Ever the Twins Shall Meet

It’s mid-morning in late March of 88 AD. The marketplace in Smyrna, a remote Aegean outpost of the Roman Empire, is alive with shoppers and merchants. Suddenly, a commotion erupts and a handsome young man, well-dressed, is being confronted by a merchant and two Roman legionnaires—the policeman of that time—and is taken into custody for a theft that had occurred the prior day. Thus does Marsallas, son of an early Christian missionary and himself a spreader of the word of Christ, find himself detained by the authorities, accused of a crime that three eye witnesses saw during its commission, and imprisoned without a trial even though he insists that he is a Roman citizen and deserves the privileges of such citizenship, which include trial before a judge. But why? Why were the witnesses so sure that it had been Marsallus? Only one explanation would suffice: that Marsallus has a twin brother. And that turns out to be the precise truth! This book is about that truth, about how the young twins became separated, why it was kept a family secret for so many years—and never disclosed to Marsallus by his parents. But even more, it’s about the dangerous and potentially fatal adventures that the young Roman has to endure in his efforts to escape his imprisonment, to remain free even though a wanted man, and to find a way to return to his family and solve the riddle that his life became on that bright morning in March. Do the brothers re-unite? Is that even possible? Author C. Norman Noble tells a suspenseful, fast-moving story that is touched with the faith of a young Christian, the cruelty and injustice of the all-powerful secular government of Emperor, Titus Flavious Domitianus, the difficulty of daily existence in those ancient times, and—ultimately—the love that sustains life, has always overcome adversity . . . and still does so.