Arena: Champion

Name: Arena: Champion
Rating: 4.3 (720 reviews)

by Simon Scarrow Book 5 in the Roman Arena series.

First published 2013

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4.3(720)

Rome, AD 41. Pavo’s rise brings him to a final contest in which his reputation, freedom and family honour are at stake. Claudius’s advisers and their rivals use the games to settle political scores, while Macro works to uncover the last threat before the combat begins. The sequence concludes by showing how even the arena’s greatest champion remains dependent on imperial favour and the changing appetite of the crowd.

Pavo’s apparent success cannot remove the political ownership of the games. Every victory increases his public value while making him more useful to officials who need spectacle, intimidation or a convenient death. Macro’s investigation exposes the machinery behind the contests, and the final bout becomes a struggle over whether Pavo can turn fame into genuine freedom rather than another form of dependence.