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Caveat Lector!
Jan. 28th, 2008 03:36 pmToday, I finished reading The Little Emperors by Alfred Duggan. Like The Eagle of the Ninth (the book I read last week), it is set in Roman Britain. However, the setting and perspectives are very different.
Eagle is set around 130 CE, shortly after the construction of Hadrian's Wall dividing civilized Roman Britain from the barbaric tribes of Scotland. Little Emperors takes place (mostly) in Londinium in 406 CE, when Britain has been cut off from the Empire by the rebellions and invasions in Gaul. Whereas Eagle is told from the perspective of a solider, Little Emperors is narrated by the civilian governor of Britannia Primus, a middle-age bureaucrat whose primary concern is collecting taxes. As the senior imperial official in Britain, he gets caught up in the frantic final whirlwind of vicious politics and rebellion that ends with the complete and sudden withdrawal of Roman power from the island by 407 CE.
The Roman Empire in Eagle is still expanding and vital, though signs of future decay are apparent. The Roman Legion is painted as a heroic band of brothers holding back the darkness, though the author (Rosemary Sutcliffe) does not paint the barbarians in a particularly negative light. Rome brings civilization and security, but at a definite cost.
The Roman Empire in Little Emperors is not truly Roman, and only marginally an Empire. The capitol has been long since moved to Mediolanum, the Empire itself divided into two, and the western half is a patchwork of states of varying loyalty.
Britain is only nominally imperial, with most of the island governed by Foederati client states that pay "tribute" to the Empire on an infrequent basis. All professions have become hereditary by law, and the Limitanei, the "Roman" militia who guard the borders of the province are often third and fourth generation garrison troops - resentful, immobile, and poorly equipped, and assigned around the countryside in little packets here and there. Some, for example, have spent their entire lives guarding the same bridge or gate that their fathers and grandfathers guarded.
In Eagle, Hadrian's Wall is seen as a shameful necessity, keeping the borders secure while limiting future conquests. In Little Emperors, Hadrian's Wall might as well be the North Pole, and has long been maintained by a local king of questionable loyalty. The narrator is thankful for this, noting that the cost of brushwood to maintain the signal fires along the wall would have gone a long way to bankrupting the province.
Both books were quite enjoyable, and provided a great deal of historical detail. Given my occasional “office porn” fetish (a purely intellectual thing, I assure you), I found the details of civil management in The Little Emperors to be especially interesting.
Naturally, both books had me thinking (again) about the possibility of running an RPG campaign set in the Rome Empire, but honestly I don’t think I could maintain the long-term interest to maintain a game in that setting, never mind maintain the interest of my players.
Still, I was inspired enough to select Ernest K. Gann’s 1970 novel Masada as my next diversion on the commute home.
Eagle is set around 130 CE, shortly after the construction of Hadrian's Wall dividing civilized Roman Britain from the barbaric tribes of Scotland. Little Emperors takes place (mostly) in Londinium in 406 CE, when Britain has been cut off from the Empire by the rebellions and invasions in Gaul. Whereas Eagle is told from the perspective of a solider, Little Emperors is narrated by the civilian governor of Britannia Primus, a middle-age bureaucrat whose primary concern is collecting taxes. As the senior imperial official in Britain, he gets caught up in the frantic final whirlwind of vicious politics and rebellion that ends with the complete and sudden withdrawal of Roman power from the island by 407 CE.
The Roman Empire in Eagle is still expanding and vital, though signs of future decay are apparent. The Roman Legion is painted as a heroic band of brothers holding back the darkness, though the author (Rosemary Sutcliffe) does not paint the barbarians in a particularly negative light. Rome brings civilization and security, but at a definite cost.
The Roman Empire in Little Emperors is not truly Roman, and only marginally an Empire. The capitol has been long since moved to Mediolanum, the Empire itself divided into two, and the western half is a patchwork of states of varying loyalty.
Britain is only nominally imperial, with most of the island governed by Foederati client states that pay "tribute" to the Empire on an infrequent basis. All professions have become hereditary by law, and the Limitanei, the "Roman" militia who guard the borders of the province are often third and fourth generation garrison troops - resentful, immobile, and poorly equipped, and assigned around the countryside in little packets here and there. Some, for example, have spent their entire lives guarding the same bridge or gate that their fathers and grandfathers guarded.
In Eagle, Hadrian's Wall is seen as a shameful necessity, keeping the borders secure while limiting future conquests. In Little Emperors, Hadrian's Wall might as well be the North Pole, and has long been maintained by a local king of questionable loyalty. The narrator is thankful for this, noting that the cost of brushwood to maintain the signal fires along the wall would have gone a long way to bankrupting the province.
Both books were quite enjoyable, and provided a great deal of historical detail. Given my occasional “office porn” fetish (a purely intellectual thing, I assure you), I found the details of civil management in The Little Emperors to be especially interesting.
Naturally, both books had me thinking (again) about the possibility of running an RPG campaign set in the Rome Empire, but honestly I don’t think I could maintain the long-term interest to maintain a game in that setting, never mind maintain the interest of my players.
Still, I was inspired enough to select Ernest K. Gann’s 1970 novel Masada as my next diversion on the commute home.
