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Iron and Rust (Throne of the Caesars)From HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
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- Sales Rank: #2493769 in Books
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.21" h x 1.46" w x 6.02" l, .84 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
Most helpful customer reviews
25 of 26 people found the following review helpful.
A different gem
By JPS
First posted on Amazon.co.uk a few minutes before...
This is a superb gem from Harry Sidebottom, the author of the Ballista series and a professor of history at Oxford. It takes place some twenty years before "Fire in the East", which was published in 2008, and is a prequel of sorts, although you can perfectly well read "Iron and Rust" - a quotation from Cassius Dio about the hard times that the Roman Empire was experiencing - without having read any of the author's other books.
Although there are a few similarities with Sidebottom's other books, this one also stands out as very different, to the extent that some other reviewers seem to have been surprised, dismayed, and perhaps even a little disappointed.
The first similarity is of course the period chosen by the author, the so-called and mostly little known "Crisis of the Third Century" (sometimes also termed "Military anarchy"), which started in AD 235 and is traditionally ended some fifty years later with the beginning of the reign of Diocletian. This happens to be the author's "special" period and, once again, he shows to what extent he knows it like the back of his hand.
The specific period chosen for this novel (AD 235 to AD 238) is also original, and even less known than the Sassanid attacks and invasions that were the main feature of the first three books in the previous series featuring "Ballista/Dernhelm". It shows the beginnings of this progressive descent into chaos, starting with the vivid murder of the last Emperor claiming to be of the line of Septimius Severus (Severus Alexander) and of his power hungry mother, and followed by the major part of the reign of Maximinus, the first of what some historians have called the "soldier-emperors."
One feature that seems to have dismayed some reviewers is that there is no single "hero", as there was in the previous series. Instead, you have three or perhaps even up to five or six main characters whose stories, actions and reactions to the events that are weakening and disrupting the Empire are shown sequentially. This feature allows the author to present within a single volume what is happening throughout the Empire, whether on the Rhine and Danube frontiers, as we follow Maximinus' single-minded campaigns and hard-won victories, in Africa, as we meet the Gordians and their friends and associates fighting against Moorish raiders, in Rome with Pupienus or on the Eastern frontier with Priscus (and the yet to be Emperor, his brother Philip the Arab) who has to cope with the increasingly bold and aggressive Persians with too few troops to hold these frontiers. One character - Themistius (of which we will certainly see more in the next volume) - moves from the northern frontiers to the East and then back to Rome.
Some common elements link these characters together, despite their various backgrounds and origins, from the humble and secretive die caster to the most noble patricians and Senators, to the jumped-up Emperor and the "little Greek" (Themistius) equestrian. The main ones are total uncertainty and fear, which at times turns into terror. This is perhaps one of the book's best features because Harry Sidebottom goes well beyond his usual skill for detail. He certainly manages skilfully to recreate life in various places in the Roman Empire at the time. However, he also recreates the dreadful atmosphere of total mistrust, deadly politics, ruthlessness, fear and terror that grips all of those in positions of power. These include those favoured by their (often huge and therefore very temping) fortunes and their birth-rights (the Senators), those holding powerful civilian posts, governorships or (mostly) military commands, or simply the descendants of past emperors, with their ancestors making them into potential threats for whoever happens to be on the throne, even when they are otherwise quite harmless.
It is this atmosphere of mistrust, paranoia, plots and rampant treason that runs through the whole of the book and gives it its fundamental unity, much more than any single "hero", and this atmosphere is conveyed in such a way that the whole story comes alive. The painting of the human characters, and the very human ways in which they react to this very pervasive climate of total distrust, fear and rampant paranoia is simply excellent. None of these characters are entirely sympathetic, largely because of the ways they react to this constant climate of fear, but they appear as eminently human in their various strategies of survival. The younger Gordian drinks and tries to find oblivion in multiple pleasures, until the day when he has to make an irreversible choice. Themistius intrigues and betrays others in order to survive, keep his enemies at bay, and stay in favour of the increasingly unpredictable and erratic Emperor, while the Emperor himself follows his fixation for more wars to secure the northern frontier - and his own survival - at just about any cost.
All three (and others) face their constant fear of being killed in various ways, with Themistius being perhaps the most vivid when "starring down the rodent" (his own fear). Perhaps the most sympathetic of the three, although none of them really are as they all seek to survive yet a little longer by using whatever means are available to them, is Maximinus, the giant of a man who did not want to become Emperor, but was given little choice by those who murdered his predecessor. Here the author has deliberately chosen to portray the old (but talented) soldier, of which we know very little, as trying to do his duty, holding things together, and increasingly failing despite his victories. If anything, Maximinus, who was much blackened and decried in the (mostly senatorial) Roman sources, appears as a dutiful but tragic character. He very ruthlessly puts down one rebellion after another, loses the few friends and companions that he can really trust along the way, and has less and less faith in all the others that surround them. Despite his (considerable) military talent and personal bravery, he is hopelessly out of his depth in the political arena and each of his moves to punish treason and procure resources to pay the army just creates more enemies plotting his demise to ensure their own survival.
Another interesting feature is the depiction of Maximius as a somewhat older, physically stronger and more powerful version of Ballista himself, with the senatorial wife, his bodyguard and his old bodyservant, all of which have been by his side and guarding his back both literally and figuratively for decades. In fact, sprinkled through the book, and for those that have read the series about Ballista, there are various hints to characters and events that will appear and take place in these previously published books. For instance, there is a mention of a young barbarian hostage, the son of one Ysangrim, a chief of the Angles (the much younger version of Ballista). Also present in the book is a very young Acilius Glabrio, who you will come across again some twenty years later. Among other hints, there is also a mention of the fictional frontier town of Arete (which is loosely based on Dura Europos and is the main location of the events taking place in "Fire in the East").
Finally, there are the events themselves. These are presented and told with the author's usual mastery, with hints and explanations both embedded in the text and presented in the author's various historical notes, such as the growing financial pressures that the Empire was facing, as the army's pay was jacked up several times (doubled by SEptimius Severus, doubled again by his son Caracalla and then apparently doubled a third time by Maximinus) the also growing pressure on the Empire's frontiers, with the Empire unable to face several major threats simultaneously. Some additional features include the increasing use of legionary detachments (vexillatio) drawn from frontiers for far away campaigns and which left the defence of these frontiers seriously undermanned, and the larger role played by auxiliary units and cavalry.
Here, however, I will have to somewhat disagree with another reviewer who found that this book was essentially "a political thriller". It is that indeed, but it is also and perhaps more than anything else, a grim fight for survival for just about all of the Roman characters involved. Moreover, there are no less than two major battles; these are Maximinus' victories against the Germans and the Carpes and Sarmatians, respectively well beyond the Rhine and well beyond the Danube. The book also contains a number a sharp fights (four) in both Africa and the East, with perhaps one of these (in the East) counting as a major defensive engagement where the Roman forces manage to extricate themselves from the Persians' death trap because they manage to keep their discipline.
Finally, and in addition to a handful of useful maps and a list of characters, the book includes a fascinating note of the battle of Hartzhorn, whose battlefield has only recently been discovered. As you will see when reading the relevant chapter, the battle itself bears a few similarities with the opening (and very visual) scenes of Gladiator, except that here it is the Emperor himself that brings the victory at the head of his troops (and NOT "Maximus/Russell Crowe", his top general).
So, while this book IS a political thriller, it is ALSO a rather magnificent "sword and sandals" novel AND a top class historical novel which will make you live, feel and breath the Empire's rather deadly atmosphere when you were at the top. This, at least, is how it worked out for me. Five hugely deserved stars.
14 of 16 people found the following review helpful.
More fire, please - in the East, West, North or South
By Selene
Inside every academic historian, it seems, lurks a historical novelist. Many are tempted to have a go at writing fiction. Sometimes this works; more often it doesn't. Extensive knowledge about a historical period doesn't automatically confer the sense of story necessary for successful fiction.
With his "Warrior of Rome" series Sidebottom appeared to have cracked it, writing with an effortless erudition balanced by fluidity, pace, wit (loved the in-joke about an Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman who walked into a war), and most importantly, a strong central character we could relate to. I can understand the desire for a break from Ballista, but why, having consciously developed a best-selling formula, would he throw it away? Has he fallen prey to the curious anxiety that sometimes strikes best-selling authors - that they might be prostituting their muses? Just needed to stretch his intellectual wings?
"Iron and Rust", set in the period preceding the "Warrior of Rome" series, is the first in the proposed "Throne of the Caesars" trilogy. Political thriller rather than historical adventure, it focuses on events surrounding the elevation to the purple of soldier-emperor Maximinus Thrax, as seen from the point of view of multiple protagonists scattered throughout different parts of the Roman Empire. Labyrinthine historical political thrillers can work - Robert Harris' "An Officer and a Spy" is a good example - but "Iron and Rust" doesn't cut the mustard; its choppy, episodic nature slows the pace right down and prevents any build up of tension. And despite the requisite sex, violence and treachery, this is no "Game of Thrones". Believe me, I've never yet nodded off over "Game of Thrones"!
More dispassionate exposition than fiction in style, "Iron and Rust" has the feel of an old-fashioned narrative history. This is a work of overarching ambition in its magnitude of scale, and Sidebottom does succeed admirably in keeping a tight rein on all its many convoluted threads. However, the constant swapping between multiple perspectives hinders the ability to get fully into the story until you've finally worked out just who is who, a good third of the way in. I can't help feeling many readers would probably have given up well before then. Crucially, we can find no point of connection or rapport with any of the vast number of characters (the downloadable list of characters runs to 13 pages!), so really don't care what happens to them. This is a fatal flaw if a story is to hold the reader's interest right to the end.
Readers of historical novels don't just want bread and circuses, though of course we can't get enough of them. We'll always enjoy an "Andy McNabb in a toga" story - the fictional hero is in our cultural DNA, after all. We do want to learn about the past, but don't want to be lectured. We can handle long words, complex plotlines and sophisticated concepts, but can't handle being bored. Reading a novel should not be a chore - we have textbooks for that. As Nirvana so aptly put it, "Here we are now, entertain us!"
"Iron and Rust" is well supported by Sidebottom's customary ample afterword, references, maps and glossary. Keep an eye out for Ballista, who slips unheralded into the story late in the piece.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful.
3rd century Rome comes alive!
By Prof Manfred Steger
An amazing recreation of the early 3rd century Roman world told through fascinating characters located in various parts of the empire. Sidebottom manages to create a holistic picture by assembling and linking together a series of riveting snapshots. But be warned, this novel requires an active and engaged reader--not a passive consumer who is put off by changing scenes and a plethora of characters! This book gives you a very real sense of being there--the highest stage a historical novelist can possibly aspire to. Bravo, Harry, give us more!
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