Fire & Sword

Ancient Rome's Emperor Maximinus faces wars and uprisings in this tale of political intrigue from the bestselling author of the Warrior of Rome novels.

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. In this second book of his new Throne of the Caesars series, Sidebottom continues his retelling of one of the bloodiest periods of Roman history—the Year of the Six Emperors.


In Rome in the year 238 AD, Emperor Maximinus's reign hangs in the balance. The empire is bleeding manpower and money in order to sustain its wars in the north, and rebellions flare in the far reaches of its territories. Meanwhile in Africa, Gordian the Elder and Younger are proclaimed as the new Augusti. A family descending from the Imperial bloodline, they represent a chance for the establishment to take back the empire. The first blood of the revolt is shed in Rome when an assassin murders the emperor's prefect, announcing to Rome that the Gordians have taken the throne; still bitter at Maximinus's rise from the barracks to power, the Senate endorses the rebellion, and chaos descends on the capitol. But in his heart, Maximinus is a man of war: when he hears of the betrayal, he acts with decisive brutality and violence. On the dusty plains outside Carthage, blood and steel will determine the fate of the Roman Empire . . .

Praise for Blood & Steel
"Swashbuckling as well as bloody, yet curiously plausible . . . Best of all [Sidebottom] has a real gift for summoning up a sense of place, and conveying the sheer vastness of the Roman empire and its implications." —Times Literary Supplement
"Sidebottom continues his "Throne of the Caesars" series . . . with his new novel, Blood & Steel, and reading the intense drama he crafts out of the tumultuous events of the Roman Empire in AD 238 is a reminder that we're lucky to have these books. . . . This is an era of Roman history for which we have less reliable primary source histories than we'd like; it's the perfect playground for a novelist, and it's found a superb dramatist." —Open Letters Monthly