Alaric S Gold

Alaric’s Gold is full of suspense that will leave readers wondering what’s reality and what’s fiction.

In AD 410, the Roman world suffered a catastrophe of unprecedented proportions when for the first time in 800 years a foreign army, led by the Visigoth King Alaric, sacked Rome and carried off its most valuable treasures. Alaric played a significant role in the dismemberment of the western Roman empire but he died before he could leave Italy. His followers buried him in a secret tomb laden with the plunder of Rome including, possibly, the sacred Temple treasures of the Jews. In The Lost Gold of Rome, Costa traces the life and death of Alaric and explores the modern quest to discover his grave.

Barbarians serving in the Roman army, like all other Roman soldiers, faced difficult choices as political events buffeted their leaders and threatened their livelihoods. Honorius, Stilicho, Alaric, Galla Placidia, Constantius III and usurpers like Constantine III and Attalus left their imprints upon these years - coloring the fabric of political and spiritual life as much as they affected military affairs.

Combining a unique overview of metropolitan visual culture with detailed textual analysis, this interdisciplinary study explores the relationship between the two cities which Londoners inhabited: the physical spaces of the metropolis, whose socially stratified and gendered topography was shaped by consumer culture and unregulated capitalism; and an imaginary 'London', an 'Unreal City' which reflected and influenced their understanding of, and actions in, the 'real' environment.

Denied citizenship by the Roman Empire, a soldier named Alaric changed history by unleashing a surprise attack on the capital city of an unjust empire. Stigmatized and relegated to the margins of Roman society, the Goths were violent “barbarians” who destroyed “civilization,” at least in the conventional story of Rome’s collapse. But a slight shift of perspective brings their history, and ours, shockingly alive. Alaric grew up near the river border that separated Gothic territory from Roman. He survived a border policy that separated migrant children from their parents, and he was denied benefits he likely expected from military service. Romans were deeply conflicted over who should enjoy the privileges of citizenship. They wanted to buttress their global power, but were insecure about Roman identity; they depended on foreign goods, but scoffed at and denied foreigners their own voices and humanity. In stark contrast to the rising bigotry, intolerance, and zealotry among Romans during Alaric’s lifetime, the Goths, as practicing Christians, valued religious pluralism and tolerance. The marginalized Goths, marked by history as frightening harbingers of destruction and of the Dark Ages, preserved virtues of the ancient world that we take for granted. The three nights of riots Alaric and the Goths brought to the capital struck fear into the hearts of the powerful, but the riots were not without cause. Combining vivid storytelling and historical analysis, Douglas Boin reveals the Goths’ complex and fascinating legacy in shaping our world.

AD 406. Abandoned by friends and hounded by enemies, Roman cavalry commander Marcus Flavius Victor and a small band of loyal warriors know that the time has come to leave an increasingly fractured Britannia. Their journey takes them across the bleak, pirate-infested seas of the Mare Germanicum to Saxonia and on into the dark heart of barbarism. It seems the Britons' only salvation lies with an old comrade, General Stilicho - based far to the east but still within the sanctuary of the Empire. But the general has troubles of his own: his influence with the Emperor Honorius is waning, and a great warrior people are on the march - for Radagaisus, king of the Ostrogoths, has promised his subjects all the riches of Italia, and they will leave a sea of Roman bones in their wake. But as Marcus and his companions battle their way towards what they hope will a safe haven of sorts, they stumble across a secret which could decide the fate of the Empire. But who can they really trust, and can Marcus reach Stilicho in time - because his every step is dogged by a son who wants him dead... Set during the desperate twilight years of Rome's once all-powerful empire, The Barbarian is the action-packed and thrillingly authentic new historical novel from one of the genre's very best.