[WAY]≫ [PDF] Free Iron and Rust Throne of the Caesars Book 1 Throne of Caesars Harry Sidebottom 9781468310542 Books

Iron and Rust Throne of the Caesars Book 1 Throne of Caesars Harry Sidebottom 9781468310542 Books

Download As PDF : Iron and Rust Throne of the Caesars Book 1 Throne of Caesars Harry Sidebottom 9781468310542 Books

Iron and Rust Throne of the Caesars Book 1 Throne of Caesars Harry Sidebottom 9781468310542 Books

“Enrich the soldiers and ignore everyone else.” This was the maxim of Emperor Maximinus’ mentor, the Emperor Caracalla. It seemed like good advice as an emperor generally attained and maintained power at the behest of his troops. Unfortunately, Emperor Maximinus, who came to power in the coup that assassinated the Emperor Alexander Severus and his mother Mamea, took the advice a bit too much to heart. In enriching the soldiers he so depleted his revenues that he was compelled to raid the wealth of the temples to the gods, proscribe wealthy Senators and Equites to obtain their wealth, and cut the grain dole to the Roman plebes. Displeasing so many segments of the population led to revolts against his rule and full-scale bloody repression, and ultimately to his own destruction.
In Iron and Rust, Harry Sidebottom brings to life a lesser known era of late Roman history, the reign that ushered in a long period of instability and the inexorable decline and fall of the Roman Empire. The story is complex and there are a lot of characters and a lot of settings. The reign of Maximinus ended up being a reign of terror in which prominent Romans, even those like Timesitheus and Gordian who believed themselves in the good graces of the Emperor, lived in fear.
Rome at this time was attempting to retain the huge empire bequeathed by the earlier Caesars but was besieged on multiple fronts. There were the Germans, the Goths, the Sassanids, and even in Africa there were incursions by fierce nomadic tribesmen. Maximinus, a giant of a man, a Thracian risen through the ranks and raised to the position of Caesar by the soldiery is determined to conquer Germany once and for all and make it a province of Rome. His predecessor was roundly condemned for his policy of trying to buy off the Allamani and other German tribes. As a military man, Maximinus was successful in battle, but his efforts were ultimately in vain. Germany would never become a Roman province. As a result of his single-mindedness he would lose his beloved wife and ultimately, his own head.
Harry Sidebottom is an historian turned novelist and as such his books are impeccably researched and erudite. The novel is not light reading but is a worthwhile commitment for anyone who desires and understanding of this late period of Imperial Roman history


Tags : Iron and Rust: Throne of the Caesars: Book 1 (Throne of Caesars) [Harry Sidebottom] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <DIV>Blending heart-pounding action and historical accuracy, Harry Sidebottom’s bestselling Warrior of Rome series took readers from the shouts of the battlefield to the whisperings of the emperor’s inner circle. Now,Harry Sidebottom,Iron and Rust: Throne of the Caesars: Book 1 (Throne of Caesars),Harry N. Abrams,1468310542,Action & Adventure,Historical,(OCoLC)fst01204885;Fiction.,Emperors - Rome,Historical fiction,Maximinus, C. Julius Verus,Rome (Empire).,Rome - History - Severans, 193-235,Rome;History;Maximinus, 235-238;Fiction.,(OCoLC)fst01204885,(OCoLC)fst01423787,ENGLISH HISTORICAL FICTION,FICTION Action & Adventure,FICTION General,FICTION Historical General,Fiction,Fiction - General,Fiction Historical,Fiction-ActionAdventure,Fiction.,FictionHistorical - General,GENERAL,General Adult,Historical - General,History,Maximinus, 235-238,Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945),Monograph Series, 1st,Rome,Rome (Empire).,Rome - History - Severans, 193-235,Rome;History;Maximinus, 235-238;Fiction.,United States,FICTION Action & Adventure,FICTION General,FICTION Historical General,Fiction Historical,FictionHistorical - General,General,Historical - General,Fiction - General,(OCoLC)fst01204885,(OCoLC)fst01423787,Fiction.,History,Maximinus, 235-238,Rome,English Historical Fiction,Fiction,Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)

Iron and Rust Throne of the Caesars Book 1 Throne of Caesars Harry Sidebottom 9781468310542 Books Reviews

The third century in the Roman empire was a chaotic time, ignored by most writers of Roman fiction. While I have enjoyed the Ballista series, I like the return to the central figures in the empire some 25 years before the Ballista novels began. After the reign of two disasterously weak emperors who only ruled because their bloodlines, the empire began to be ruled by the strongest, resulting in a huge number of civil wars. The reign of Maximinius Thrax was the first of the rulers during this dark time, which set the empire firmly in the path of decline. A great read bringing historical characters to life. As someone who has collected coins from this era, it really helps me to appreciate the lives behind the busts on the coins
I was not entirely sure that I wanted to read a prequel about Maximinus Thrax; not when we left Ballista in outer Barbaricum with his honor to regain, his family to protect, and his friends to avenge! But Iron and Rust is not a prequel, as we would ordinarily think of it, but something much more.
Every artist knows what it is like to have a vision for what one wants to create, but not quite be ready to do it yet; and many writers find that their vision is not what commercial publishing companies want to take a chance with. I suspect that it could have been for either of those reasons that when Sidebottom’s first novel, Fire in the East, hit shelves around 2009 it followed the model of many other gritty, almost exclusively masculine, military HF adventures. The reader of this genre wants a page turner with lots of details about torsion catapults and the like, and plenty of fight scenes, and Fire in the East certainly delivered. As the Warrior of Rome series continued, however, Sidebottom’s particular genius began to assert itself. Soon the readers realized that they were being treated to one of the most scholarly, textured, tangible accounts of ancient life (military and civilian) available, because the author was distilling a lifetime of study into every page that he wrote. Even with a history degree and decades of reading, I found I was still learning at least one thing per page, as Ballista’s adventures carried him not only throughout the Roman world, but into the gray mists beyond. Sidebottom was not simply amusing us with an exciting saga, he was taking us on a grand tour of the Crisis of the Third Century, (235-284 C.E.), a period of upheaval that would set the stage for the end of the Western Empire (almost 200 years later) and the Dark Ages.
So why should our journey change tracks? A few chapters into Iron and Rust it becomes clear that what Sidebottom is doing with this book is completely different from Warrior of Rome. Warrior of Rome is an intimate, up-close look at the events of the period through the eyes of a few men. Iron and Rust has the audacity and ambition to attempt a much larger view of what was happening. This is a very difficult task for a novel, so in order to achieve a more thorough investigation of the events, Sidebottom uses multiple vantage points. We follow a wide cast of complex characters, as each shows us a different part of the story and different aspects of the action, in much the same way that Martin does in Game of Thrones (though the comparison ends there). The central characters are not just soldiers, but politicians, craftsmen, matrons, socialites. There is still plenty of battles and intrigue in the novel, but that is not what the novel is about. Rather, it is about the big picture; a fiction-assisted history. Sidebottom gets deep into the thoughts of his characters, revealing their perspectives and the cultures behind them. Some of my favorite moments in Iron and Rust are when he takes these internal monologues even further, with characters who are acting on information that the reader knows (or at least suspects) to be incorrect.
Iron and Rust is probably not a book that most people are going to burn through in a weekend. In my opinion, it is better as a fireside book, read chapter by chapter to better absorb. A slower pace will probably help keep the legion of characters from becoming entangled, as the book has a lot of people competing for a fairly compact space. Iron and Rust is a unique, ambitious book; graduate-level HF, if you will. I enjoyed it, got a lot out of it, and am looking forward to the next addition to either series.

David Gray Rodgers, author of The Songs of Slaves
“Enrich the soldiers and ignore everyone else.” This was the maxim of Emperor Maximinus’ mentor, the Emperor Caracalla. It seemed like good advice as an emperor generally attained and maintained power at the behest of his troops. Unfortunately, Emperor Maximinus, who came to power in the coup that assassinated the Emperor Alexander Severus and his mother Mamea, took the advice a bit too much to heart. In enriching the soldiers he so depleted his revenues that he was compelled to raid the wealth of the temples to the gods, proscribe wealthy Senators and Equites to obtain their wealth, and cut the grain dole to the Roman plebes. Displeasing so many segments of the population led to revolts against his rule and full-scale bloody repression, and ultimately to his own destruction.
In Iron and Rust, Harry Sidebottom brings to life a lesser known era of late Roman history, the reign that ushered in a long period of instability and the inexorable decline and fall of the Roman Empire. The story is complex and there are a lot of characters and a lot of settings. The reign of Maximinus ended up being a reign of terror in which prominent Romans, even those like Timesitheus and Gordian who believed themselves in the good graces of the Emperor, lived in fear.
Rome at this time was attempting to retain the huge empire bequeathed by the earlier Caesars but was besieged on multiple fronts. There were the Germans, the Goths, the Sassanids, and even in Africa there were incursions by fierce nomadic tribesmen. Maximinus, a giant of a man, a Thracian risen through the ranks and raised to the position of Caesar by the soldiery is determined to conquer Germany once and for all and make it a province of Rome. His predecessor was roundly condemned for his policy of trying to buy off the Allamani and other German tribes. As a military man, Maximinus was successful in battle, but his efforts were ultimately in vain. Germany would never become a Roman province. As a result of his single-mindedness he would lose his beloved wife and ultimately, his own head.
Harry Sidebottom is an historian turned novelist and as such his books are impeccably researched and erudite. The novel is not light reading but is a worthwhile commitment for anyone who desires and understanding of this late period of Imperial Roman history