A STRUGGLE FOR ROME : A Historical Novel

Dahn, Felix; Parker, Herb (translator)

ISBN 10: 1844014444 / ISBN 13: 9781844014446

Published by Athena Press, 2005

About this Item

739pp. Large heavy softback, VG, corner tips slightly bumped, translated from the German, "This is a story of the clash between two great civilizations of the sixth century of the Common Era, when the Roman Empire had crumbled into dust; the struggle for Rome, and for Italy, between the Eastern Roman Empire of Byzantium, ruled by Justinian, and the Gothic warrior tribes who had captured Italy under their legendary king Theodoric",

Seller Inventory # w170122661

Bibliographic Details

• Title: A STRUGGLE FOR ROME : A Historical Novel
• Publisher: Athena Press
• Publication Date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1844014444
• ISBN 13: 9781844014446
• Binding: Soft Cover
• Condition: Very Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Ancient History
  • Classical
  • Fiction

About this title

Synopsis

Felix Dahn was a nineteenth century German Professor of Jurisprudence, as well as a historian, novelist and poet, who was greatly admired by his academic contemporaries for his grasp of the historical detail of the periods about which he wrote. He has been well served by this magisterial translation, which at last makes this astonishingly rich novel available to the modern English reader. This is a story - perhaps the story - of the clash between two great civilizations of the sixth century of the Common Era, when the Roman Empire had crumbled into dust; the struggle for Rome, and for Italy, between the Eastern Roman Empire of Byzantium, ruled by Justinian, and the Gothic warrior tribes who had captured Italy under their legendary king Theodoric. We see this epoch through the eyes of different personalities at the centre of these events which shook the world as they knew it; most are historical figures and some are imaginary but typical; Justinian and his beautiful and scheming wife, Theodora; the great commander Belisarius, immortalised by Robert Graves; Totila and Teias, two Gothic kings, one as bold and bright as the sun and the other as black as night; and Cethegus, the Prefect of Rome and the last of the Romans, whose cold and calculating nature runs through the book like a steel thread, who will stop at nothing to regain the ancient city, and who, in the end, fails and redeems his many crimes with a hero's death. Firmly based on historical fact and contemporary sources, A Struggle for Rome is one of the great historical novels of the world.