AD 80: Duro of the Iceni tribe escaped life as an enslaved gladiator and is now finally home in Britannia with one thing on his mind: vengeance. For 20 years he has sought the Roman legionary who destroyed his family. What he didn't expect was Gisel: a fierce Germanic woman with long white-blonde hair, forced into slavery by the Romans. Hypnotised by her spirit and her beauty, Duro frees Gisel and slowly tries to win her trust as they work together to complete his quest.
The Roman Invasion of Britannia
My latest novel Shadows in the Spring is partly set in Roman Britain in the year AD 80. In order to recreate this era, I had to do quite a lot of research, and I started by looking at when and why the Romans invaded in the first place.
The Romans had traded with the Britons for a long time before they decided to come and take over this distant island. They were particularly interested in acquiring tin, but also other things. Julius Caesar was the first to try in 55 BC, but ultimately he failed, and it wasn’t until AD 43 that Emperor Claudius succeeded in making it a Roman province – Britannia. Or some of it, rather, as the southern half was conquered first while other parts resisted for longer.
After Caesar’s failed invasion, some of the southern British chiefs had nonetheless become Roman allies. Some Roman concepts filtered through and the tribes closest to the empire became influenced by this foreign culture.
Decades later, the son of one of them – Adminius – was exiled by his own father, Cunobelinus, a powerful chieftain of the Catuvellauni tribe. Adminius fled to Rome and asked the then Emperor Caligula to invade Britain in revenge. This gave the Romans a great excuse for an invasion and Caligula ordered the army to prepare. However, nothing came of this and in the end no one crossed the channel at that time.
By AD 43 Cunobelinus had died and his kingdom had been divided between his sons which was causing problems. Caligula was also dead and Emperor Claudius, who had inherited the already prepared army, decided to grasp this opportunity and ordered an invasion.
His legions were far superior in numbers and cohesion compared to the Britons, who consisted of various tribes that didn’t work effectively together. Four legions were sent over to campaign throughout southern Britain, an approximate total of 40,000 men, well-trained and used to battle. Although some tribes resisted, they were soon defeated, and others didn’t even bother but just capitulated, their chieftains becoming client kings.
Claudius himself only came over once to his new province and stayed a mere 16 days. He arrived when the invasion was deemed a success and brought elephants. One can only wonder what the locals made of those! (And I doubt the elephants were particularly happy at having to cross the Channel either).
The Romans truly believed that they were bringing civilisation to barbarians and that their way of life was superior in every way. They were admittedly miles ahead when it came to engineering, building and administration, but not everyone actually wanted to have this imposed upon them. Most Britons were happy with their own way of life, backward though it may be. Some tribes resisted for decades, and rebellions sprang up from time to time.
The most famous one is of course the revolt led by Queen Boudica in AD 60/61. She was of the Iceni tribe, as is Duro, the hero of Shadows in the Spring. And as the rebellion ultimately failed, it gave me a great excuse for having my hero taken into slavery by the Roman conquerors.
Now imagine that you’re an eight-year-old boy, having to watch your mother and sister being violated by a Roman legionary, then you’re taken away to be sold as a slave. That is what happens to Duro after Boudica’s rebellion. The real historical aftermath was brutal, so this was an entirely plausible scenario. And I decided that from that moment on, Duro’s burning need for revenge would be born.
He swears never to rest until he has exacted retribution upon the man who did this to his family members, and almost twenty years later, he finally gets the chance. Thanks to the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius, he and a fellow gladiator manage to escape from slavery in Pompeii. And when Duro returns to Britannia, he is hellbent on hunting down the legionary he’s never forgotten. If the man is still alive, he vows to find him.
What he doesn’t expect is to come across a fellow slave – a beautiful Germanic woman called Gisel who temporarily details his plans. Ultimately, though, she is as fierce as he is, and together they set off on an epic quest for revenge. Can they succeed? You’ll have to read Shadows in the Spring to find out.
Christina Courtenay
# # #
About the Author
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for commenting