What do you think?
Rate this book
Blood of the Martyrs: How the Slaves in Rome Found Victory in Christ
A new addition to the popular Christian Epics series. In a society where worshiping God is a crime punishable by death, and brutality to slaves is commonplace, Roman citizens Flavius Crispus and his son Beric struggle to become Christians and to treat their slaves as brothers and sisters in Christ.
422 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1948
7 people are currently reading
209 people want to read
About the author
Naomi Mitchison
163 books136 followersNaomi Mitchison, author of over 70 books, died in 1999 at the age of 101. She was born in and lived in Scotland and traveled widely throughout the world. In the 1960s she was adopted as adviser and mother of the Bakgatla tribe in Botswana. Her books include historical fiction, science fiction, poetry, autobiography, and nonfiction, the most popular of which are The Corn King and the Spring Queen, The Conquered, and Memoirs of a Spacewoman.
Mitchison lived in Kintyre for many years and was an active small farmer. She served on Argyll County Council and was a member of the Highlands and Islands Advisory Panel from 1947 to 1965, and the Highlands and Islands Advisory Consultative Council from 1966 to 1974.
Praise for Naomi Mitchison:
"No one knows better how to spin a fairy tale than Naomi Mitchison."
-- The Observer
"Mitchison breathes life into such perennial themes as courage, forgiveness, the search for meaning, and self-sacrifice."
-- Publishers Weekly
"She writes enviably, with the kind of casual precision which ... comes by grace."
-- Times Literary Supplement
"One of the great subversive thinkers and peaceable transgressors of the twentieth century.... We are just catching up to this wise, complex, lucid mind that has for ninety-seven years been a generation or two ahead of her time."
-- Ursula K. Le Guin, author of Gifts
"Her descriptions of ritual and magic are superb; no less lovely are her accounts of simple, natural things -- water-crowfoot flowers, marigolds, and bright-spotted fish. To read her is like looking down into deep warm water, through which the smallest pebble and the most radiant weed shine and are seen most clearly; for her writing is very intimate, almost as a diary, or an autobiography is intimate, and yet it is free from all pose, all straining after effect; she is telling a story so that all may understand, yet it has the still profundity of a nursery rhyme.
-- Hugh Gordon Proteus, New Statesman and Nation
Mitchison lived in Kintyre for many years and was an active small farmer. She served on Argyll County Council and was a member of the Highlands and Islands Advisory Panel from 1947 to 1965, and the Highlands and Islands Advisory Consultative Council from 1966 to 1974.
Praise for Naomi Mitchison:
"No one knows better how to spin a fairy tale than Naomi Mitchison."
-- The Observer
"Mitchison breathes life into such perennial themes as courage, forgiveness, the search for meaning, and self-sacrifice."
-- Publishers Weekly
"She writes enviably, with the kind of casual precision which ... comes by grace."
-- Times Literary Supplement
"One of the great subversive thinkers and peaceable transgressors of the twentieth century.... We are just catching up to this wise, complex, lucid mind that has for ninety-seven years been a generation or two ahead of her time."
-- Ursula K. Le Guin, author of Gifts
"Her descriptions of ritual and magic are superb; no less lovely are her accounts of simple, natural things -- water-crowfoot flowers, marigolds, and bright-spotted fish. To read her is like looking down into deep warm water, through which the smallest pebble and the most radiant weed shine and are seen most clearly; for her writing is very intimate, almost as a diary, or an autobiography is intimate, and yet it is free from all pose, all straining after effect; she is telling a story so that all may understand, yet it has the still profundity of a nursery rhyme.
-- Hugh Gordon Proteus, New Statesman and Nation
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 16, 2023
This is a book that I rescued from a box in a church library just before it was dumped into the garbage. I knew it was an old one by the cover, and I am a sucker for first editions. As it turned out, it was not a first edition (it was a 2nd), but it opened my eyes to an author that I had never heard of, and that has been all but forgotten in this century.
Naomi Mitchison, the author, was an extraordinary woman for her time. Born before World War I in Scotland, she wrote in several genres, including science fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, and travelogues of her almost endless journeys around the world. She was a good friend of J.R.R. Tolkien (she helped to proofread "The Lord of the Rings"), and she was a political adviser for an African tribe in Botswana. Quite impressive for a woman in the early 20th century.
This book is her depiction of the beginnings of Christianity in ancient Rome, and its persecution by the government of the time. It has a cast of many, and the first few chapters may be somewhat confusing, simply because they consist of the back stories for all the characters. But, this actually ends up making them all that much more interesting. The reader begins to care for those whose histories are known more than if they had just appeared with no explanation. The book is troubling, in that it depicts the horrible ways that many Romans treated their slaves, and there are many allegations to sexual themes (this was something that Mitchison was known for and was the reason at least one of her books was turned down for publication when it was originally written), so this may not be appropriate for younger readers. Also, it does not end well, being rather anticlimactic. The only good thing that the reader takes away is the fact that history has already decided the outcome, so all those that the reader has learned to care about do not suffer in vain.
If you enjoy fiction based on actual history, you will like this one. It is a classic in its own right, even if its author has been lost to the mists of time.
The thing that I found most interesting about this, however, was that on reading this I came across many of the stories and legends that I had heard being taught in Sunday school classes and even in sermons by ministers as historical fact. Whether Mitchison included these in her writing for historic effect or made them up herself is unknown, but it just goes to show how popular fiction can influence the culture, and even history, of our civilization.
Naomi Mitchison, the author, was an extraordinary woman for her time. Born before World War I in Scotland, she wrote in several genres, including science fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, and travelogues of her almost endless journeys around the world. She was a good friend of J.R.R. Tolkien (she helped to proofread "The Lord of the Rings"), and she was a political adviser for an African tribe in Botswana. Quite impressive for a woman in the early 20th century.
This book is her depiction of the beginnings of Christianity in ancient Rome, and its persecution by the government of the time. It has a cast of many, and the first few chapters may be somewhat confusing, simply because they consist of the back stories for all the characters. But, this actually ends up making them all that much more interesting. The reader begins to care for those whose histories are known more than if they had just appeared with no explanation. The book is troubling, in that it depicts the horrible ways that many Romans treated their slaves, and there are many allegations to sexual themes (this was something that Mitchison was known for and was the reason at least one of her books was turned down for publication when it was originally written), so this may not be appropriate for younger readers. Also, it does not end well, being rather anticlimactic. The only good thing that the reader takes away is the fact that history has already decided the outcome, so all those that the reader has learned to care about do not suffer in vain.
If you enjoy fiction based on actual history, you will like this one. It is a classic in its own right, even if its author has been lost to the mists of time.
The thing that I found most interesting about this, however, was that on reading this I came across many of the stories and legends that I had heard being taught in Sunday school classes and even in sermons by ministers as historical fact. Whether Mitchison included these in her writing for historic effect or made them up herself is unknown, but it just goes to show how popular fiction can influence the culture, and even history, of our civilization.
September 12, 2018
First, let me start by stating that this is not a great novel. The book has too many characters; most of them are underdeveloped; Nero and Paul are examples.
However, the book does a great job in explaining the early formative years of Christianity and why it became attractive to the underprivileged in the Roman society. The book is full of lengthy and clever discussions about the nature of Christianity, stoicism / rationalism, and the Roman state / power.
However, the book does a great job in explaining the early formative years of Christianity and why it became attractive to the underprivileged in the Roman society. The book is full of lengthy and clever discussions about the nature of Christianity, stoicism / rationalism, and the Roman state / power.
November 9, 2017
A picture of the life of slaves in Rome during Nero's reign. Seeing how the Gospel of Christ was shared, small churches of slaves meeting secretly, how they made the Kingdom real in spite of their circumstances. Historically accurate.
December 15, 2023
Why has this book been out of print for so long? Why has Naomi Mitchison fallen into disfavour with the reading public? She is an incredible author. Read any of her books. This one is about the Neronian perseuction, and it grips from page 1. Thank you, Canongate, for republishing it.
Read
March 18, 2023So many mixed feelings about this book 😵💫
A bit sensationalized and graphic but just enough really good writing and research to make it worth the read. I think.
A bit sensationalized and graphic but just enough really good writing and research to make it worth the read. I think.
August 6, 2010
Great concept, not well written and way too many characters introduced in the first chapter. A book where you will be constantly flipping back and forth to figure out who is who and what is up. Overall good story and content, just not well executed.
September 3, 2013
Read this when going through a religious phase and thoroughly enjoyed it. Like Quo Vadis and Luke the Physician, Silver chalice
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews