Showing results by author "James Mace" in All Categories

For twelve years a disgraceful pall has hung over the Roman Empire. Trouble along the Germanic frontier forced an abrupt end to Emperor Domitian’s war against King Decebalus of Dacia. The terms were an embarrassment to Rome and a drain on the imperial coffers, with two million denarii paid to the Dacians every year. Now, a new Caesar is firmly ensconced upon the imperial throne. Emperor Trajan vows to subjugate the Dacians, humble their king, and restore honour to the Empire.

The year is 31 AD. It is five years into the Judean governorship of Pontius Pilate and the province ever stands on the edge of a knife. The Jewish religious leaders, the Sanhedrin, use their patronage with the Emperor to vent the slightest grievance, and the people themselves burn with a hatred for Rome. Pilate’s only military forces are Samaritan auxiliaries, little more than an undisciplined mob that abuse and torment the populace. The Emperor Tiberius finally relents and assigns to Judea a single cohort of legionaries to restore order.

A new age has dawned for Rome. Following the brief reign of Emperor Nerva, Marcus Ulpius Trajan inherits the mantle of Caesar. A revered general and statesman, the senate a people of Rome greet his rise with an optimism not seen since the reign of Vespasian.

Since the reign of Emperor Tiberius, an uneasy peace has existed along the Danube frontier between the various Sarmatian tribal kingdoms to the north and the Roman Empire to the south. Now, a new threat has emerged in Dacia, as the aged King Duras seeks to unite his people; a feat not witnessed since the legendary King Burebista more than a century before.

In late January 1879, following news of the terrible disaster to befall British forces at Isandlwana, Colonel Henry Evelyn Wood, commanding officer of the northern No. 4 Column, withdraws his forces to Khambula, near the Natal and Transvaal borders. Adding to their woes, the southern No. 1 Column finds itself trapped under siege at the abandoned mission station of Eshowe. The general officer commanding, Lord Chelmsford, orders Wood to continue harassing the Zulus, keeping the pressure off their central and southern forces while he rallies reinforcements to relieve Eshowe.

It is July, 67 AD. The brutal, 47-day siege of the rebel stronghold of Jotapata, in Galilee, has ended. The Roman armies of Vespasian destroyed the city and captured the leader of the resistance, Josephus ben Matthias. While being interrogated by the Roman commanding general, Josephus makes a bold prediction; Nero’s reign grows short and, in time, Vespasian himself will rise to become emperor. Intrigued, while also viewing the Jewish general as a great source of intelligence, Vespasian spares his life. He then unleashes a hell storm of fury upon the rest of Galilee and Judea itself.

It has been three years since the wars against Arminius and the Cherusci. Gaius Silius, legate of the 20th Legion, is concerned that the barbarians - though shattered by the war - may be stirring once again. He also seeks to confirm the rumors regarding Arminius' death. What Silius does not realize is that there is a new threat to the empire, but it does not come from beyond the frontier; it is coming from within, where a disenchanted nobleman looks to sow the seeds of rebellion in Gaul.

In 89 A.D., following a failed insurrection by the governor of Upper Germania, the disgraced Legio XXI Rapax is dispatched to Pannonia, on the River Danube. The legion is purged of its senior officers and Emperor Domitian appoints the venerable Lucius Flavius Silva as the new commanding legate. A revered general, Silva famously captured the Herodian Fortress of Masada at the end of the Great Jewish Revolt, twenty years earlier.

It is April of 69 A.D., and Rome’s first civil war in a hundred years has ended. Emperor Otho, who violently overthrew the tyrannical Galba just three months before, is dead. The triumphant armies of the Rhine coerce the senate into ratifying their governor, Aulus Vitellius, as emperor. While there is an uneasy hope that peace has returned to Rome, Vitellius’ cronyism and utter incompetence soon alienates most of Rome’s patricians, along with many of the provinces.

It is December 1878, and war looms on the horizon in South Africa. British high commissioner Sir Henry Bartle-Frere seeks to dismantle the powerful neighboring kingdom of the Zulus and uses an incursion along the disputed border as his justification for war. He issues an impossible ultimatum to the Zulu king, Cetshwayo, demanding he disband his armies and pay massive reparations. With a heavy heart, the king prepares his nation for war against their former allies.

It is January of 1879. While three columns of British soldiers and their African allies cross the Uminyathi River to commence the invasion of the Zulu Kingdom, a handful of redcoats from B Company, 2/24th Regiment are left to guard the centre column's supply depot at Rorke's Drift. On the morning of 22 January, the main camp at Isandlwana, just 10 miles to the east, comes under attack from the entire Zulu army and is utterly destroyed.

In the year 28 AD the people of Frisia, a previously loyal province, were suffering under the oppression of the Roman magistrate, a former Centurion named Olennius. So blinded by greed had he become that he taxed the populous well beyond their means to produce. Now impoverished and risking starvation, the Frisians did the unspeakable and sought open rebellion as their only means of survival.

As Titus advances towards the Jewish Holy City with his massive army of 70,000 imperial soldiers, the warring Judean factions must decide whether to stand together against the coming onslaught or die in a bloodbath of mutual hatred.

The year is 68 A.D., and the vast Roman Empire is in chaos. Provinces are in rebellion, while Emperor Nero struggles to maintain the remnants of his political power, as well as his last shreds of sanity. In the province of Hispania, the governor, Servius Sulpicius Galba, marches on Rome.

In the year A.D. 9, three Roman Legions under Quintilius Varus were betrayed by the Germanic war chief, Arminius, and destroyed in the forest known as Teutoburger Wald. Six years later Rome is finally ready to unleash her vengeance on the barbarians. The Emperor Tiberius has sent his adopted son, Germanicus Caesar, into Germania with an army of forty-thousand legionaries. The come not on a mission of conquest, but one of annihilation. With them is a young legionary named Artorius.

The year is AD 66, and the Roman province of Judea has exploded in rebellion. Far from being a revolution of unified peoples, the various Jewish factions of Sadducees, Zealots, Sicarii, and Edomites are in a state of civil war; as anxious to spill the blood of each other as they are to fight the Romans. The Judeans find hope when the Romans commit a serious tactical blunder and allow their forces to be ambushed and nearly destroyed in the mountain pass of Beth Horon.

A year has passed since the end of the Gallic rebellion of Sacrovir and Florus. Retribution has been exacted, and the province is at peace once more. And yet, there are some who escaped Rome's justice. They are led by a man whose heart burns with hate; an heir to rebellion. Knowing that there can be no victory against the legions, his vengeance can only be wrought through terror and murder. The Gallic city of Lugdunum will be the first to taste his wrath.

In the aftermath of the Battles of Khambula and Gingindlovu, a lull fell over the war-torn Zulu Kingdom. Though British forces under Lord Chelmsford emerged victorious during both encounters, earlier defeats, casualties, and supply shortages required them to withdraw back into Natal. Now with waves of long-awaited reinforcements arriving, Chelmsford prepares to launch a second invasion of Zululand. Death and destruction have taken their toll on the Zulu people. Thousands of families mourn for their loved ones, while refugees flee from the devastation of the border regions.

It’s been forty years since the Roman conquest of southern Britannia. The hostile western regions are at last subdued and twenty years have passed since the cataclysmic Iceni Rebellion in the east. With tribal kingdoms assimilating into Roman culture and the province at relative peace, Imperial Governor Gnaeus Julius Agricola turns his attention north. The once-allied, now hostile Kingdom of Brigantes is divided between factions loyal to Rome and those of the usurper king, Venutius.

Three years following the destruction of Legio XXI in Pannonia, former Tribune Tiberius Artorius Castus and retired Centurion Primus Ordo Gavius Lucifer arrive in Rome. Their political fortunes rest in their letters of introduction from the revered general and Governor of Pannonia and Upper Germania, Marcus Ulpius Trajan. As the two former soldiers embark on a life far removed from the Danube frontier, they remain ever mindful of Trajan’s cautionary advice; that Roman politics are deadlier than the most fearsome enemy warrior.