Leaderboard

Hope this is okay with you all as it's self-promo. I checked with the mods who said it should be alright. Anyway, for the last two years I've been writing a novel based around the Battle of the Frigidus. The more I read into it, the more I realised just how needlessly destructive the whole affair (the second civil war in 6 years) was. Beforehand, I thought it was a candidate reason for the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Now, I'm certain it was (at least the main catalyst). Anyway, here's the deets for LEGIONARY:DEVOTIO AD 391: in the aftermath of civil war, the Roman Empire lies broken. The emperor is missing. Rumours fly that he has lost his mind. Sensing weakness, the Goths rise in revolt. All to the delight of the dark hand who orchestrated the civil war… and plots to stoke another. Far out at sea, Pavo stands watchfully at the prow of the Justitia, running cargo between distant lands. At every port, he hears of the empire's swelling troubles. Of fire and zeal and panic. Of legions, bristling for battle. But his days of protecting the provinces with sword and shield are over. He, his wife and his lad will soon have enough funds to make a home on a quiet island, far from the madness. Yet the empire is an ever-hungry beast, and Pavo is about to sail straight into its jaws… It is a journey that will take him to the brink, and throw down before him the question to which there is only one answer: what would you sacrifice to save your loved ones? Blood, treachery, reckless heroism, justice, honour. This story has it all. If you fancy a read, it's out on all the usual places: Amazon: http://mybook.to/LegionaryX All other retailers: http://books2read.com/Legionary10 Thanks!

The major problem faced here is that the general public want a simple description of how the legions were formed, deployed and disbanded. Because of their need for a straightforward narrative, books such as that by Dando-Collins, which purports to give a straightforward narrative, are bought, read and believed by those with a general interest in the Roman Legions. Consequently, any information which goes against the simple narrative are discounted 'because Dando-Collins says so'. The next stage is that this information passes into 'everyone knows' territory and so becomes accepted as fact, appearing in other books and on TV/the internet. Hopefully sites such as UNRV can help to correct the spread of false information.

I'm interested in material artifacts aspect of Roman history, and am less interested (skeptical in fact) about the going narratives. Think how wrong the media gets a story if you happen to have local knowledge of it. But there are hard to overlook vignettes evoked by ruins that just beg for some contextual story, like the alienation of Tiberius or the refinement of the Quintilii brothers based on their respective villas. Same could be said for their meditative portrait sculpture...

Studying Latin in school-- the myths and legends of the early history. It fascinated me that we were reading the very words written by men who walked the earth more than 2000 yrs ago. Speaking of church, my cigar chomping, truck driver uncle who quit school after the eighth grade was quite irate when Vatican II did away with the Latin Mass-- "That's crazy. We should be hearing the words the way The Lord really said them.' (??)