The Legate\'s Daughter by Wallace Breem

[Michael Kerr]

Although it has been awhile I remember Winter Quarters by Alfred Duggan which was about two Gallic nobles from the Pyrenees area who having a knowledge of horses which the Romans found useful, joined the Roman army in Gaul, ended up joining Crassus's army in Rome befriending a Greek & then travelled with the army to Greece then through Asia Minor and ending up at the fleshpots of Antioch in Syria, their tragic march to war against the Parthians and Surena's mounted (Saka?) archers & cataphracts and how after the destruction of Crassus's army, a few Roman survivors ended up as mercenaries fighting for the Parthians against the Huns while based in Margiana. I enjoyed the book, Duggan seemed to have an understanding of the Roman army & how the Gauls & Greeks viewed the Romans in general. But I am a bit biased on the subject of Carrhae and enjoy books dealing with the defeat & destruction of Crassus & his army and what may have happened to the survivors of his defeated army. Authors like Ben Kane with his Forgotten Legion trilogy about the adventures of some survivors of the battle of Carrhae seeking to return home, H. Warner Munn's The Lost Legion, covering a similar theme but is a fictional tale about an entire legion sent by Caligula for punishment on a suicide mission to find out what happened to the army of Crassus (a bit late I feel) & Dean J Carter's The Western Dragon which was supposed to be part 1 of a trilogy about a Roman Centurion who ends up as a mercenary general in the Han Chinese army after the defeat of the Roman army at Carrhae. Quite funny in some parts of the book where after trying noodles for the first time he tells a Chinese comrade how noodles would be a hit amongst his Italian comrades in the Roman army. However I have seen no subsequent sequels on his original book written in 2008 which is a shame. But Winter Quarters is not a bad read except you know what happened to the main protagonist as the book starts off with him as a mercenary on the Sea of Grass near Margiana, mulling over his fate & how he angered some goddess & then he relates to the reader how he got to his current predicament. mile:

Regards
Michael Kerr