The Forgotten Legion

The popularity of novels set in Rome and it's empire is proven by the numbers published and bought. I admit to being part of this market. The most frequent era used as the setting for these books is the end of the Republic and the first century of the Emporers, in other words from Marius to Vespasian. The Forgotten Legion by Ben Kane is set at the time of the Triumvirate, approximately ten years between sixty and fifty BC when power was shared between three men, Julius Caesar, Pompey Magnus and Marcus Licinius Crassus. The action centres around the determination of Crassus to be publicly acknowledged as a great general, the equal of Caesar and Pompey. Some years previously it had been Crassus who had put down the Spartacus revolt but somehow Pompey, who had taken only a minor role, managed to be the one awarded a Triumph by the Senate. Crassus had brooded on this injustice ever since and it eat at him like a cancer. He took the opportunity, when made Governor of Syria, to launch a disastrous attack on Parthia which led to total defeat with the deaths of himself, his son Publius and most of his legions. The prisoners taken by the Parthians were given a choice of being executed or signing up to defend Parthia's eastern borders. As Mahomed Ali would later put it, no contest. Into this tragic story of forty thousand men sacrificed on the altar of one man's ambition Ben Kane has woven the lives of four very different characters. The first is Tarquinius last of the true blood Etruscans trained by his mentor Olenus as both a warrior and a soothsayer. The Etruscans always believed that they originated in the far east and Tarquinius is determined to travel there. We are next introduced to Brennus, a warrior of the Alobroges tribe of Gaul who is told his future by the tribal sage who predicts that he will travelwhere no Alobroge has gone before. Brennus is captured by the Romans and sold to a gladiator school. The action then moves on over a decade where Romulus and Fabiola, twins born into slavery, are now being sold by their master. Romulus is sold to the gladiator school where he meets Brennus and Fabiola to a brothel where she meets the young Brutus who falls for her and eventualy buys her. Ben Kane has written a real page turner of an adventure story just the thing for that long flight or train journey. I have, however, two small reservations. Firstly he appears to have taken his knowledge of the Spartacus revolt from the rather fanciful novel by Howard Fast or the even more fanciful film that starred Kirk Douglas. Contemporary records show a far less noble character than either film or book. My second complaint is far more serious. Mr Kane has looked up the Latin words for many everyday items and insists on using them. Worse, he puts them in italics to make sure we all get the message. Ben,mate, you are writing a book in English so a shield is a shield NOT a scutum! Apart from these minor irritants this is a very entertaining book and I look forward to the promised sequel.