Category: Novels, Stories & Books

Rosemary Sutcliff was an internationally renowned writer of historical novels, for children, young adults and adults. She also wrote stories for children. This category compiles the posts on this blog by title.

Nine Roman legions in historical novels and children’s literature of Rosemary Sutcliff

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Several legions feature or are referred to in Rosemary Sutcliff’s historical novels. A legion (legio) is identified by a number, but the number may not be unique – in Britain for there were, for a time, two II Legions.

The Roman Army had two main parts: the legions and the auxiliary units (auxilia). About thirty legions were spread over time around the provinces of the Roman Empire. Some legions were lost, others disbanded. They were created as needed, recruited from Roman citizens across the Empire. The legions were regular heavy infantry units, with a contingent of 120 horsemen who worked as messengers and scouts. Auxilias involved non-citizens, and were both infantry and cavalry.

II (2) Legion:  Eagle’s Egg, Frontier Wolf, Outcast, Song for a Dark Queen, Sword at Sunset, The Eagle of the Ninth, The Silver Branch

VI (6) Legion: A Circlet of Oak Leaves, Frontier Wolf, Sword at Sunset, The Eagle of the Ninth

VII (7) Legion: The Silver Branch

IX (9) Legion: Eagle’s Egg, Song for a Dark Queen, Sword at Sunset, The Eagle of the Ninth, The Silver Branch

X (10) Legion: The Silver Branch

XIV (14) Legion: Eagle’s Egg, Song for a Dark Queen

XX (20) Legion: Eagle’s Egg, Frontier Wolf, Outcast, Song for a Dark Queen, Sword at Sunset

XXII (22) Legion: Outcast

XXX (30) Legion: The Silver Branch

Rosemary Sutcliff’s books are a magic carpet to the past

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Historian, writer and journalist  Christina Hardyment judged Sword at Sunset by Rosemary Sutcliff to be  an ‘odd one out’.

Rosemary Sutcliff is most famed for The Eagle of the Ninth, but there was much more to her than that. In the 1950s, historically-minded children found her books a magic carpet into the past. I began with Brother Dusty-feet (1952) and The Armourer’s House (1951), and never looked back and an insatiable interest in history has remained the backbone of my life.

In 1954, The Eagle of the Ninth introduced Marcus Flavius Aquila, a young Roman who chooses to stay in Britain after the legions leave. Seven subsequent books follow his family’s fate, usually directly. The odd book out is the fifth, Sword at Sunset, now published in a new edition to celebrate its 50th birthday. In 1963, it was firmly announced to be for adults, and given the (for their time) graphic and violent scenes of sex and slaughter, it deserved to be.

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Rosemary Sutcliff’s novel of the Peloponnesian War, The Flowers of Adonis, republished by Endeavour Press 2014

Anthony LawtonLeave a comment

Endeavour Press have now republished in E form Rosemary Sutcliff’s historical fiction novel The Flowers of Adonis, about Alkibiades, who The Times in an interview to mark its publication in 1969 called “one of the most enigmatic figures in Greek History”. It is a novel of the Peloponnesian War, and Alkibiades’s relationship with Athens, and the dreadful battle at Syracuse.
Times Oct 27 1969 on Rosemary Sutcliff

 

  • Source: The Times, October 27, 1969, p6