In this sequel to The Eagle of the Ninth, set in Roman Britain in the late 3rd century C.E., the reader meets two young descendants of Marcus Flavius Aquila, the hero of the earlier novel.  Justin, an assistant army surgeon, has been posted to Britain for the first time, and meets his cousin Flavius, a centurion in the army who grew up on the farm that has been in the family since Marcus first settled there with his British wife Cottia and his friend Esca. Flavius wears the dolphin signet ring we last saw on the hand of Marcus.  The two cousins serve under Carausius, who has made himself emperor of Britain, and who seeks to make Britain strong enough to withstand Saxon attacks even if Rome falls.  Justin and Marcus uncover a plot against Carausius, but when they inform him of this, he sends them away to serve on Hadrian’s Wall.  When the plot succeeds, and Carausius is assassinated, the cousins leave the Wall, and with a diverse collection of interesting 

characters they work to resist Carausius’ successor and prepare for his overthrow.  The eagle – the standard of the lost ninth legion – reappears once more and has a role to play. - Deborah Roberts

* For further information on the Our Mythical Childhood Survey, please refer to the website of the project “Our Mythical Childhood” [link: http://omc.obta.al.uw.edu.pl/], led by Prof. Katarzyna Marciniak at the Faculty of “Artes Liberales,” University of Warsaw, Poland, with the participation of Bar Ilan University, University of New England, University of Roehampton, University of Yaoundé 1, and other affiliated scholars, within the funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (grant agreement No 681202).