describe it, we are swept into the era of the Second Punic War and given a ringside view of the leadership of both sides. The stirring account of Hannibal crossing the Alps, the brutal description of Cannae, and the relentless Roman siege of Syracuse are some of the highlights of this remarkable story.

In the final months of World War II, a clandestine group known as The Choir smuggles thousands of escapees out of Nazi-occupied Rome via a secret route known as the Rome Escape Line. When an unidentified airman falls from the sky, The Choir is plunged into lethal danger, and the survival of the Escape Line itself is threatened.

Two works by the Roman historian, Tacitus. Agricola is a portrait of Julius Agricola, a governor of Roman Britain, and the first surviving account of the geography, climate, and peoples of Britain. The German tribes of Northern Europe are discussed in Germania.

A new civil war has begun: with the emperor Pertinax's murder Marcus and his protector Scaurus have escaped Rome, seeking sanctuary for their familia in the East. But they are soon pressed back into service by Septimius Severus, the ruthless commander who has seized the imperial capital and who holds the military balance of power over his two rivals. Niger, the would-be emperor in the East is on the march with six legions, and Scaurus's legion is ordered to Thrace as a sacrificial advance guard, tasked with delaying them. Whatever the cost.

Livy continues his magnificent epic, with Rome in complete ruin after the Gallic invasion and sack of the city in 310 B.C. Led by Camillus, one of Rome's great heroic patricians, the city regains her self-confidence and once more becomes the leader of the Latin people. Painstakingly rebuilding alliances, forging friendships, cementing relations among her own people, and fighting endless wars, Rome soon becomes the dominant power among the fractious Italic tribes on the Latin plain.

Four novella-length stories written to illuminate Lindsey Davis's unparalleled output of the last 30 years, with an introduction written and narrated by the author.