Record Added: 8/22/2013  A Favorite Book Series Roman Britain Trilogy Setting  England Topic Historical Fiction History: Great Britain, I Publisher Oxford University Press ISBN 0192710370 Year 1986 Age 13-YA Pages 254 Description Printed dustjacket, in col
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Set in Roman Britain in the early AD's, this book recounts a personal quest by Centurion Marcus Drusillus Aquila, lamed in a fierce battle. He and his faithful former slave, Esca, undertake a perilous mission beyond the safety of Hadrian's Wall--erected to keep the Highland barbarians at bay.
Tortured by harsh rumors that the lost Ninth Legion turned feral and betrayed the Roman principles of Trust and Honor, young Marcus is grimly determined to prove the gossip false and restore the Honor of his father's old legion. No one knows the fate of the men who marched off into the mists of what will be known as Scotland in subsequent centuries. But without the actual Eagle which repreents that legion, there can be no Honor--more sacred to Romans than life itself. Thus Marcus vows to recover the lost eagle for Rome, so that the men of the Ninth may rest easy and that the Painted People may not use it as a psychological weapon against Rome.
In the second century AD, when the Ninth Roman Legion marched into the mists of northern Britain, not one man came back. Four thousand men disappeared, and the Eagle, the symbol of the Legion's honour, was lost.
Years later there is a story that the Eagle has been seen again. So Marcus Aquila, whose father disappeared with the Ninth, travels north, to find the Eagle and bring it back, and to learn how his father died. But the tribes of the north are wild and dangerous, and they hate the Romans... |
Notes
I loved this story. Also have movie made from the story.
About Silchester The parish of Silchester in Hampshire, UK, is the location of a large Roman town - Calleva Atrebatum. The Roman town, which was founded in the first century AD (nearly 2000 years ago), was built on the site of an Iron Age town, Calleva. The Roman amphitheatre and town walls are some of the best preserved in Britain, and are open to the public. The town was abandoned some time after 400 AD for reasons that are not fully understood. This makes it one of only six Roman towns in Britain that are not still populated.
The Discovery of the Eagle The eagle was discovered on October 9 1866 by the Reverend J.G. Joyce during his excavations of Calleva Atrebatum. The eagle was found in the forum basilica, between two layers of burnt material. Joyce believed that the eagle was the imperial standard of a Roman legion guarded during a desperate last stand. He imagined that the eagle had been torn off its staff and hidden in the wooden ceiling of the building, where it remained while the forum basilica was burnt to the ground. It was this account that inspired Rosemary Sutcliff's story and the later film adaptation.
The bronze eagle on which Rosemary Sutcliff based her novel, The Eagle of the Ninth – recently filmed as The Eagle – is on permanent display in the Museum’s Silchester Gallery, along with further curious examples of the tiler’s art. |
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