The Lantern Bearers

Name: The Lantern Bearers
Rating: 4.5 (588 reviews)

by Rosemary Sutcliff Book 2 in the The Roman Britain Trilogy series.

First published 1959

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4.5(588)

Britain, early in the fifth century. When the remaining Roman forces are ordered to leave, the cavalryman Aquila deserts rather than abandon the country he regards as home. Saxon raiders destroy his family’s villa, kill his father and carry his sister away, while Aquila himself is taken into slavery. Escape leaves him alive but dominated by grief and the desire for revenge.

Aquila joins the Romano-British resistance led by Ambrosius Aurelianus and serves through years of campaigning against expanding Saxon settlements. His military service cannot restore the vanished Roman world, but it gradually forces him to choose what can still be preserved from it. The lantern of the title becomes an image of cultural continuity: a diminished light carried forward through loyalty, family and reconciliation rather than imperial power.