Better to remember the high moors beyond Credigone; better to remember the hunting fire and the shared laughter, and leave the rest to the wolves. [loc. 3067]
Alexios Flavius Aquila, nephew of the Roman Governor of Northern Britain, is promoted beyond his abilities. He makes a catastrophic error of judgement and is responsible for many deaths in an ill-advised retreat from Abusina, a fort on the Danube. Because of his uncle's influence, he is given another command rather than being discharged from the army: but his new command is an auxiliary cohort, the Frontier Scouts, 'the scum and scrapings of the Empire ... hard cases', mostly tribesmen, more loyal to one another than they are to Rome. His uncle says disdainfully that they might make a man of Alexios, if they don't kill him first.
Alexios' new command is based in the (fictional) fort at Castellum, far north of Hadrian's Wall in country that was once conquered (though never successfully occupied for long) by Rome. The local tribes, while apparently friendly and happy to trade with the Romans, have their own allegiances. Alexios settles into his new command, manages to calm some tribal disputes, and begins to earn the respect of the men he commands. He also becomes friends with the Votadini chieftain's son, Cunorix, and learns to appreciate Celtic culture and the fragile peace between Celts and Romans, with the highland Picts and the threat of Hibernian raiders as mutual enemies. But perhaps the worst danger will come from the south, with the visit of the new Praepositus, Glaucus Montanus.
This novel -- a reread, but I hadn't read it for many years and had forgotten all but a few fragments -- is as much about poor management as about military prowess. Alexios makes a bad decision against the advice of his staff: later, he tries to defuse a dangerous situation, but is overruled by his superiors. He deals competently with the troublemakers in his new command, and he strives for justice rather than punishment. By the climax of the novel, when he's having to make difficult decisions for the good of his men, he's learnt a great deal about personal honour, about friendship, and about loyalty.
This novel is set around AD349, when Rome's strength and influence in Britain are past their peak. Sutcliff, as usual, vividly illustrates that feeling of decay: 'the honeysuckle was still in flower in the small walled wilderness behind the officers’ quarters that had once been a garden'; the ruins of a signal tower on the Old (Antonine) Wall, where Alexios kills his wolf; the owl's nest in the fort's armoury. I found the sense of abandonment, and the contrasting warmth of Alexios' friendships, more engaging than the military action. (There's actually not a great deal of the latter, though the last third of the novel is devoted to a desperate retreat.) This isn't one of my top three Sutcliff novels -- currently The Mark of the Horse Lord, The Eagle of the Ninth and Blood Feud: ask me again next year -- but it did spark my enthusiasm for novels set in Roman Britain: reviews of Hunter and Bradshaw coming soon.
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