Marching With Caesar – Hostage toFortuna
By R.W. Peake
Also by R.W Peake
Marching WithCaesar®– Birth of the 10th
Marching With Caesar – Conquest of Gaul
Marching With Caesar – Civil War
Marching With Caesar –Antony and Cleopatra, Parts I & II
Marching With Caesar – Rise of Augustus
Marching With Caesar –Last Campaign
Marching With Caesar –Rebellion
Marching With Caesar – ANew Era
Marching With Caesar – PaxRomana
Marching With Caesar –Fraternitas
Marching With Caesar –Vengeance
Marching With Caesar –Rise of Germanicus
Marching With Caesar –Revolt of the Legions
Marching With Caesar –Avenging Varus, Part I
Marching With Caesar –Avenging Varus, Part II
Caesar Triumphant
Caesar Ascending –Invasion of Parthia
Caesar Ascending –Conquest of Parthia
Caesar Ascending – India
Caesar Ascending – Pandya
Critical praise for the Marching with Caesarseries:
Marching With Caesar-Antony and Cleopatra:Part I-Antony
“Peake has become a masterof depicting Roman military life and action, and in this latestnovel he proves adept at evoking the subtleties of his characters,often with an understated humour and surprising pathos. Very highlyrecommended.”
Marching With Caesar-CivilWar
"Fans of the author will bedelighted that Peake’s writing has gone from strength tostrength in this, the second volume...Peake manages to portrayPullus and all his fellow soldiers with a marvelous feeling ofreality quite apart from the star historicalname... There’s history here, and character, and action enough forthree novels, and all of it can be enjoyed even if readers haven’tseen the first volume yet. Very highly recommended."
~The Historical Novel Society
“The hinge of historypivoted on the career of Julius Caesar, as Rome’s Republic becamean Empire, but the muscle to swing that gateway came from soldierslike Titus Pullus. What an amazing story from a student now becomethe master of historical fiction at its best.”
~Professor Frank Holt,University of Houston
Marching With Caesar – Hostage to Fortuna byR.W. Peake
Copyright © 2020 by R.W. Peake
Smashwords Edition
All rights reserved. This book or anyportion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any mannerwhatsoever without the express written permission of the publisherexcept for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover Artwork Copyright © 2020 R. W.Peake
All Rights Reserved
For Barney Chapman
Fellow Texan, Lover of Rome
And
Number One Fan
Foreword
So, what does an author who writes about theRoman Legions making war do when there’s no war?
That was the question I was facing atthe end of Marching WithCaesar® – Avenging Varus PartII, and it was with a fair amount of concern that Irevisited Tacitus, looking for something to continue Gnaeus’story…and I found it in the line “A few had been swept over toBritain, and were returned by petty kings.”
I also recalled that Tacitus had mentionedthat, the year before, when other Romans suffered a similar fate,they were actually held hostage.
Which made me think: why not Gnaeus?How would that happen, how would it play out, and what rippleeffects would it have on not just his career, but his life? Hereinlies the answer to what Marching WithCaesar® – Hostage to Fortuna isabout, but as it is with all the stories I tell, I at least try tomake it about more than what it may seem. This book is as muchabout the power of family, whether they be tied by blood orservice, as it is anything else. Like Gnaeus, I am an only childwith no siblings, and I came late to the knowledge of my father’sside of the family like he does, but unlike Gnaeus, I didn’t sufferany kind of travails that would require that side of my family tocome to my aid. However, much like Gnaeus, I had to grapple withwhat this sudden realization of a previously unknown side to myvery existence meant to me, and how it shaped the man I was tobecome.
It is, frankly, something that I am stillgrappling with in many ways, and in that sense, I believe Gnaeuswill be facing a similar challenge.
As always, thanks to Beth Lynne, mylongtime editor (although I still like the word “snuck” better than“sneaked”), and to Laura Prevost for another great cover. Recently,I began doing a series of podcasts, of which there are currentlyfour, and they are under the title Marching With Caesar Podcast Series by R.W.Peake, and you can find them on iTunes, or directly athttps://www.buzzsprout.com/670249.
Otherwise, I don’t really want to give toomuch away in the Foreword, so this one will be short. All I can sayin addition is that I hope you, my faithful readers, enjoy thestory at least as much as I enjoy creating them.
Semper Fidelis,
R.W. Peake
February, 2020
Historical Notes
In many ways, this was probably the mostdifficult book I’ve written so far, both from a pure storytellingperspective, which I mentioned in the Foreword, and because thiscovers areas with which I have, or had, very little experience.
I’ll cover the easiest one first, andthat is what Britannia was like in the very early First CenturyC.E., for which there isn’t much of a written record. My choice ofthe Parisii was based on my looking at a map and seeing howunlikely that a ship blown off course would make it all the way tothe southern, and better-known part of the island the Romans calledBritannia. From there, it was a matter of finding out what I couldabout the area of the island controlled by the Parisii, whichaccording to ancient sources, was around the Humber River, whichthe Greeks called the Abis, and is how Gnaeus refers to it. Asalways, I relied on the superlative Barrington Atlas for more information, and thosewho either possess the Atlas, or are far more versed in theBritannia of the First Century C.E., may notice that I have placedthe ancient city of Petuar on the southern bank, not the northernbank as it’s depicted on the map. I did this intentionally, sinceevery source I could find places the Humber as the dividing linebetween Parisii and Brigantes territory. Hopefully, this is not anegregious
