•
Rating:
Romolo Augusto is the last Roman emperor on the throne of the Caesars, an unfortunate thirteen-year-old boy who loses both of his parents in a raid by barbarian soldiers, commanded by a loyal general of the Gothic king Odoacer who is conquering Italy.
Left alone, he is comforted by the elderly tutor Ambrosinus and escorted like regular prisoners to Odoacer's palace in Ravenna, where they remain for a few days before being exiled for the rest of their days to the inaccessible island of Capri.
From there the true adventure begins, where a small band of valiant heroes: Aurelius, Livia, Batiatus, Vatreno, Demetrius, and Orosius, commence the young emperor's escape in a journey that traverses our continent from south to north up to the green Britannia, a land subjugated by the harsh tyranny of King Wortigern.
Even though this novel is set 1500 years ago, it is not very realistic, as beautiful or interesting as it may be; the fact that a handful of men manage to escape such a large multitude of barbarian soldiers, led by Wulfila, the loyal general of Odoacer, but it is certainly not this that diminishes the value of such a tale, because this is precisely the beauty of the historical novel.
The film, based on this book, does not seem very similar to the story to me, due to the rapid succession of events, as they reach Britannia soon after escaping from the island of Capri.
Manfredi wrote this book with very simple language to be well understood by everyone and thus involve readers in the fantastic events, sometimes he used words from that era, or military technical terms.
I didn't think there was any coincidence with the story of King Arthur, but I was wrong.
I also understood where that curious and unusual sword comes from, which previously had an unknown history that has now become clear in my understanding.
Loading comments slowly
