"One of the best new Second Punic War books"
- BookAuthority
ABOUT THE BOOK
In the Shadow of the Furies
A Novel of the Second Punic War
Available Now in eBook and Paperback
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Cary Reed's debut novel takes you into the thick of the fight for the Roman Republic its darkest hours. Intimately told from the perspectives of the real men and women involved in Hannibal's epic march over the Alps, In the Shadow of the Furies is a gripping story flush with military strategy, thrilling hand to hand combat, and political intrigue.
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In the grandeur and brutality of ancient Rome, a man is only as great as his daring.
Set during Hannibal's epic march over the Alps, In the Shadow of the Furies is a gripping historical fiction that that explores the universal themes of human nature that drive the will of great men and women to accomplish great and terrible things. Even those without a love of the history of the era will find this story engrossing. Available on Amazon.
Scipio lives the charmed life of a Roman playboy, but his indolence masks the pain of a past he refuses to face, and the bitter rejection of his estranged father, the consul Cornelius. Women and wine quench Scipio’s thirst for life, until the day he hungers for something more. Driven by staunch principles and fiery debate, Aemelia is unlike any woman Scipio’s desired and he longs to make her his wife. But Amelia and her father know that he is a lover, not a husband. Beyond the grand halls and opulent gardens of Rome, war with Carthage is brewing. When Scipio is invited to join his father on the battlefields of Hispania, it is his chance to find glory and finally silence the shame and guilt that haunts him. Waiting for them is the brilliant and deadly general Hannibal, and the hard realities of war.
At home, Aemelia watches as the city she loves threatens to slip back into prejudice, misogyny, and corruption. In an age of glorious victory, molten desires, and brutal consequences, Scipio and Aemelia walk the fine edge of disaster, while caught in the grip of a conflict that will shape the world forever.
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Recommendations
Podcasts
Almost Forgotten
Charlie has a real gift for storytelling, and provides excellent context for the main subject of each of his podcasts. Definitely recommend to anyone curious about some of the lesser-taught and -known (but really interesting and consequential) people and events in history.
Books
The Ghosts of Cannae: Hannibal and the Darkest Hour of the Roman Republic
Centered around Hannibal's masterful tactical success at Cannae but nit overly focused on it, Mr. O'Connell tells a compelling story that was one of the inspirations for my novel. Hannibal's genius and his flaws, along with those of the Roman Republic, are vividly described. Historians are divided on a lot of things (as are those in other disciplines, none more so than scholars of international relations), such as the importance of the individual vs. the importance of powerful forces that no one can control or, at times, fully comprehend. Mr. Connell seems to make a good case for both at times. I don't know if this was his intention or I am simply misreading it; but this book made me think about whether this conflict and its outcome were as inevitable as they seem with the benefit of hindsight.
Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic
Like many readers, I have enduring interests and I also go through phases. This book turned my interest in ancient Rome from a passing phase to something much more. The story of Julius Caesar and the Roman civil war is one of the most well-known in history, and it a very talented historian to tell it freshly. Mr. Holland manages to do that in a way that fascinates and informs. Along with How Democracies Die, this was one of the books that really alarmed me about the current times and the threat of populism to democracies around the world, but particularly in the United States. Like Mr. Connell's book, Rubicon also made me thought about the issue of the importance of individual actors in great events. I'm no fan of Caesar, so for me the real tragedy of the story wasn't his assassination but rather what followed (events also told well in many different forms from Shakespeare to HBO's Rome. The Dominate that followed was, to me, the true death of Rome. Empire and democracy are anathema to one another. Caesar, seeming to realize that an empire could not be governed democratically, prioritized the former over the later.
Discourses on Livy - Oxford's World Calssics
Machiavelli is one of the most fascinating political philosophers of all time. Many may know and can quote (and misquote) The Prince. The Discourses are, if not quite as succinct, a much more important work. Written with the benefit of hundreds of years of Roman history on which to reflect, Machiavelli saw patterns in seemingly chaotic tapestry from which he extracted practical lessons. For instance, his discussion on Cesare Borgia includes the forces that thrust a volatile ignoramus and bully into a position power and authority through a combination of nepotism, luck, shamelessness, and opportunism. He reminds us of the importance to a Republic of having people of virtue in public life, because it is when they cease to be interested in public office that the body politic collapses into partisan strife and, ultimately, falls to dictatorship.
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Machiavelli was overwhelmingly preoccupied with ending foreign dominance of Italy and seeing his country become a united and powerful state, but he also created an argument against inherited power that was more far-sighted than the parochial problems of his time.
The Peloponnesian War
Don't get me wrong - Thucydides is great and I definitely recommend reading History of the Peloponnesian War, but Donald Kagan's work is incredible. When I read Thucydides, it was as a student to learn about how nations cope international crises. When I read Kagan, it was the story of a democracy that stumbled into a long, drawn-out conflict that cost far most in blood and treasure than its proponents promised. Athens celebrated tactical victories, as all states are wont to do, while overextending itself and, eventually, losing its empire.
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Both Kagan and Thucydides teach us about the fundamental forces involved in international politics - fear, greed, and pride. What's more, this is a good study of how demagogues rose to prominence and power in Athens, revealing that these same three fundamental forces are at work in democratic politics along with a fourth - simplicity.
(More) Nerdy Goodness
Real People and Events Depicted in In the Shadow of the Furies
The lex Oppia
One of things with which authoritarian governments the world over always seem to concern themselves is public morality, and one of the first places they begin is women. It likely serves several purposes, primarily reinforcing existing hierarchies. Just as the father is head of the household and his word is law, the government is head of the nation, and challenging this hierarchy is a subversive act. Some actually find this comforting. The Authoritarian Dynamic by Karen Stenner provides an excellent summary of studies that examine individual preferences for authoritarianism and how, when combined with the perception of "threat" to what they value, these tendencies translate into their political action.
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The lex Oppia was a sumptuary law specifically aimed at Roman women. It severely restricted women's wealth and displays thereof - clothes, jewelry, and even modes of travel. There were other sumptuary laws passed after the lex Oppia that regulated things like the number of guests allowed at a dinner party, and most were aimed at generating revenue for the war with Carthage; but the lex Oppia, and Cato the Elder's defense of it as written by Livy, reminded me of all those regimes around the world that seek to limit freedom in the name of "public morality."
The Volcae and the Taurini
The Romans had a long and, for the most part, unpleasant history with the Celtic people of the Iron Age. Toward the Middle Republic, the balance of power shifted decisively in favor of Rome and its allies for a variety of reasons. It's no surprise, then, that Hannibal's invasion of Italy attracted Rome's many enemies in Cisalpine Gaul ("Gaul Below the Alps") that had outstanding grievances against it.
What was surprising (to me, at least, as a dilatant classicist) is that several tribes actively fought or resisted Hannibal as he brought his army through Gaul and over the Alps. The first was the Volcae. Many tribes used this name, but the one to which I now refer had settled on the eastern side of the Rhone River. They were, by the accounts I read, friendly to Rome, and resisted Hannibal. Of course, they probably weren't thrilled at the prospect of 40,000 men, thousands of horses and dozens of elephants tromping through their lands. Still, the logic of self-preservation dictates letting such a force pass through unmolested; but perhaps friendship and honor counted for more. The second were the Taurini, whose primary city of Taurasia Hannibal besieged and sacked after being refused aid when he came out of the Alps. We don't really know why this was the case, but is might have had something to do with the Taurini's rivalry with the Insubres over water rights on the Po. Perhaps it was because the Insubres and Boii had together risen up against Rome. Though it seems unlikely that their rivals would have had the opportunity to forge an alliance with Hannibal before the Taurini were facing the siege, perhaps they thought that the enemy of their enemies' enemy ought to be their enemy... Or something like that. In any case, their calculations proved disastrously incorrect, and Taurini was taken in three days.