Most of us are familiar with the famous clip from Monty Python’s movie, The Life of Brian, in which the John Cleese terrorist character asks, “What have the Romans ever done for us?” and is immediately bombarded by a host of replies, detailing a list of all the good works the Romans have done, and a pretty impressive list it is, too. However, these remarkable achievements notwithstanding, the Romans also did a lot of harm, physically, socially and politically. Conquered tribes and nations were absorbed into the Roman way of life, and could do arguably well out of it, but for the most part they were actually slaves, expected to toe the Roman line. And if you didn’t do so, you could expect a brutal, uncompromising response. Challenge the Roman authority, rebel, or hold out against the expansionist goals of the Empire and you got short shrift. And, to add insult to injury, most of the historical records of the Empire were written by the Romans themselves, so they got to gloss over the tacky bits when it suited them, which I suspect was far more often than we might otherwise be led to believe.

So you might ask, what has this got to do with Sword and Sorcery? I’m coming to that.

My lifelong fascination with ancient Rome probably stems back to the heady days when my mum used to take the 6 year old me to the cinema. That began when we spent 3 years in Malaya, my dad having then been in the Army. In the hot, sweltering afternoons it was either a trip to the swimming pool, or the cinema (we lived in the large city of Ipoh, so there were plenty of cinemas to choose from). Back in England, cinema-going became a habit and as I was nearing the end of my first decade in life, I got to see a few “A” certificate films instead of “U’s”. And so they were more grown up, and included epics such as The Egyptian, The Robe and Demetrius and the Gladiators. Soon after that came a film that remains to this day one of my all-time favorites of any genre, Ben Hur (the Charlton Heston version).

As a teenager I snapped up anything about the Ancient Greeks and Romans I could find, among which were Henry Treece’s Jason, Frank Yerby’s Judas, My Brother and Wallace Breem’s Eagle in the Snow, to name but 3. And of course, I have always been a complete devotee of the magnificent I Claudius, the BBC televised version of the classic Robert Graves saga, which is one of the major influences on my Roman work.

Now, some 60 years later, I am still as intrigued by the classical period as ever, and have started work on a three-book saga of my own, under the overall title WAR ON ROME. Which is where the sword and sorcery connection comes in. Okay, this is not S & S along the lines of Conan, or Kane, or the other main characters in the genre, but it is a fantasy, set in an alternative Romano-Celtic Europe, in which the supernatural exists and in which most of the action involves no small amount of swordplay.

I’ve always been frustrated by the fact that the Romans “conquered Britain” and have never trusted some of their accounts of how they did it. Julius Caesar claims he “came, saw and conquered”. Excuse me, no. He didn’t. He came and he saw, but he didn’t conquer anyone (not this side of the Channel). And in WAR ON ROME he didn’t even land here, being almost wrecked in a storm.

Artwork for *Arminius, Bane of Eagles* by Brian LeBlanc

Claudius was the Emperor when Britain succumbed to Roman rule, and in WAR ON ROME he’s assassinated when he’s 14, in 4 AD, so he never gets to be Emperor, never mind invade Britain.

Boudica of the Iceni tribe rebelled more successfully than most against the Romans and sacked several of their cities, including Londinium. She was eventually defeated, but in WAR ON ROME... well, you’ll have to wait for the final, climactic volume to find out what happens in my world. Let’s just say the Romans don’t get to have it all their own way.

Putting a work like WAR ON ROME together is taking a ton of research. Once you start meddling with history and creating an alternative one, you have started a whole mob of hares running, and you need to keep up with the consequences. There are plots and sub-plots, wheels within wheels, and unexpected deaths as well as deaths that don’t happen in WAR ON ROME. For example, one of my heroes of the time, Arminius, the great Germanic warlord who was responsible for slaughtering 3 entire Roman legions in his native Teutobergerwald, went on to be assassinated by his own people in 19AD, thus preventing him from uniting all the Germanic tribes...and if he had, what price Rome then? In WAR ON ROME, he survives the assassination attempt and we follow his life from there onward.

Arminius’ main opponent is Germanicus, who, in our world, was also thought to have been assassinated in 19AD, probably poisoned by the treacherous Gaius Calpurnius Piso. Not in WAR ON ROME. He survives and succeeds his adopted father, Tiberius as Emperor. And he wants revenge for the killing of those 3 legions.

So the stage is set. A swords and sorcery, epic fantasy, heroic saga that blends it all together, cut through with a secret society, the Via Tenebrarum, who could be forerunners of the Mafia, and who are prepared to resort to the use of forbidden, arcane powers as they prepare a path for their own choice of Emperor. Swords and Sorcery purists will probably groan at the idea of this being an S and S work, but my view is that the genre has long been metamorphosing into something grander and is not confined to the all-too common concept of lone barbarian mercenary taking on sorcerers/monsters/gods in a recognizable world akin to Howard’s Hyborean Age, which is still how many people regard S and S. Nothing wrong with that, done well, but that’s the point – it’s very difficult to be original within those confines.

Meanwhile I’m working my way through all those wonderful films yet again, and reading all the books. The result of all my heroic efforts will begin to see the light of day later this year, when DMR Books will publish ARMINIUS, BANE OF EAGLES. There will be blood….