Usurper

It is the turn of the fifth century. Rome is bigger than ever, but only a shadow of what it once was; and two indolent youths hold the Throne of the Caesars. Sensing weakness and opportunity, a swarm of barbarians pour across the frozen Rhine. At the edge of the empire, Roman Britain grows desperate from a crumbling economy and Saxon raids; and begins to contemplate taking their fate into their own hands. In the chaos, a general arises who has the ambition to restore peace and stability to the empire, a man whose name is laden with destiny: Constantine III.Severus is a proud young soldier of Rome's Sixth Legion; but when he defies orders so that others might be saved, he finds himself disgraced and facing military justice. Constantine sees something else in Severus, and offers him a place in the elite Schola Palitina - the general's personal cavalry. Severus accepts, not only out of necessity, but out of true patriotism; but he does not know that this new role will bring him from the icy moors of Britannia to the blue Mediterranean of Hispania and Gaul; from the foothills of the Alps to the passes of the Pyrenees. For the man he has sworn his sword to protect will become a usurper, and will become both the hope and the doom of the mighty Roman Empire. Meticulously researched, but not afraid to challenge convention, Usurper re-imagines one of the major causes of the fall of the Western Roman Empire. It tells the widely-unknown story of ancient Britain's attempt to save Rome, and the heroic struggles of forgotten men who risked all to prevent the cataclysm that changed the world forever.