Review: Fortress of Spears by Anthony Riches

A historical resource article by Mary Harrsch © 2017

As Anthony Riches' third novel in his "Empire" series begins, we find our protagonist Marcus, now known as Marcus Tribulus Corvus, preparing to attack the fortified encampment of the (fictional) rebel Selgovae chieftain, Calgus, and his warriors and allies, the fiercesome Venicones.  The Romans succeed in devastating the Selgovae at the encampment but with terrible losses including one of Marcus' own brother centurions. To make matters worse, Calgus is spirited away by the Venicones, although now he is their captive, no longer their war leader.  However, before his loss of power, Calgus dispatched a contingent of Selgovae to take over the Votadini capital, the daunting "Fortress of Spears" of this installment's title, and the Romans must now plan an even more dangerous assault to finally rid themselves of the last of the rebellious Selgovae and return the Votadini to their previous status as Roman allies.

Fortunately, the Votadini Prince, Martos, captured by the Romans in book 2, now shares their cause and harbors nothing but hatred for Calgus and the Selgovae who so ruthlessly betrayed him. Martos will prove invaluable in the ultimate attack on the "Fortress of Spears". But capturing the fortress is not the only obstacle to Roman victory. The Venicones king discovers the Romans have his treasured torc, found when the original encampment was seized, and vows to take it back or die gloriously in the attempt.

Celt Neck-Ring known as the Snettisham Great Torc Iron Age 150 BCE - 50 BCE Electrum photographed at the
British Museum by Mary Harrsch © 2008

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Marcus, the corrupt Praetorian Prefect in Rome, Sextus Tigidius Perennis, has dispatched a Praetorian assassin and a "corn" officer to hunt down Marcus, the last surviving son of a proscribed senatorial family.  Perennis' son, the villain of book 1, betrayed Marcus' biological father's Sixth Legion to engineer a promotion and accolades from the vile emperor Commodus. The younger Perennis' treachery was, as is often the case with wealthy, powerful men, covered up by the military.  So, the elder Perennis mistakenly believes Marcus killed his son and is being protected by an auxiliary unit of Tungrians serving on Hadrian's Wall.

In the novel, the Praetorian assassin holds a rank equivalent to a centurion but I was confused about the presence of a "corn" officer. However, if you read up on the importance of those charged with supervision of the Roman grain supply, it becomes quickly apparent that such officers carried quite a bit of clout.

"In classical antiquity, the grain supply to the city of Rome could not be met entirely from the surrounding countryside, which was taken up by the villas and parks of the aristocracy and which produced mainly fruit, vegetables, and other perishable goods. The city, therefore, became increasingly reliant on grain supplies from other parts of Italy, notably Campania, and from elsewhere in the empire, particularly the provinces of Sicily, North Africa, and Egypt. These regions were capable of shipping adequate grain for the population of the capital amounting to 60 million modii (540 million litres / 540,000 cubic metres or 135 million gallons / 16.8 million bushels) annually, according to some sources. These provinces and the shipping lanes that connected them with Ostia and other important ports thus gained great strategic importance. Whoever controlled the grain supply had an important measure of control over the city of Rome." - Wikipedia, Cura Annonae

Neronian coin with the reverse depicting the goddesses Annona, the personification of the grain supply, and Ceres, whose temple was the site of the dole

Throughout most of the Republican era, the care of the grain supply (cura annonae) was part of the aedile's duties. The Annona was personified as a goddess, and the grain dole was distributed from the Temple of Ceres. As early as 440 BC, however, according to Livy, the Roman Senate appointed a special officer called the praefectus annonae with greatly extended powers. His staff apparently carried a paramilitary rank and could have theoretically been suborned for "special" duties.

Perennis' assassins harbor no qualms about slaughtering anyone who gets in their way and they leave a bloody trail in their pursuit of Marcus.

Once again, Riches develops intriguing characters and empathetically portrays the comradery that develops between men struggling to survive north of Hadrian's Wall.  The action scenes are superb and draw the reader right into the beating heart of Roman military life.  Riches artfully transitions between scenes in the multithreaded plot and successfully maintains a high level of suspense until the novel's climactic conclusion. I highly recommend this series and have already plunged ahead into subsequent installments.

A Kindle preview:

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Review: Arrows of Fury by Anthony Riches Empire Series Book 2

A history resource article by Mary Harrsch © 2017

In Book 2 of Anthony Riches' Empire series, we find our hero, Centurion Marcus Valerius Aquila, now known as Marcus Tribulus Corvus to deceive agents of the vengeful Roman emperor Commodus, heading to the coast to pick up a century of replacements from Gaul to fill in the ranks of the 2nd Tungrian cohort.  The cohort suffered horrendous casualties in the climactic "Battle of the Lost Eagle" at the end of Book 1 and the rebellious Selgovae chieftain, Calgus, is still at large and forging new alliances to drive the Romans back to Hadrian's Wall and eventually off the island of Britain altogether.

Unbeknownst to Marcus, though, the newly appointed prefect of the 1st Tungrian cohort, a nasty piece of work transferred in from the continent, arrives at the resupply depot first, bribes the replacements officer, and makes off with the sturdy, well-trained Gauls.  When Marcus arrives, the only replacements left are two centuries of Hamian archers originally from Roman Syria.

Hamian archers depicted in the video game "Rome Total War" courtesy of Creative Assembly

Historical note: "Cohors Prima Hamiorum Sagittaria", a unit of bowmen recruited from the city of Hama in the Orontes valley in northern Syria were one of only two whole regiments of archers known to have been stationed in Britain.  Although the original contingent arrived in approximately 120 CE, subsequent units served in Britain until the end of the Roman occupation.

Although these men are some of the finest archers in the world, Marcus quickly sees they do not possess the solidly muscled bodies and brute strength needed to man a shield wall against the ferocious indigenous warriors his unit will face in the next confrontation.  To make matters worse, the Hamians' armor is too light to withstand a spear thrust.  So, Marcus sets out to get them properly equipped and begins to train them in the use of sword and shield once they return to their auxiliary headquarters in the fortress known in the book as Noisy Valley.

But Marcus needs months of physical training to bring his new men to the same level of strength of the other Tungrian infantrymen. The Hamians struggle under the weight of infantry mail shirts and kit and can barely complete a standard day's march let alone be ready to fight if attacked.

Just a few days later, though, word is received that Calgus has attacked and overrun one of the nearby forts known as White Strength with the help of the previously friendly Votadini tribe.

Historical note: The Votadini occupied what is now southeast Scotland and northeast England, extending south of the Firth of Forth and from the Stirling area down to the English River Tyne, including at its peak what are now the Falkirk, Lothian, and Borders regions of eastern Scotland, and Northumberland in northeast England. Between 138–162 CE the Votadini came under direct Roman military rule as occupants of the region between the Hadrian and Antonine Walls. Then when the Romans drew back to Hadrian's Wall the Votadini became a friendly buffer state, getting the rewards of alliance with Rome without being directly under its rule, until about 400 CE.

Calgus' raid is successful but his relationship with the Votadini is contentious so Calgus conspires with his cunning seer to rid himself of the troublesome tribe's war band.

Meanwhile, although ill-prepared, Marcus and his Hamians are dispatched to hunt down the Votadini and Marcus finds his unit's archery skills indispensable when he is ordered to assault an old but well-positioned hill fort.

But the ultimate test comes in the novel's climax when Marcus' troops must fight for their lives against the ferocious Venicones, another of Calgus' allies, who have trapped Marcus' century on the wrong side of a strong flowing river.

Closeup of a second century CE Roman sarcophagus depicting a battle between the Romans and Celts.  Photographed
at the Dallas Museum of Art in Dallas, Texas by Mary Harrsch © 2006

Historical note: The Venicones, a small but fiercesome people, inhabited the area between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth near the Roman fort of Horrea Classis on the eastern coast of modern-day Scotland. It is believed by modern scholars that their name meant "hunting hounds" or "kindred hounds." The Venicones were one of the few groups in northern Britain at the time that buried their dead in stone-lined graves and made ritual offerings of decorated metal objects, including massive bronze armlets, in local bogs and lakes.  These armlets could weigh over 1.5 kg each and were worn one on each arm. Tacitus in his Agricola, chapter XI (c. 98 AD) described the Caledonian warriors as red-haired and large limbed, which Tacitus considered features of Germanic origin.



Once again Anthony Riches has brilliantly recreated the precarious existence of the Roman auxiliaries stationed between the Hadrian and Antonine Walls in the late second century.  He has populated the novel with vibrant characters and made this reader feel part of the brotherhood that bonds courageous men together in times of crisis.  The battle scenes are visceral and not for the squeamish but I highly recommend this series and look forward to the next installments with great anticipation.

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Review: Wounds of Honour by Anthony Riches

A history resource article by Mary Harrsch © 2017

Anthony Riches has chosen to set his first book in his Empire Series, "Wounds of Honor" in northern Britain during the relatively short reign of the Roman Emperor Commodus. When the story opens, we are introduced to his protagonist, Marcus Valerius Aquila, a young Roman officer from a powerful senatorial family, who has been ostensibly sent to Brtiannia to serve as a tribune of the Sixth Legion (Legio VI Victrix).  But on the road to the legion's headquarters, his small contingent, that includes a retired Centurion that we eventually learn was once a First Spear, is attacked by a barbarian raiding party.

During the attack we discover the youthful Marcus, who snatches up a barbarian sword to use with his own gladius, has been trained to fight like a Dimachaerus, a type of gladiator  who became popular in the second century CE and used a fighting style adapted to both attack and defend with two blades rather than a sword and shield.

Historical note: Dimachaeri are often depicted wearing extremely minimal armor such as a balteus and leather wrappings or none at all, save a subligaculum (loin cloth). Other show a slightly more heavily armored dimachaerus, variously equipped with scale armor, mail shirts, visored helmets in the fashion of murmillos, greaves and leg wrappings, both barefoot and in sandals. They are known to have been paired against the hoplomachus and are also referred to as fighting against a gladiator class called an oplomachus, thought by some to be a variant of the Samnite.The character Gannicus in the Starz mini-series "Spartacus: Gods of the Arena" is shown fighting as a dimachaerus although that fighting style was not introduced for three more centuries.

Despite the skill of Marcus and the retired 1st Spear, Rufius, the small band is almost overwhelmed until they are rescued by a Roman cavalry scouting party.  My first taste of Riches' visceral descriptions of hand-to-hand combat had my heart thumping and definitely raised my anticipation for future engagements in subsequent chapters.

Marcus finally arrives at the Sixth's headquarters and learns that the legatus will return to the fort the next day.  So Marcus, at the behest of Rufius, gets cleaned up and grabs a little sleep before being awakened abruptly and arrested.

We discover Marcus' family has been proscribed by the new emperor and slaughtered for his father's criticism of Commodus in the senate.  There is an imperial warrant for Marcus that will mean certain death if he returns to Rome.  The legatus appears to be ready to honor the warrant but, strangely, decrees Marcus can return to Rome on his own, giving Marcus the opportunity to escape.

Of course, Marcus does escape and ends up hiding in plain sight when he is accepted as a probationary centurion in the 1st Tungrian auxiliary cohort manning a fort along Hadrian's Wall 150 miles north of the Sixth Legion's headquarters.

Historical note: The Tungrians (Tungri) were a tribe or group of tribes who originally lived in the Belgic part of Gaul.  Tacitus referred to them as the Germani in his Histories.  Two cohorts of Tungrians fought in the civil war during the year of the Four Emperors.  The early fifth-century document, Notitia Dignitatum, mentions a tribune of the First Cohort of Tungrians was stationed at Vercovicium (modern Housesteads, Northumberland) on Hadrian's Wall. The cohort was further split in Hadrianic times to form a Second Cohort of Tungrians.  So, obviously, Riches has done extensive research and based the events and military groups on actual troop dispositions.

Meanwhile, a Selgovae tribal chieftain named Calgus is collecting a war band with plans to attack Hadrian's Wall and push the Romans back to the south and eventually off the island altogether.

Historical note: The Selgovae were a tribe who lived on the southern coast of Scotland. Archaeological evidence indicates that the Selgovae lived in two principal settlement types: stone-built huts and so-called "scooped enclosures", some of which were abandoned in the 1st century CE while others were established in the 2nd century and developed into multivallate structures, hill forts surrounded with defensive earthworks. They had possibly lived in the area since the Bronze Age, and certainly during the pre-Roman Iron Age. The pattern of forts subsequently established in the area by the Romans suggests that the Selgovae lived in a number of distinct communities and probably had some degree of tribal and political organization, perhaps influenced by individuals who had fled the Roman advance further south. The number of Selgovae hill forts may have led the Romans to target this tribe and were driven north during the campaigns of Gnaeus Julius Agricola in the late 1st century CE.  Subsequently, the territory of the Selgovae was substantially planted with Roman forts.  Although the Romans mostly withdrew back to Hadrian's Wall under the reorganization of Marcus Aurelius in 175 CE, two forts continued to be garrisoned at Birrens and Netherby until permanently abandoned in 370 CE.

The novel builds to a climactic battle that results in the loss of a Roman commander.  This event, although only roughly sketched by Cassius Dio, did occur in 180 CE and the uprising of this period was deemed the most serious war that occurred during the reign of Commodus.

Riches characters are so realistic and sound so natural in their military discourse and even off-duty behavior I wondered if Riches, like James Mace, had actually served in the military.  He apparently didn't but got a degree in military science from Manchester University so I'm sure he studied both ancient and modern warfare extensively.  It clearly shows in his graphic descriptions of the Roman battle line experience and the swordcraft employed by Marcus and his fellow officers right down to the point of describing the direction of his thrusts, his parries and even which foot he used to pivot.

I felt totally immersed in Roman military life of the second century CE and became very invested in a wide number of supporting characters as well as Marcus himself.  I feel so fortunate the Empire series already encompasses nine novels so I will be able to spend quite some time with Marcus and his Tungrians.

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