IADER: On the run from assassins

by Claudio Rossi

The year is 49 BC, during the civil war between Caesar and Pompey. Quintilius, a young and inexperienced civilian land surveyor, has been assigned to a unit of military engineers who are overseeing the centuriation of uncultivated land near Mantua, in the Po valley.He has recently been cleared of unjust murder charges but in order to do so he was forced to collaborate with various officers in Caesar's faction; now, the other side is preparing to get its revenge.Quintilius has no other choice but escape, as he tries to elude or eliminate the assassins who are following his tracks.He is accompanied by the freedman Hicesius, an elderly and scholarly secretary of Greek origin who also received a death sentence for the same reason. This unusual pair of fugitives will be forced to use their wits as they surreptitiously travel the consular roads of Cisalpine Gaul.In their attempt to save their lives, the two end up in the unexplored wetlands of the Padusa river, near the Po delta, and later find protection with a unit of engineers who are mapping out a centuriation in uncultivated land in Dalmatia, at Iader.But the scores they have to settle cannot be resolved by simply appealing to the court of law and, thus, the two will have to come up with a few new solutions.Claudio Rossi is the author of numerous works on ancient settlements and Roman centuriation.The series “Quintilius, Life between the Republic and the Empire” is set during the last years of Caesar's reign and the first years of Augustus' rule.

318 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 15, 2021