Imperial Purple

Name: Imperial Purple
Rating: 2.5 (5 reviews)

by Gillian Bradshaw

First published 1988

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2.5(5)

Demetrias is a skilled silk weaver and state slave in fifth-century Tyre, where the production of imperial purple is controlled by the government. When she is secretly ordered to weave a purple cloak in dimensions that do not fit Emperor Theodosius II, she realises that the commission is evidence of a plot to replace him.

Unable simply to refuse, Demetrias and her fisherman husband Symeon are drawn from provincial life into the factional politics of the Eastern Roman court. Her attempt to protect her family brings her into the orbit of Pulcheria, Theodosius’s formidable sister, and Marcian, forcing an ordinary household to navigate a conspiracy in which cloth, rank and imperial legitimacy are inseparable.