num_pages: 219
description: Whereas The Fourteenth of October was the story of a Saxon boy who saw the battle of Hastings, in Roman Wall Bryher has turned to a lonely outpost of the Roman Empire in Switzerland, the country where she was born. This book has all the excitement and poetic charm of the first, and from the moment it opens, the reader is gently drawn into thc atmosphere of another age. The sights and sounds are those of seventeen hundred years ago, and one is instantly aware of the lassitude and restlessness, the hopes and the fears of the isolated frontier guards at Orba, as the threat of the German tribes, massed on the other side of the Rhine, grows daily more menacing. Valerius, the commander, wonders whether the storm will break before he can find a wife and retire to his farm. Demetrius, an old Greek merchant, anxiously hurries to complete his last journey home to Verona. Vinodius, the governor of the province, too shrewd to underestimate the danger, yet too obstinate to raise troops and arms, squanders his gold on the arena and a public holiday at Aventicum. Alternately, one is fascinated by the liveliness and colour and awed by the sense of doom as the walls of the Roman Empire begin to crumble.
language: English
title: Roman Wall
titlecomplete: Roman Wall
characters: Plinius, a young soldier, Nennius, "Surly Felix", a freedman, Julia, his sister, Valerius, a centurion, Rufus, a soldier and harnessmaker, Demetrius, a  trader, Veria, Governor Vinodius
genres: Fiction, Novels, Historical Fiction
ratings_count: 24
publisher: Random House Inc