Forged in Rome

Name: Forged in Rome
Rating: 4.4 (950 reviews)

by Conn Iggulden

First published 2025

Amazon

4.4(950)

In AD 37, Cormac is an enslaved scribe in a noble Roman household, valued for his literacy but denied control over his own life. When his master dies under suspicious circumstances, documents granting his freedom leave him exposed in a city where status depends on patrons, proof and power. His abilities carry him from Rome’s streets to the mines of Gaul and the island of Britannia as he tries to turn precarious freedom into security and influence.

Cormac’s literacy gives him unusual value without changing the fact that Roman law initially treats him as property. Documents promising freedom therefore become both opportunity and danger, because written proof matters only if someone powerful is willing to recognise it. His movement through the empire shows how education, patronage and legal status can transform a life while never fully removing vulnerability.