Twilight of Empire

Ian Ross’s six-book Twilight of Empire series follows the fictional Roman officer Aurelius Castus through the political and military upheavals that turn Constantine from one claimant among several into sole ruler of the Roman Empire. Beginning on the northern frontier of Britain in AD 305, Castus is drawn from provincial soldiering into imperial service, the breakdown of the Tetrarchy, Constantine’s wars against Maxentius and Licinius, command on the Rhine and, finally, the eastern frontier as conflict with Persia threatens again.

Castus’s rise gives the series an unusually broad view of the early fourth-century empire. Campaigns and sieges sit beside court conspiracy, dynastic rivalry and religious change as Constantine’s support for Christianity alters the political culture around the army. Across Britain, Gaul, Italy, the Balkans and the East, Ross uses one soldier’s long career to show an empire being reorganised rather than simply declining.