Book
Gladiator: Fight for Freedom
First published 2011
Italy, 61 BC. Marcus Cornelius Primus is enslaved after his father is killed and his mother is taken away. Sold to a gladiator school, he must survive training while concealing a secret about his birth and searching for a way to reach Pompey, his father’s former commander. The novel places a young protagonist inside the brutal economy of slavery and spectacle that underpins the late Roman Republic.
Marcus's enslavement turns the late Republic's celebrated public games into a system experienced from below. Training, discipline and sale determine his value to owners who see a child principally as future entertainment. His search for Pompey therefore carries a second purpose: reaching a man powerful enough to challenge the legal and economic structures that have separated Marcus from his mother.
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