Sword of Empire: The Complete Campaigns

Name: Sword of Empire: The Complete Campaigns
Rating: 4.2 (563 reviews)

by Richard Foreman Book 4 in the The Dream of Rome series.

First published 2014

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4.2(563)

The complete Sword of Empire sequence follows the praetorians Gaius Maximus and Rufus Atticus during the final years of Marcus Aurelius. Praetorian sends Maximus through enemy territory with the children of a Germanic leader in an attempt to build an alliance. Centurion returns the soldiers to Rome, where propaganda, family obligations and a conspiracy threaten the emperor from within.

Emperor moves the story to Britain and then back towards the Marcomannic frontier. Maximus is offered a pardon in exchange for assassinating the enemy king Balomar, but Commodus and Roman mercenaries create additional dangers. The omnibus presents war as a political as well as military crisis, contrasting Aurelius’s ideal of responsible rule with the succession that will follow him.