Set in ancient Rome, Your Caius Aquilla is composed of hilarious
letters between a doting and brave but quite bumbling legionary and his
beautiful, zaftig wife, Lora. While Caius fights barbarians (and fights
off--often unsuccessfully--homosexual feelings for his fellow soldiers),
Lora cossets her to-her adorable (and very cruel) children, and fends
off (read: encourages/takes) lovers of both sexes. An act of fate and
mistaken identity eventually brings Caius home for good from
campaign--where, as he and Lora truly love each other, he belongs.
Despite the fact that handsome Caius Aquilla is a singularly brave Roman
legionnaire, his brother-soldiers keep on having mishaps (fatal, no
less) whenever he's around. A situation which doesn't endear him to them
one little bit. One day, however, humping back to base camp with his
platoon after a successful fray against some Gauls or Picts (he never
seems to know which barbarians he's subduing), he spies a diminutive
general being attacked by a swarm of killer wasps. Thinking fast, Caius
throws himself upon the general (who, in attempting to swat away the
mad, deadly insects, has fallen from his horse), thus sparing the
superior officer a possible fatal fate. Caius thusly goes from pariah to
golden boy, and shortly the hand of destiny (and a spelling error in the
ranks' roll sheet) sends him home from campaigning--home to his
to-say-the-least fanciful and beautiful wife Lora, where things really
go off the rails.
A satire of U.S. militarism and imperialism, *Your Caius Aquilla* is a
gem of a novel and a smart and sometimes too real portrait of a society
beholden to its military.
