Roman Fiction
Ferox returns in:-
THE CITY
The City is the second story in the City of Victory Trilogy, and sees Ferox and Vindex sent off to the eastern frontier of the Roman Empire as part of another scheme hatched by the ambitious Hadrian. Readers of the earlier stories will be reunited with some familiar characters, as well as meeting plenty of new ones, but as always I hope that a reader coming fresh to this book can enjoy it on its own without having read any of the others.
As The Fort was the story of a Roman garrison under siege, this time it is the Romans who are outside, attacking Nicopolis (which means city of victory in Greek). This is another war story, and is told from both sides. One of the new characters is Domitius, forced to desert from the legions after being accused of being a Christian and then refusing to deny it. After some misadventures, he finds himself inside the city during the siege and has to decide how best to protect himself and the family who have taken him in.
While the background is as accurate as I could make it, the siege itself and the city are fictional. There were a number of places with this or a similar name, commemorating battles won by Hellenistic kings or Roman emperors. I have placed my Nicopolis to the east of the Euphrates, within the kingdom of Osrhoene, although maintaining a degree of independence from the king at his capital in Edessa, at least in internal affairs. In a way this is another book about frontiers and what happened when different peoples – and rival political powers - came into contact. Nicopolis has a mixed population of Greeks, Arabs, Jews, Christians and another minorities, inspired by communities of the wider region, notably the remarkable evidence from Dura-Europos.
I have done my best to paint a convincing picture of what such a community was like, but this is the setting for an adventure story, about Ferox as gloomy as ever, but still doing his job – if never quite in the way his superiors expect.
From the dust jacket:-
AD 114: NICOPOLIS In the arid plains beyond the empire's Eastern Frontier, a Roman legion lays siege to the city of Nicopolis. Estranged from his beloved Enica to keep her safe, centurion Flavius Ferox is still working for the emperor's cousin, the calculating and ruthless Hadrian.
Sent to uncover wholesale corruption in the army, Ferox has killed a tribune and is under suspended sentence of death, but knows more traitors are at large. As the siege builds, Ferox does not know who can be trusted, and just what it is Hadrian wants. Gritty, gripping and profoundly authentic, The City is the second book in a trilogy set in the Roman empire from bestselling historian Adrian Goldsworthy.
The City is released in Hardback and on Kindle on the 9th June 2022. The paperback will be released on 2nd February 2023.
Also coming in 2023, the conclusion of the trilogy – The Wall