A dramatic retelling of the story of the final years of the Western
Roman Empire and the downfall of Rome itself from the perspective of the
Roman general Stilicho and Alaric, king of the Visigoths.
It took little more than a single generation for the centuries-old Roman
Empire to fall. In those critical decades, while Christians and pagans,
legions and barbarians, generals and politicians squabbled over
dwindling scraps of power, two men - former comrades on the
battlefield - rose to prominence on opposite sides of the great game of
empire. Roman general Flavius Stilicho, the man behind the Roman throne,
dedicated himself to restoring imperial glory, only to find himself
struggling for his life against political foes. Alaric, King of the
Goths, desired to be a friend of Rome, was betrayed by it, and given no
choice but to become its enemy. Battling each other to a standstill,
these two warriors ultimately overcame their differences in order to
save the empire from enemies on all sides. And when one of them fell,
the other took such vengeance as had never been seen in history.
Don Hollway, author of The Last Viking, combines ancient chroniclers'
accounts of Stilicho and Alaric into an unforgettable history of
betrayal, politics, intrigue and war for the heart and soul of the Roman
Empire.
