The love stories in this book are woven into the politics of the Roman Empire at a time when its very life depended upon the calibre of the men in power. Yet Rome, in the 4th Century A.D. was ruled in the West by a mentally deficient Emperor, Honorius, and, in the East by his elder brother Arcadius who reigned, but with the sloth of sheer idiocy. Each destroyed the strong man around whom the safety of the state revolved.
This disastrous state of affairs sprang primarily from the Roman propensity for murdering its heroes. The world knows how Julius Caesar was rewarded for unmatched conquest; few know, however, of even the existence of General Timasius who was exiled from control of the entire empire east of Constantinople; fewer still of General Theodosius, the father, who saved for Rome both Britain in revolt and North Africa in rebellion; but was then executed as too popular a threat to the ruling Emperor.
Theodosius had a son, also an acclaimed General. The terrible fate of his father devastated the son’s spirit, destroyed his faith in the Roman Army, in the Empire, in his own worth. He resigned his brilliant career, retired to the family farm in Spain. Tragically he succumbed to sexual comfort from the girl next door and, when she fell pregnant, actually married her despite her obvious mental shortcomings.
Nobody expected him to become Emperor. Nobody realized that the progeny of the mismarriage would, in the patrimony of the day, inherit Imperial power when Theodosius died. Yet within a lifetime Rome was ruled by a German. The contribution of faulty genes to Rome’s fall has never, until now, been canvassed.
The leading characters in this tale had to cope with calamitous events which shook not only their world but still affect ours. Most of these people actually lived. They are brought to life, to love and to history’s more colourful detail in a way that must enrich every reader.
Read more about the author “Devon Minchin”
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