Best of
Roman-Britain

2018

The Sign of The Blood


Laurence O'Bryan - 2018
    Constantine, the son of an emperor, the Roman officer leading this raid, tells his men to halt - something is wrong. Have they been seen in the pre-dawn light? Before long, the battle rages. Eventually he frees a slave named Juliana. She is half Persian and half Roman. As they are pursued to Britannia over land and sea, he learns that she can see the future - his future.It is 306A.D., long before Constantine the Great converted to Christianity and became the first Christian emperor.To ensure he survives, he must now eliminate his enemies. But who must die first? The priestess, Sybellina, who joined them in Rome and practices dark and seductive magic? Or the brutal legion commanders who surround his father? Or, as Juliana suspects, are those who want him dead even closer?An electrifying historical novel about Constantine’s bloody rise to power, the woman who helped him, and the real reason he supported a persecuted Christian minority, a decision which changed the world into the one we know.Reviews of previous books by the author:“A delight,” Yorkshire Evening Post.'… superbly executed…' Irish Examiner.'Well written, beautifully descriptive, and with smart dialogue and a compelling air of menace throughout,' The Lancashire Evening Post.'A brisk plot…which draws the reader into a conspiratorial rapport,' Telegraph.

Sacred Britannia: Gods and Rituals in Roman Britain from Caesar to Constantine


Miranda Aldhouse-Green - 2018
    The expeditions of Julius Caesar and the Claudian invasion of 43 CE, up to the traditional end of Roman Britain in the fifth century CE, brought fundamental and lasting changes to the island. Not least among these was a pantheon of new classical deities and religious systems, along with a clutch of exotic eastern cults, including Christianity. But what homegrown deities, cults, and cosmologies did the Romans encounter in Britain, and how did the British react to the changes? Under Roman rule, the old gods and their adherents were challenged, adopted, adapted, absorbed, and reconfigured.Miranda Aldhouse- Green balances literary, archaeological, and iconographic evidence (and scrutinizes the shortcomings of each) to illuminate the complexity of religion and belief in Roman Britain. She examines the two-way traffic of cultural exchange and the interplay between imported and indigenous factions to reveal how this period on the cusp between prehistory and history knew many of the same tensions, ideologies, and issues of identity still relevant today.