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Londinium #3
Gods in Londinium
Ikaros of Apollonis is a slave of the Roman Empire. But in the heathen wilds of Britannica, he may be about to save it.
His home city conquered, Ikaros of Apollonis, an engineer and physician, is now the slave of a Roman soldier. But his master is no ordinary soldier, and Ikaros is far from an ordinary slave.
In a characteristically Roman blend of pragmatism and superstition, he is widely admired – and feared – for his striking intelligence and ability to read minds.
So, who else would the empire choose to investigate the death of a hero, the spread of a strange religion, and a potential uprising among the native Celtic tribes?
In Gods in Londinium , Ikaros navigates the tensions between Britannica’s Celts and its Roman occupiers, defying attempts on his own life and those of the people he loves. In doing so, he’s drawn into negotiations that may spell the end of Roman Britain – or perhaps, quite the reverse.
Gods in Londinium gives its readers a fascinating and well-informed glimpse into life in Roman Britain.
His home city conquered, Ikaros of Apollonis, an engineer and physician, is now the slave of a Roman soldier. But his master is no ordinary soldier, and Ikaros is far from an ordinary slave.
In a characteristically Roman blend of pragmatism and superstition, he is widely admired – and feared – for his striking intelligence and ability to read minds.
So, who else would the empire choose to investigate the death of a hero, the spread of a strange religion, and a potential uprising among the native Celtic tribes?
In Gods in Londinium , Ikaros navigates the tensions between Britannica’s Celts and its Roman occupiers, defying attempts on his own life and those of the people he loves. In doing so, he’s drawn into negotiations that may spell the end of Roman Britain – or perhaps, quite the reverse.
Gods in Londinium gives its readers a fascinating and well-informed glimpse into life in Roman Britain.
274 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 17, 2022
24 people are currently reading
25 people want to read
About the author
John Drake
21 books162 followersJust in case anyone's interested ... my latest Fletcher (Flying Machine) is up and running and selling well. Happy days.
I have just finished the third of my Londinium books (that's Roman London AD 100) and it should be out later this year: 'Gods in Londium'. My usual mixture of bloodstained savagery, plus authentic period detail.
Moving further on ...
'The Fletcher Companion' (all you need to know about Fletcher and his world), will also be available some time this year.
Beyond that, the next Fletcher for March 2023 (if the Lord spares me) will be 'Fletcher and the Constitution'. That's the US Constitution, and it's in deadly peril.
Mind how you go.
John Drake
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
February 3, 2023
I greatly enjoyed reading the set of three books bringing Londinium to life.
This third wrapped it all up in a bow and leaves the reader well satisfied.
Kindle Unlimited
This third wrapped it all up in a bow and leaves the reader well satisfied.
Kindle Unlimited
February 15, 2023
I devoured this novel over the course of a day and a half, submerging myself in the story and world of Roman Britannia. Now the series is done and I'm pleased to have read it, but I am sad that the series has reached it's inevitable conclusion. Over the course of the three novels, I became invested in the lives of IIkoros and Morganus, enjoyed their friendship and wondered at their fates. In short, I loved this series, and this novel, and recommend it for anyone interested in the Roman Empire.
March 4, 2023
Review to follow
March 26, 2024
A shame there are only three books in this series but they do have an overriding arc which comes to a very satisfying conclusion. Morganus (hope that's spelled.right but probably not) and Ikaris have been brilliant together. The Greek slave who is supposed to be magic, able.to.read.people's minds, (when in reality he's just really intelligent and observant ) and the Roman officer first spear of the twentieth legion (the most decorated and famous soldier in all Rome) they shouldn't work together but they amazingly well. Then there's the villians of the piece.... The Druids, thought to be destroyed but secretly still active hiding in plain sight. The glimpses we get of Morganus s home life and his relationship with his.honour guard are so deftly depicted, we can see the love and respect, even though it's never alluded to, but again I come back to the man.who lost everything he held dear on the night his best friend and brother in arms had his greatest victory. A great series with some humour..........
December 5, 2022
This is the third novel of the Roman Empire by this author and I think it is the best yet. The Empire is a good backdrop for a novel, and the author likely drew his inspiration for making the stories into mysteries because the Romans didn’t have a police force. That allowed for the creation of the unlikely characters of Ikaros, a Greek slave, formerly a senator, doctor, and engineer, and Morganus, first Javelin of the Twentieth Legion, a senior centurion and professional soldier. This unlikely pair has the aura of Holmes and Watson, or more correctly, Aubrey and Maturin, as they negotiate their way through the maelstrom of Roman politics and intrigue to defeat corrupt or incompetent officials and their nemeses, the Druids, who want to unseat the Romans from the control of their British colony.
The action opens with the murder of the leading chariot racer in the run-up to the governor’s games. The governor calls in our heroes because his political future is on the line if the games don’t come off successfully, bringing in the themes of intrigue and crime at the same time. The action is rapid fire and the plot unreels through complex webs of clues to a satisfying climax. At the same time, there’s a love story running on a parallel heading, receiving less emphasis but contributing to the conclusion.
The story demonstrates how important the Romans were to the evolution of European civilization and Western thought. In the author’s afterword, some of this is summarized. In popular culture there are two contradictory views of the Romans: they are either the agents of brutal oppression or the spreaders of order and civilization. I think these novels have succeeded better than any work of fiction could in demonstrating the second point of view. While the Romans never set out to conquer the world, they pretty much did. Once control of most of Europe was theirs, they established a regime that provided freedom of religion, security from invasion, material wealth (by comparison to before), and equality before the law to the many ethnic groups now included in the empire. The Romans were profoundly superstitious and rather gullible, and one of their favorite dodges was not only to recognize all the foreign religions, as long as they swore political loyalty to Rome, but to seek to import a temple and priests to practice their native ceremonials, in the Imperial city, alongside the traditional Greco-Roman religion. As Ikaros remarks in the text, "Superstition is a soft, warm bed -- ever cozy, ever welcoming -- while rationality is a hard, uphill climb in the wind and the cold and the rain."
While meant to ensure the loyalty and membership of the disparate ethnic groups in the Empire, this policy had an unforeseen consequence. The Empire’s peoples compared the religions to each other and tried to reconcile them by assigning Roman names to the gods of foreign lands. This created a practice called “syncretism” by modern scholars, where, for example, the Greek Zeus was proclaimed to be Jupiter by another name. My own archaeology professor from the 70’s stated that we don’t really know what the traditional Roman myths were because Latin authors of the Imperial period were so heavily influenced by the corresponding Greek myths. The one thing we do know is that one of the oldest shrines in Rome had a triple temple, apparently serving three gods, and this might be the origin of the Christian Trinity. The author evidently has a notion of this and brings in a Celtic Trinity myth as one of the destabilizing forces endangering the Empire. He shows us Morganus and his soldiers worshipping Mithras, a different god from the East, as most Roman soldiers did in this period. Jupiter and Minerva had declined in importance as ceremonies on the Capitoline Hill were now mainly loyalty oaths and the people realized it. The spiritual search for a more meaningful set of beliefs, suitable for a worldwide empire, was to ultimately sow the seeds for the “Decline and Fall” in the form of Christianity, taking its departure from Judaism, which introduced the idea of a universal god, not limited to one ethnic group, as the natural set of beliefs for a worldwide empire. As is shown by Gibbon, this change in beliefs led ultimately to the decline of the multicultural empire and the fanatical adherence to versions of Christianity and later, Islam. Morganus and Ikaros recognize fanaticism but they don’t, of course, recognize that it’s going to be more and more important in history. That’s a different story, beyond the scope of this novel.
The action opens with the murder of the leading chariot racer in the run-up to the governor’s games. The governor calls in our heroes because his political future is on the line if the games don’t come off successfully, bringing in the themes of intrigue and crime at the same time. The action is rapid fire and the plot unreels through complex webs of clues to a satisfying climax. At the same time, there’s a love story running on a parallel heading, receiving less emphasis but contributing to the conclusion.
The story demonstrates how important the Romans were to the evolution of European civilization and Western thought. In the author’s afterword, some of this is summarized. In popular culture there are two contradictory views of the Romans: they are either the agents of brutal oppression or the spreaders of order and civilization. I think these novels have succeeded better than any work of fiction could in demonstrating the second point of view. While the Romans never set out to conquer the world, they pretty much did. Once control of most of Europe was theirs, they established a regime that provided freedom of religion, security from invasion, material wealth (by comparison to before), and equality before the law to the many ethnic groups now included in the empire. The Romans were profoundly superstitious and rather gullible, and one of their favorite dodges was not only to recognize all the foreign religions, as long as they swore political loyalty to Rome, but to seek to import a temple and priests to practice their native ceremonials, in the Imperial city, alongside the traditional Greco-Roman religion. As Ikaros remarks in the text, "Superstition is a soft, warm bed -- ever cozy, ever welcoming -- while rationality is a hard, uphill climb in the wind and the cold and the rain."
While meant to ensure the loyalty and membership of the disparate ethnic groups in the Empire, this policy had an unforeseen consequence. The Empire’s peoples compared the religions to each other and tried to reconcile them by assigning Roman names to the gods of foreign lands. This created a practice called “syncretism” by modern scholars, where, for example, the Greek Zeus was proclaimed to be Jupiter by another name. My own archaeology professor from the 70’s stated that we don’t really know what the traditional Roman myths were because Latin authors of the Imperial period were so heavily influenced by the corresponding Greek myths. The one thing we do know is that one of the oldest shrines in Rome had a triple temple, apparently serving three gods, and this might be the origin of the Christian Trinity. The author evidently has a notion of this and brings in a Celtic Trinity myth as one of the destabilizing forces endangering the Empire. He shows us Morganus and his soldiers worshipping Mithras, a different god from the East, as most Roman soldiers did in this period. Jupiter and Minerva had declined in importance as ceremonies on the Capitoline Hill were now mainly loyalty oaths and the people realized it. The spiritual search for a more meaningful set of beliefs, suitable for a worldwide empire, was to ultimately sow the seeds for the “Decline and Fall” in the form of Christianity, taking its departure from Judaism, which introduced the idea of a universal god, not limited to one ethnic group, as the natural set of beliefs for a worldwide empire. As is shown by Gibbon, this change in beliefs led ultimately to the decline of the multicultural empire and the fanatical adherence to versions of Christianity and later, Islam. Morganus and Ikaros recognize fanaticism but they don’t, of course, recognize that it’s going to be more and more important in history. That’s a different story, beyond the scope of this novel.
December 4, 2022
This is a new author and new series to me, and I was not sorry for the introduction. The story really gripped, and although it was extremely heavy on ancient superstitions and religions, these were worked into the plot seamlessly and there was no sense of pedagogy or instruction. The author struck just the right note. This was a thoroughly enjoyable read - down-to-earth and utterly realistic. I do believe Drake veered off a little when he gave Ikaros's love interest a fleeting yet completely inexplicable tantrum when he offered to buy her to keep her from being sold to a brothel,. "Buy me like a thing" she stated. Er, yeah, if it keeps you from being traded as a prostitute and ultimately allows you finally be with the man you love.. Apart from this unnecessary display of female irrationality, the characters were well-fleshed and solid, as was the story. I shall definitely be seeking out the other books in the series.
February 2, 2023
Loved this book
I really enjoyed reading this book I found the characters fascinating and full. In short I was so invested in the people throughout the book that I could visualise them and their surroundings. I love history ( fiction and fact, well facts interpreted by many historians, writers, philosophers. We will never really know the past as much or in depth; as we would like to. I said in my last review that this series has kept me totally engaged during a time when I have badly needed distraction. So many, many thanks.
I really enjoyed reading this book I found the characters fascinating and full. In short I was so invested in the people throughout the book that I could visualise them and their surroundings. I love history ( fiction and fact, well facts interpreted by many historians, writers, philosophers. We will never really know the past as much or in depth; as we would like to. I said in my last review that this series has kept me totally engaged during a time when I have badly needed distraction. So many, many thanks.
September 15, 2024
(100 A.D.) Ikaros Greek slave to Morganus, first Javelin of the Twentieth Legion has a few problem to solve. The death of Zephyrix the great racing driver, the riseo of a new religion which might be linked to the possible uprising of all the local tribes.
An entertaining and well-written historical mystery
An entertaining and well-written historical mystery
September 25, 2023
oh he hasn’t written another Romans in England yet
I’ve enjoyed this and every other series John Drake written, so I hope he writes a few more books in this series and some more about the thief catcher , Samuel Slym, who when introduced I didn’t like, but he grew on me
I’ve enjoyed this and every other series John Drake written, so I hope he writes a few more books in this series and some more about the thief catcher , Samuel Slym, who when introduced I didn’t like, but he grew on me
November 26, 2022
Gripping, entertaining, and well plotted. The first book I read in this serie but i want to read the rest.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine
January 26, 2023
great fun!
Finally found this book 3! Really enjoyable ! Very clever! Loved his tongue-in-cheek comments at the end. Bravo John Drake!
Finally found this book 3! Really enjoyable ! Very clever! Loved his tongue-in-cheek comments at the end. Bravo John Drake!
November 13, 2023
The 2nd in the series and the story is very good and we get a feel and a look at the Times of a Roman owned England ..
February 20, 2024
Just brilliant, loved all three
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews