#1 – Tribune of Rome
Sixteen-year-old Vespasian leaves his family estate for Rome, hoping to find patronage and begin the public career expected of a young Roman noble. Instead he enters a capital dominated by Tiberius’s absence and Sejanus’s control of the Praetorian Guard. When conspiracy and danger force him away…
#2 – Rome’s Executioner
Vespasian is serving on the Danube frontier when he is drawn into a covert mission connected to the struggle against Sejanus. He must extract a politically valuable prisoner from a fortress before the Roman army captures it, then carry that threat back toward the centre of…
#3 – False God of Rome
Vespasian is pulled back from provincial service by the politics and shortages affecting Rome in the final years of Tiberius. The accession of Caligula first seems to promise renewal, but the new emperor’s rule quickly becomes dominated by spectacle, fear and personal delusion. Vespasian is sent…
#4 – Rome’s Fallen Eagle
After Caligula’s assassination, Claudius is proclaimed emperor and his advisers need a victory that can strengthen the new regime. Vespasian is sent into Germania to recover the lost eagle of the Seventeenth Legion, one of the standards taken after the disaster in the Teutoburg Forest. The…
#5 – Masters of Rome
Vespasian captures Caratacus after years of British resistance, but success in the field does not free him from imperial politics. Claudius’s freedmen compete for influence, Agrippina’s ambitions disturb the eastern provinces and Vespasian is sent to Armenia to protect Roman interests. The novel connects Britain, Rome,…
#6 – Rome’s Lost Son
Vespasian returns to Britain when his brother is captured by druids during the continuing Roman conquest of the island. The rescue mission is tied to military operations in the south-west, where Roman power is still being imposed through force and negotiation. At the same time, Claudius’s…
#7 – The Furies of Rome
Under Nero, Vespasian has to navigate a court in which the emperor’s desire for Poppaea threatens Octavia and anyone associated with the old order. Financial pressure in Britain draws Vespasian back to the province, where resentment against Roman rule is moving toward open revolt. The novel…
#8 – Rome’s Sacred Flame
Vespasian, now governor of Africa, is ordered by Nero to recover Roman citizens enslaved by a desert kingdom beyond the settled province. The mission becomes a march through hostile country, with revolt, pursuit, thirst and exhaustion threatening the rescue party. While Vespasian struggles to bring the…
#9 – Emperor of Rome
Vespasian commands Roman forces during the revolt in Judaea while Nero’s jealousy makes success almost as dangerous as failure. Nero’s suicide throws the empire into civil war, and the competing claims of Galba, Otho and Vitellius open a path that Vespasian can no longer ignore. The…