#Wallace Breem

[blogtaculous]

I first read Eagle in the Snow in high school because I had just finished Gates of Fire and promptly hit up the library website to search for all the Steven Pressfield they had and saw he wrote the introduction. When I read it then it felt so contemporary I assumed it had been written during my lifetime. How surprised was I to see it was published in the 1970s!

I read it again during my vacation and it still feels so contemporary it makes me go feral. It points a lot of fingers and it’s still pointing them at the right places and the right people. What an incredible piece of writing.

It’s become my favorite book, supplanting the novel that helped me discover it, because it remains uncomfortable. Gates of Fire, for all its strengths, still makes heroes of its cast while Breem was content with his cast dying. They died and what did they die for? Nothing, frankly. They just died.

It reminds me of Dan Olson’s video about Doug Peterson’s The Wall: “these people didn’t die heroically for a great cause. They just died.” (Heavy paraphrasing)

(Frankly as time goes on I find it more and more inappropriate that Gates of Fire refuses to acknowledge —and condemn— the pedophilia inherent to the time and place it takes place in, plus who wants to glorify the Spartans, if all people?)

I also encountered, for the first time, the room temperature IQ Goodreads user who didn’t like Eagle in the Snow. This was by accident. I was scrolling the immense praise for the novel and was pretty surprised by it because it still feels like a hidden gem to me. Lo and behold, some dude who “reads” so many books I don’t think he comprehends them and has a Roman legionary helmet on in his profile photo shows up to call it Bad. The criticism, if I may be so bold as to read between the lines, is that the idea of Rome and the Roman citizen is not diefied.

So much of Roman Empire fandom in the modern era (and just about every era since it fell) has been an extreme love for the violence, the authoritarianism, and the cruelty. Those things, eventually, brought the whole system to its knees and this reviewer didn’t like that. There are no Heroes in Eagle in the Snow, not really, and this reviewer can’t handle a Rome without one. He’s upset that greed eats the empire alive and all the capable men play at kings… like, my brother in (I assume) Christ, that’s just what happened. This isn’t really even a debate. If you can’t handle it maybe you should interrogate why that makes you so uncomfortable. Maybe you shouldn’t stan an ancient culture that would have hated you.

Also shoutout to the little section where you complained about the “lack of subtext” when most of the details are subtextual because the narrator rarely speaks anything plainly. It’s hard to believe you actually read the thing.

Anyway, I love this novel. I’ll probably read it again in a few months. I have a Lego display in mind for it, also, but Legionnaires are so expensive…

[inland--empire]

Omg Breen my bestie Breem howzit going?-Junko

I am very happy you get to reconnect with your people but I do feel quite sad I will most likely never apologize to everyone I want to apologize too-Dr. Wallace Breen

[racefortheironthrone]

I just finished Eagle in the Snow by Wallace Breem, and I couldn't help but notice a lot of stuff that seemed like it might have inspired the Wall storyline in ASOIAF - its whole storyline on Hadrian's Wall; the references to the "old gods"; the general sense of a small, abandoned group of men fighting a desperate defense against a vast horde of enemies in the frozen north. What are your thoughts, and have you run across any evidence that suggests Martin drew from this book?

I don’t know of anything that suggests that book specifically, but a lot of those themes are pretty common to media that’s set at Hadrian’s Wall - there’s a lot of books about the supposedly lost Eagle of the Ninth - even though Hadrian’s Wall was much less a defense against barbarian invasion (compared to the Limes Germanicus) than a customs barrier. 

[marenostrum-ac-dc]

This strange but decorative object is a Roman-period metal dice tower, the only one ever found. Its rectangular copper panels, fortunately almost intact, were discovered in 1983 in the ruins of a richly-furnished Roman villa not far from Vettweiß-Froitzheim, a day's march west of Cologne. Cologne, on the Roman frontier with Germania, was the birthplace of Agrippina the Younger [daughter of Augustus' son Germanicus, mother of Nero, empress as wife of her uncle Claudius]. In her honour the Ubian native village her father had used as a base while campaigning was raised to the status of colonia with the glorious name of Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium. And prospered. As you can see - this dice tower was the classic gift for the guy who has everything.

The tower itself is 22.5cm high and 9.5cm wide and stood on a flat surface. The top was decorated with merlons and four bronze pine cones. The player threw his dice into the open top, and they rolled down a chute of folded metal sheets designed to randomise their progress to the open staircase at the base guarded by two jumping dolphins, like the dolphins that marked the 'turn' for chariot races in the hippodrome. Three bells [one survives intact] hung over the exit and rang when the dice rolled out. Great for parties. It was well used, so obviously lots of parties... https://www.wissenschaft.de/magazin/weitere-themen/roemer-und-kelten-im-museum/ in German - DeepL www.deepl.com/translator.html is better than Google here.

Dice towers are pictured in mosaics from North Africa and one from Antiocha on the Orontes [since 1939 in Turkey and now called Antakya]. The text on the front shows that such towers were used for the game called 'Ludus Duodecim Scriptorum' which was the ancestor of backgammon and just as popular. Boards and parts of boards survive across the Empire, from Qustul in the Sudan [complete with 5 dice, a dice tower and 30 ivory playing pieces] to Richborough in Kent.

The poster-like text, six words of 6 letters each, was also part of the playing tradition. This one is unusually direct and military - PICTOS / VICTOS / HOSTIS / DELETA / LVDITE / SECVRI - 'The Picts are defeated, the enemy is annihilated. Play! You can relax...

Which dates it to the 4th century, possibly the brisk sorting out of chaos and unpaid troops in Northern Britain under the elder Theodosius in 368/69, dignified in the East as 'The Great Conspiracy' and written up by the utterly unreliable Ammianus Marcellinus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Conspiracy; or... just possibly... a reference to the poem 'In Eutropium' [which translates as 'sticking it to Eutropius', the eunuch in charge of the Eastern Empire] by Claudian, where the poet praises his patron Stilicho for pacifying the Saxon Shore 'domito quod Saxone Tethys mitior' - Tethys being the Ocean - and making safe a Britain shattered by the Picts 'fracto secura Britannia Picto'. http://www.vortigernstudies.org.uk/artsou/claudian.htm That would be about 398.

So we see Roman magnates at the end of Empire reclined after dinner with the reassurance of their dice box - the enemy is annihilated, relax and play! - as the Germans crept ever closer, and on 31 December 406 crossed the Rhine at Maintz, changing the Western Empire for ever...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_of_the_Rhine.

That was the moment in the West when the world changed, and all the certainties of 400 years of Empire vanished. If you want to know what it felt like at the time, do read the classic and much recommended 'Eagle in the Snow' by Wallace Breem which you can download on Kindle [£2.99 UK and $3.99 US].

[elucubrare]

Novels and or papers with great descriptions of Ancient Rome? Thank you!

Do you mean physical descriptions? For that, there’s a really neat scale model + also this map that tells you how long it would take to get various places in the empire.

As for fiction that takes place in Rome, I’ve got a couple of recs, but I actually haven’t found as much as I’d like that I enjoy.

I really liked, emphasis on the past tense there, Lindsey Davis’ Marcus Didius Falco mystery series - I feel like I wouldn’t now, because her dialogue is the kind of clever that grates on my nerves, but I also feel like she really gets the spirit of the city and the time.

I won’t pretend that Kara Dalkey’s Euryale is a work for the ages or anything, and it is very over-researched and you can tell, but it’s an interesting story, and her Rome is good. 

Rosemary Sutcliff’s Outcast is a quiet story about a young Roman who was brought up in a British tribe. She really gets Rome, in a way that Dalkey, despite all her research, doesn't. 

I, Claudius is heavily based on Suetonius, who has very Roman ideas of a woman’s place, and you can tell; as far as I know, Graves invented the idea of Livia, Augustus’ wife, as conniving and evil. Claudius the God is very depressing, as it has to deal with history, in which the bumbling, kind main character killed a bunch of people, but it’s good. 

If you don’t mind old stuff, Andivius Hedulio is the most fun I’ve had in Rome - the misadventures of a hapless patrician, who gets caught up in various schemes, through no fault of his own.

I love William Stearns Davis (also from the early 20th) in general; I don’t really remember A Friend of Caesar, but I liked it. 

Wallace Breem’s Eagle in the Snow is very, um, masculine: there’s, I think, a single female character and she doesn’t have a name, but it’s about Romanitas and Holding the Line and maintaining the Empire among barbarians, and it makes my little Roman heart beat faster.

Lastly, I feel like I have to put five thousand disclaimers on A Song for Nero - the female characters are treated pretty badly; there’s a lot of casual violence, especially near the end; the main character is a terrible person and knows it - but it’s hilarious: so many actually good and clever Classics jokes, and he gets the spirit of the age, and the plot has great turns and moments, and it got me to sympathize with Nero. Nero!  

[hawthorn-and-nettles]

PSRC 2017

A book recommend by a librarian: At Home In Mitford - Jan Karon

A book that’s been on your TBR list for way to long: Bird Box - Josh Maleman

A book of letters: Letters of Note - Shaun Usher

An audio-book :The City of Ember - Jeanne DuPrau

A book by a person of color: What Lies Between -  Nayomi Munaweera

A book with one of the four seasons in the title: When Autumn Leaves -  Amy S. Foster

A book that is a story within a story: The Princess Bride - William Goldman

A book with multiple authors: Nature of the Beast - Various Authors

An espionage thriller: American Assassin - Vince Flynn

A book with a cat on the cover: Warriors: Into the Wild - Erin Hunter

A book by an author who uses a pseudonym: The running Man - Richard Bachman

A bestseller form a genre you don’t normally read:Nights in Rodanthe - Nicholas Sparks

A book by or about a person who has a disability: Grim Tuesday - Garth Nix

A book involving  travel: The Beach -  Alex Garland

A book with a subtitle: A Street Cat Named Bob and How He Saved My Life - James Bowen

A book that’s published in 2017: The Edge of Everything - Jeff Giles

A book involving a mythical creatures:The Lion , the Witch, and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis

A book you’ve read before that never fails to make you smile: Graceling - Kristin Cashor 

A book about food: The Nasty Bits - Anthony Bourdain

A book with career advice: Quitter: Closing the Gap - Jon Acuff

A book form a nonhuman perspective: The Journey - Kathryn Lasky

A steampunk novel: Soulless -  Gail Carriger

A book with a red spine: Bloodbound - Patricia Briggs

A book set in the wilderness:The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon - Stephen King 

A book you loved as a child:The Kissing Hand - Audrey Penn

A book by an author from a country you’ve never visited: The Beautiful Dead - Belinda Bauer

A book with at title that’s a characters’ name: Mister Monday -  Garth Nix

A novel set during wartime: The Eagle in the Snow - Wallace Breem

A book with an unreliable narrator: Before I go to Sleep - S. J. Watson

A book with pictures: Coraline - Neil Gaimen

A book where the main character is a different ethnicity from you: Changless -  Gail Carriger

A book about an interesting woman:Blameless - Gail Carriger

A book set in two different time periods: The Shining Girls - Lauren Beukes

A book with a month or day of the week in the title: The Door to December - Richard Paige

A book set in a hotel: Eloise - Kay Thompson

A book written by someone you admire:No Reservations - Anthony Bourdain

A book that’s becoming a movie in 2017: The Girl with the Gifts - M. R. Carey

A book set around a holiday other than Christmas: The Halloween Tree -  Ray Bradbury

The first book in a series you haven't read before: Parasite - Mira Grant

A book you bough on a trip: Assassins’ Honor - Monica Burns

A book recommended by an author you love: Grave Witch - Kalayna Price

A bestseller from 2016: A Dog’s Purpose -  W. Bruce Cameron

A book with a family-member term in the title: My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry -Fredrik Backman

A book that takes place over a character’s life span: The 100 year old man who walked out the window and disappeared - Jonas Jonasson

A book about an immigrant or refugee: Same Sky -  Amanda Eyre Ward

A book from a genre/sub-genre that you’ve never heard of: Heartless - Gail Carriger

A book with an eccentric character: Timeless - Gail Carriger

A book thats more than 800 pages: The Shape Shifters - Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

A book you got from a used books sale: The Keepsake -  Tess Gerritsen

A book that’s been mentioned in another book - Medium Raw - Anthony Bourdain

 A book about a difficult topic: My heart and other black holes - Jasmine Warga

A book based on mythology: American Gods - Neil Gaimen

[yesooxyzomr]

"He spoke in looks rather than words..."

Wallace Breem

[librosgratisxyz]

El Águila en la Nieve - Wallace Breem

El Águila en la Nieve – Wallace Breem

El águila en la nieve es sin ningún género de dudas la mejor novela sobre la caída del Imperio romano. Wallace Breem despliega su considerable talento para trazar un relato de los días postreros del mayor imperio que el mundo ha conocido, y de la desesperación y el heroísmo de sus últimos defensores. El general Máximo, protagonista principal de la novela, sirvió junto con muchos otros detalles de…

[blogtaculous]

My 20 book covers in 20 days, summarized:

Eagle in the Snow by Wallace Breem

Last of the Amazons by Steven Pressfield

King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild

Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman

War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells

Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica (translated by Sarah Moses)

Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield

A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes

Armageddon by Aaron Dembski-Bowden

Lost Letters of Medieval Life edited and translated by Martha Carlin and David Crouch

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid

The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth by Beth Allison Barr

Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer

The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity by Robert P. Jones

The Last Full Measure: The Life and Death of the First Minnesota Volunteers by Richard Moe

Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam by Nick Turse

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks

Hero of the Underground: A Memoir by Jason Peter