Last Legion
A Novel
By Valerio Massimo Manfredi
Translated from the Italian By Christine Feddersen-Manfredi
November 2003
Pan Macmillan
ISBN: 9780330489751
435 pages, Illustrated, 4 ½" x 7"
$19.95 Paper Original
The camp was quiet. Mist shrouded the plains and the Nova Invicta Legion, the legendary warriors charged with protecting the last Emperor of Rome, settled in for another cold and bitter night. Then, through the fog, the barbarians appeared. In the space of a few hours all was lost: the Imperial family was executed and the young Emperor, Romulus Augustus, deposed and imprisoned.
The Roman Empire lay in ruins…. But not all the Romans were dead. From the mud of the battlefield, a band of seemingly immortal legionaires arises: Rufius Aelius Vatrenus, veteran of countless battles, Cornelius Batiatus, a gigantic Ethiopian of incredible strength, and Aurelius, their commander, the most loyal and valiant of them all. They are joined by Livia Prisca, a formidable warrioress who emerges from the steaming swamps of Ravenna like a magical apparition.
They are the Last Legion. Risking their lives, the legion attempts an audacious and desperate mission: to free Emperor Romulus Augustus and his enigmatic tutor Meridius Ambrosinus. This is a bewitching novel of bravery, love, myth and magic. Brilliant, captivating and utterly convincing, the author has written an epic which will hold you spellbound until the very last page.
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