And while anyone who has visited the Tullianum prison (the carcer) in Rome’s forum might think I have been rather fanciful with my depiction of the place, there is some evidence and a lot of discussion over its earlier form. After all, that entire end of the forum has changed completely since those days – even the rocky landscape itself due to the massive quarrying for Trajan’s forum.
Things are closing up in Rome. Caesar’s enemies are beginning to make their moves.
The general himself is hoping to return soon and take up a consulship during which he will continue to be immune from prosecution. Anyone care to guess what his future holds? Already his gaze must be drifting to that oh so important boundary line at the Rubicon River.
50 BC will be a year of great change, following which Rome’s future will be decided in dreadful civil conflict. And everyone’s favourite legate will be there to help, of course.
Thank you for reading and see you in Massilia soon.
Simon Turney, August 2015
If you liked this book, why not try other titles by S.J.A. Turney
Interregnum (Tales of the Empire 1)
For twenty years civil war has torn the Empire apart; the Imperial line extinguished as the mad Emperor Quintus burned in his palace, betrayed by his greatest general. Against a background of war, decay, poverty and violence, men who once served in the proud Imperial army now fight as mercenaries, hiring themselves to the greediest lords. On a hopeless battlefield that same general, now a mercenary captain tortured by the events of his past, stumbles across hope in the form of a young man begging for help. Kiva is forced to face more than his dark past as he struggles to put his life and the very Empire back together. The last scion of the Imperial line will change Kiva forever.
The Thief's Tale by S.J.A. Turney
Istanbul, 1481. The once great city of Constantine that now forms the heart of the Ottoman empire is a strange mix of Christian, Turk and Jew. Despite the benevolent reign of the Sultan Bayezid II, the conquest is still a recent memory, and emotions run high among the inhabitants, with danger never far beneath the surface. Skiouros and Lykaion, the sons of a Greek country farmer, are conscripted into the ranks of the famous Janissary guards and taken to Istanbul where they will play a pivotal, if unsung, role in the history of the new regime. As Skiouros escapes into the Greek quarter and vanishes among its streets to survive on his wits alone, Lykaion remains with the slave chain to fulfill his destiny and become an Islamic convert and a guard of the Imperial palace. Brothers they remain, though standing to either side of an unimaginable divide. On a fateful day in late autumn 1490, Skiouros picks the wrong pocket and begins to unravel a plot that reaches to the very highest peaks of Imperial power. He and his brother are about to be left with the most difficult decision faced by a conquered Greek: whether the rule of the Ottoman Sultan is worth saving.
Praetorian: The Great Game
Promoted to the elite Praetorian Guard in the thick of battle, a young legionary is thrust into a seedy world of imperial politics and corruption. Tasked with uncovering a plot against the newly-crowned emperor Commodus, his mission takes him from the cold Danubian border all the way to the heart of Rome, the villa of the emperor’s scheming sister, and the great Colosseum.
What seems a straightforward, if terrifying, assignment soon descends into Machiavellian treachery and peril as everything in which young Rufinus trusts and believes is called into question and he faces warring commanders, Sarmatian cannibals, vicious dogs, mercenary killers and even a clandestine Imperial agent. In a race against time to save the Emperor, Rufinus will be introduced, willing or not, to the great game.
"Entertaining, exciting and beautifully researched" - Douglas Jackson
Table of Contents
For all my loyal readers, still with me after eight years of Fronto’s troubles. Thank you all from th...
Published in this format 2015 by Victrix BooksCopyright - S.J.A. TurneyFirst Edition
Also by S. J. A. Turney:
Prologue
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty One
Epilogue
Author’s note
If you liked this book, why not try other titles by S.J.A. Turney