Gods And Legions: A Novel of the Roman Empire [Hardcover]

Michael Curtis Ford (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 30, 2002

A historical adventure based on fact & set in the last years of the Roman Empire. The year 354 AD: Julian, a young scholar in Athens, is the last survivor of a bloody political purge that killed his entire family. Summoned to the court of Emperor Constantius, he finds himself bearing the ring of Caesar of the Western Empire. Julian is a military genius, crushing the German tribes that have threatened Rome for generations. Soon after, he seizes the Empire for himself, becoming the most powerful man in the world while still only 30. Now the dark side of his ambition emerges. Julian discards the Christianity of his boyhood & sets his sights on the Persian Empire. In Persia, however, his gods & his sanity desert him, & the course of history is altered forever.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This second historical novel by Ford (after The Ten Thousand) follows the rise of the Emperor Julian, the fourth-century Roman Caesar who has been vilified by Christian historians for his reintroduction of Hellenistic religions to Rome. The narrator is Julian's physician, Caesarius, ostensibly a loyal adviser but also a dogmatic Christian who wants to save Julian's soul and thinks very little of the man he serves. Battle scenes predominate in the early going, as Ford traces Julian's military campaigns in Gaul and documents his growing opposition to his uncle, Constantine the Great. The fast-paced narrative competently examines Julian's development as a soldier, inspired military commander and rhetorician. Ford clearly admires Julian's breadth of intellectual curiosity and his mission to restore diversity of religious practice and neo-Platonism. But Caesarius is so unrelentingly angry and humorless that his voice-over ends up stifling Julian as a character. An unreliable narrator threatened by the hero's greatness might have been a marvelous device, but in this case Caesarius's hostility is over the top, and his snide commentary gets too much airtime at the expense of Julian. Then, too, Julian's philosophical inner life and his genius for enlightened Hellenism has been dealt with at length in Gore Vidal's Julian (1962). In showing Julian from the distorted perspective of a treacherous enemy, Ford gambles, with mixed results.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

A close relative of Constantine, the first Roman emperor to embrace Christianity openly, but himself a pagan, Julian the Apostate was a man of many contradictions. In this powerful and passionate second novel by Ford (The Ten Thousand), readers come to understand his dimensions in intimate detail. The story opens with Julian as a young, sheltered philosophy student and pacifist in Athens. Not long into his education, however, he must take up arms and save the Roman Empire from corrupt leaders and hostile neighbors. He does so ingeniously, becoming the first emperor since Julius Caesar to conquer the tribes of Gaul. Though Ford's descriptions of warfare in the fourth century C.E. are dramatically gruesome, the moments of humor and personal valor make this a truly compelling story-one not just of gods and legions but of men. Julian lived as simply as an aesthetic in the heart of one of the most decadent cities history has ever known. Although he never set foot in Rome, he dedicated his life to the expansion of the Roman Empire. Highly recommended for most fiction collections.
Jane Baird, Anchorage Municipal Libs., AK
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 382 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press (September 30, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0756783984
• ISBN-13: 978-0756783983
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,291,833 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good Fiction, Questionable History, June 11, 2003

By 

Niko "lavrys" (Vancouver, BC, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gods and Legions: A Novel of the Roman Empire (Hardcover)

Emperor Julian is one of the most controversial figures of the late Roman / early Christian period. He stands alone in that he tried to reverse the Empire's adoption of Christianity as a state religion. For this he is loathed by the Church (which named him the Apostate) and worshiped by the most romantic admirers of the Classical Period.

Michael Curtis Ford has attempted to unravel Julian's complex personality and interpret his actions by delving deep into his early childhood and experiences as the military leader of the armies of Gaul. He then follows him through his ascention to the throne and his agressive slide into increasingly erratic and controversial behaviour towards the end of his life.

The journey is very enjoyable. Ford writes the political intrigue, the fight to defend Gaul and the young commander's development very well indeed. The Empire's progressive stagnation can be felt, the conflicts between the old and new ideals are quickly outlined. So, the first two thirds of the book, or so, are really quite good.

Unfortunatelly, towards the end, where the novel reaches the most controversial aspects of the story, Ford seems to run out of steam. Or perhaps, he is reluctant to offend mainstream sensibilities. The narrative becomes rather one-sided, using mostly the viewpoints of Christian clerics to describe Julian's actions and interpret his motives. He quite innexplicably turns from a tolerant, cultured "philosopher king" to a bloodthirsty pagan ruler, bent on continuous sacrifices, and fanatical worshiping of forgotten deities, under the influence of a malicious dwarf!

In this the book fails to convince. For example, a bit of background on the religious upheaval and continuous state-sponsored prosecutions of the preceding 50 years or so would have shed some light on the situation and help the reader understand Julian's transformation - yet none is given. Instead, the Emperor's behaviour is simply attributed to a deseased mind, poisoned from having harboured feelings of vengeanace for years (his family was murdered) and the story quickly rushes to an end.

If your interest lies in Julian and his story, this novel is going to dissapoint you. However, if you are simply a fan of the period and love reading about Rome and the Romans, you will certainly enjoy it.

17 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Where Are The Politics?, December 2, 2002

By 

Carl Malmstrom (Monument, CO USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Gods and Legions: A Novel of the Roman Empire (Hardcover)

The mid-Fourth Century Emperor Julian is definitely one of the more fascinating characters in the later Roman Empire. In a time of growing Christianity and crumbling power, Julian was a strong leader and a devout Hellenistic Pagan. He brought decisive victories against the barbarians invading Gaul (modern-day France) and the Persians - the eternal thorn in the side of Rome, but died in a catastrophic overshooting of his resources in the midst of attacking the Persians at the heart of their Empire.

Ford's treatment of Julian and the times in which he lived is both strong and disappointing at the same time. The sense of military tension and the increasing Orientalism of the Imperial Court come through strongly, and Julian's campaigns in Gaul and Persia are well-researched. Nonetheless, there's a very "Middle Ages" sense to the Christian church of timelessness and doctrine - when it should be in the midst of faction purges and self-definition - as well as a close-knit feel of Roman politics that never existed.

Admittedly, there's little reason to make "Gods and Legions" another "I, Claudius", but the political life of the novel is boiled down to half a dozen or so memorable characters. To write a novel about the Roman Empire that glosses over politics is like writing a novel of Eighteenth Century America that glosses over the British.

It's obvious from his postscript that Ford has done his research - he's thoroughly combed the best sources of the times including Julian's own writings for the sense of power and contradiction that the man's legacy carries even today. However, the contradictions he focuses on loan themselves more to Julian's character than his history. He uses Ammianus Marcellinus (a fourth-century solider who wrote a great deal about Julian from a first-hand perspective) very hazardously, practically quoting directly at some points and totally ignoring him when he wants to give Julian a more mystical, fantastic presence (which can be somewhat odd considering that Ammianus was one of his chief supporters in the historical record).

In all, Ford's book makes for a decent novel and a decent military grounding in Julian's accomplishments, but fails in numerous accounts to give as accurate an impression of the time as Ford would have you believe. If you have a casual interest in Roman history, it's a decent way to kill a plane ride, but I'd caution the serious student to take this book with a grain of salt.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Why Put Forth the Effort?, July 24, 2006

By 

Deborah Jesser "White Rose" (In the mountains, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Gods and Legions: A Novel of the Roman Empire (Hardcover)

Gore Vidal's "Julian" is one of my favorite all-time books, so I thought I might enjoy another on the subject. All-in-all I was disappointed and only managed to make it about 3/4 of the way through with much effort. Though the author's writing style is quite readable, writing a story from the viewpoint of someone who diliked Julian and is supposed to be his friend just didn't cut it with me. The self-righteous Christian got old real fast. And the secondary characters like Oribasius and Maximus were so vividly done by Vidal as to make them a jarring, discordant note in this work. The only way it was in any way better than Vidal's work is the battle descriptions, which are well done.
To me it was like someone trying to re-write Gone With the Wind, To Kill a Mockingbird or A Confederacy of Dunces. It can't be improved upon, so why put forth the effort?