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(More customer reviews)This second novel in the Gladiators of the Empire series takes the story of Quintus Honorius Romanus, the gladiator going by the name of Taurus, to a new level and involves both protagonist and antagonist in the politics of civil war.
It's AD 69, the Year of the Four Emperors. Galba has been killed, Otho is facing Vitellius, and gladiators are recruited - or rather their masters are forced to rent them out - as soldiers for Otho. For most of Quintus' fellow gladiators, it's just learning another way of fighting, and familiar to those who are captured barbarians. But for a handful, such as Quintus, who are Roman citizens, the dilemma is glaring: a fight in the arena is one thing, but killing other Romans in battle is another. For Lindani, the African venator, it means killing people rather than animals. Quintus, however, is drawn into a conspiracy to save the empire and has to adapt, not only for his own survival.
Meanwhile, in a distant ludus in Africa, Quintus' arch-enemy, the slave Lucius Calidius, believed to be out of action forever, gets a second chance. For readers not familiar with the first novel, Sand of the Arena, flashbacks and reflections provide the story that intertwined the lives of Quintus, Lucius, and Quintus' aunt Julia in the past. Julia, newly widowed and now sole owner of the Romanus shipping business, has come to rescue Lucius, and soon they find themselves in comfortable circumstances in Alexandria and Caesarea and so the plot thickens ...
To tell more would spoil the suspense. The story is nicely woven into the real history of AD 69 - outlined in Afterword & Historical Notes, with a number of real life personae and some surprises.
The characters introduced in the first novel have grown and Mr. Duffy is adept at portraying their relationships, and their internal conflicts, not the least Quintus transforming himself chillingly into Taurus when the situation demands it. The emotional plight of Romans fighting Romans in a civil war is imaginatively treated. (A warning: the battle scenes are brutally realistic.) This reader, occasional blood and gore notwithstanding, looks forward to the next installment. It will be a fast forward to the time of the eruption of Vesuvius AD 79 and is tentatively titled "Rain of Fire."
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Continuing-the adventures of Quintus Honorius Romanus (a.k.a. Taurus)-legendary gladiator of ancient Rome-this second book in the series picks up-in AD 68, when the emperor is dead, and the throne is up for grabs. Three contenders square off to take control of the government, and as civil unrest begins to build, Quintus and his friends, the beast hunter Lindani and the gladiatrix Amazonia, are forced to fight with the legionnaires of Rome in what will soon become bloody civil war. Meanwhile, in a remote corner of the empire, Quintus- former slave, Lucius Calidius, plots another rise to power-and not even Quintus will stand in his way.
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