Bøger af John Waite

Retrace the journey of the 1/7th Royal Warwicks at Passchendaele.

It is the Spring of AD43 and a huge fleet carrying over 40,000 Roman soldiers crosses the wild northern sea to seize the mysterious isle of Britannia, for the glory of Rome and their emperor, Claudius. Along with the other warriors who come ashore, Marcus Sulpicius Vepitta and his comrades in the XIIII Gemina Legion soon find themselves pitched headlong into a sequence of murderous battles, fighting to conquer a land that has for so long lain beyond the grasp of one of the greatest empires the world has ever known. Yet, even before the great invasion armada had left the shores of Gaul, Claudius' army had already been shaken to its core by the threat of mass mutiny and Vepitta had unwittingly become embroiled in the affairs of others, as a long simmering quest for retribution finally began. Amidst the unrelenting savagery of total war, Vepitta comes to find his loyalty and honour tested as never before. And, as the beleaguered Britons begin to crumble before the relentless Roman war machine, he soon learns that he has been sucked deep into the schemes of a young Roman noble woman, who yearns for justice - at any cost.

Of all the armies that have marched through the pages of history, few have captured the imagination as fully as the Legions of Rome. History echoes with the deeds of the mighty Roman Legions, but that hard won glory would never have been possible without the extraordinary skill and courage of the individual Legionaries themselves. Just what kind of man did it take to serve and fight in an army capable of holding most of the known world under the control of the Caesars? Marcus Sulpicius Vepitta was one such man. Meticulously researched and drawing heavily on the work of both classical writers and modern scholars, Legionary is his story. This is not a tale of a man rising to fame and riches, just an ordinary young recruit as he submits to the iron discipline of the XIIII Gemina Legion. Proudly claiming his place in its ranks as it joins a huge army gathering in Gaul to seize the distant land of Britannia for the Emperor Claudius. This book invites the reader to suspend disbelief and step back two thousand years in time to enter Vepitta's world. A world very different from our own, where modern sensibilities and morality have no place and a conscience is something that very few can enjoy as the mighty Roman Legions engage the native Britons in ferocious battles for control of Rome's newest province.

To rule Britannia

A new interpretation of a battle that decided 2,000 years of Britain's cultural heritage.