The First Village

The story essentially covers the later part of the Roman occupation of Britain, focussing upon what is now Wales, set in AD 383. The general of the Roman Army, Magnus Maximus, has grander ideas for himself and heads off with his Legions to try to become emperor of the Western Empire. Other than being infatuated with a dream woman he gives little real thought to what would happen to the natives and Romanised people left behind. Three of his officers come up with a plan to try to find this dream girl as they do have concerns about those being left behind and really want out of things anyway. They do in fact, much to their amazement, find such a girl, the youngest daughter of a local chieftain and they fall into conflict with each other as a result. At one level it all gets a bit silly and farcical - she runs off with one of the officers, falls for him and on to a logical end, Papa chieftain wants revenge, the other soldiers start thinking about consequences, However, the story is mainly about the effects of the disappearance of Roman military on locals - a market economy suddenly without the market or at least the money and support and authority. There are well-off people in villas and they start thinking about self sufficiency with the story suggesting that they grew little - archaeological evidence would strongly contradict this. This was a period when Romans had mostly become Christians although the old Pagan gods were still worshipped - a time of generally remarkable tolerance in fact. There is therefore a lot of discussion about trying to do good unto others, helping those less well-off and so on. There is certainly a lot of thoughtful and thought provoking dialogue going on amidst the slight silliness. The characters are well-drawn overall; personally I like the Roman names and was pleased to see the towns, forts etc having their Roman names retained. As far as I'm concerned they fall easily from the tongue but that's probably helped by having worked on Roman sites across Hadrians Wall and northern Britain for over 30 years. At first the modern dialogue and every day speech sat oddly with the Roman theme but after a while it fitted better - after all the reader isn't going to read Latin, High or Low, so colloquial conversations between fellow soldiery comes over better with modern " kick their backsides" type comments. An engaging read and I really felt for the main characters at the end. Thanks to NetGalley and Vanguard Press for an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.