Books like Legion XXII — picked by fans

I thoroughly enjoyed this gripping tale of war, whose central plot features individual heroism and the clash of civilizations. Faustus Valerianus is a legionary caught between two worlds: his mother's native Britannia and his father's Roman heritage. Valerianus is a complex character I won't soon forget. Following the death of his parents, he chooses to serve Rome under the eagles.

As legionary, he marches north with Agricola's Roman army to complete the conquest of Britannia. In a climactic battle, the Romans are victorious, and our hero is blooded and hardened into a warrior. He must now face the challenge of negotiating two worlds and threats from within and without. Hunter paints an entertaining introduction to the Roman world of conquest and the Britons' heroic efforts to keep their freedom.

In this no-retreat, no-surrender epic, I became captivated by the exploits of the First Nervana, an auxiliary cohort of the Roman army occupying Britain in 139 CE. I enjoy books whose characters appeal to me. I found myself rooting for the tribune Lucius Faenius Felix and his friend Cai Martis, prefect of cavalry. However, I admit to empathizing with the Britons fighting for their people and freedom.

Ultimately, Britons seeking Roman blood and an end to Roman rule surround our heroes and the First Nervana. Under siege, the First must hold until relieved—but can they? With plenty of blood, gore, intrigue, and romance, I found this epic tale a pleasurable read that caused me to ask for more of Lucius and Cai.

Another rip-roaring Roman adventure in Britannia with more bodies piling up than at a supermarket check-out line. Good fun, exciting characters, and a good look at the early years of Rome as it morphed from a Republic to an Empire. Julius Quintus Quirinius is a young man caught in Rome's civil war. With both parents recently deceased, he has few options. He must either serve under the eagles or face a life of slavery.

Following six months of arduous training, his cohort is sent south, where it suffers a humiliating defeat and is punished with decimation—the execution of one of every tenth man in each unit. The man chosen from his unit for execution asks Quintus to take care of his family back in Rome. With the remaining legionaries of his cohort, he heads south to defeat the tribesmen that had inflicted such a devastating defeat upon them. He shows… show more.

If I didn't know better, I would think the author was on hallucinogens when he began this series. It is a real hoot! While it follows the adventures of a Centurion, Ben Stiger, in a strange and bizarre world, it veers off into mysticism, magic, fantasy, witchcraft, the supernatural, and just about any other genre you care to name. Stiger is a brave, resourceful, and brilliant leader who has been given command of a company of misfits.

He must hone them into a first-rate combat unit as he attempts to quell a rebellion threatening the existence of the Empire he loves and serves. He journeys through another dimension of space and time with his two companions, an elf and a priest. Weird and engrossing. It is a book you'll pick up and not put down.

The end of the Empire has had me gripped since I was a boy.

Eagle in the Snow catapults you right into the dying state and right to its edge. I found myself walking the imperial borders in snowbound Germania, wondering if and when the Roman world was about to collapse beneath my feet.

It is one of those novels that leaves you feeling like you’ve lived another life, and that feeling has stayed with me ever since. A magical piece of historical fiction.

Dynasty is just a good historical read, one I enjoyed thoroughly. This is the place to go for a readable researched, thoroughly engaging story of the final collapse of the Republic under Caesar and how his heirs ushered in a new political system. The pivotal period where Octavian, adopted son of murdered Gaius Julius Caesar, survived in a cutthroat political and military arena and made himself Princeps, the first emperor, is just fascinating. The subsequent men and women of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and all of their political, and sometimes murderous, machinations come to life under Holland’s pen. An excellent choice for navigating imperial politics, often family politics.

Very few histories of Rome manage to be both trenchant and laugh-out-loud funny. Emma Southon’s is one. I was laughing and wincing at the same time. I was especially impressed because many of the figures Southon discusses (Tanaquil, Lucretia, Tarpeia) are shrouded in Rome’s self-serving patriotic myths.

Southon tells their stories in a colorful, empathetic narrative that dares to imagine what the women’s point of view might have been like. She also makes clear how much Rome, that quintessentially patriarchal ancient empire, imagined itself as founded on the bodies of women.  

This is a great read on the way that Rome became an empire. It puts the whole story of the city of Rome and what it developed into (i.e. the biggest power of the ancient world and a paradigm for many empires that followed) into context and into the history of the Mediterranean world. The book is so useful to read because it is well written and contemporary, but it also helps us to understand Hannibal. This is because Rome's version of Carthage and Hannibal is the only version that we have to deal with, Hannibal in many ways becomes a reflection of Roman ideas of their own imperialism.

Browsing my shelves in preparation for this book list, this one in particular jogged my memory as an important influence on my own book, an influence so internalized that I completely forgot about and never cited it! I remedy that lapse here. 

My copy of the book is heavily underlined with lots of stars in the margin, so I know it was important. You can see from the title that the author is concerned with the same tension between money and empire, he as a historian and me as an economist.

Now that I have finished my own book, I’ll be rereading this early influence to engage with its argument more deeply and directly. 

The early history of the Goths is a complicated and controversial subject, with difficult sources and large gaps in our literary and archaeological evidence. Heather provides an excellent guide to those problems and how they might be resolved. His book is particularly valuable for those interested in the only major source actually written by a Goth, the Getica of Jordanes, and in how the Visigoths and Ostrogoths emerged as independent peoples. The dramatic events which Heather narrates include the first entrance of Gothic tribes into the Roman Empire, the Sack of Rome by Alaric in 410, and the creation of the original Visigothic kingdom in southern France, ending with the newly formed Ostrogoths poised to launch their conquest of Italy.