The Republic of Vengeance by Paul Waters

Paul Waters has written several historical novels. This is known under the title Of Merchants and Heroes in the UK.

Marcus is a fourteen year old Italian boy from Preaneste, outside of Rome around 200BC. Travelling with his father, their ship is overrun by pirates and they are taken to a remote island to be ransomed by the arrogant leader Dikaiarchos. Marcus is the only one to escape, and he vows revenge. His ignorant uncle Caecilius marries his mother to maintain their farm and takes Marcus to work in Tarentum, one of the great Greek cities in the south of Italy. Working in the shipping business, he mixes with Roman and Greek leaders and learns diplomacy. He befriends the intelligent Titus, and his tactless brother Lucius, nephews to the praetor, and meets young Menexenos at the palaistra. Menexenos is seventeen and the best athlete training for the Panathenian games.

The story follows Marcus through Greek and Roman society during growing chaos in the Aegean. Scipio has just defeated Hannibal at the gates of Carthage, and now King Philip the second of Macedonia is moving in from the north and east. Marcus becomes tribune and travels to Athens on behalf of Rome. As Philip conquers cities with his savage army and enslaves the people with his dishonourable tactics, there are exciting sections where the Greek, Roman, and Rhodian armies counter-attack at Eretria and unforgettably at Abydos, near the Black Sea. At each battle, Dikaiarchos appears to fan the flames of vengeance in Marcus.

Marcus is between 14 and 21 years old during the novel, yet he rises to a high position of diplomacy within the army. With the top military position, Titus himself is only in his late twenties. This seemed young to me, but the elders of the Senate were only in their late forties.

Will they drive Philip back to Macedonia, without becoming tyrants themselves of the cites left behind? Will Marcus meet up again with the cruel Dikaiarchos?

Throughout the novel, there are relationships between men and women, and men with men. This was the common way of the time, and the reltionship between Marcus and Menxenos is admired and encouraged. Waters does a good job of placing it as a natural part of the story, an enduring thread of friendship and love, even in battle.

I've read several historical novels of Rome and Greece, and found this hit just the middle note. Although I enjoyed it, I didn't find an emotional connection to the story. The build-up to the middle started to drag in the second half, and peter out at the end. Not as exciting as Ben Bova's The Hittite (about the siege of Troy), and didn't meet my favourite book of that time, Pyrrhus (UK title An Arrow's Flight) by Mark Merlis.

That is a modern retelling of The Iliad that I loved.

I'm glad I read it, but might not try another of his novels.

2009 / Hardcover / 407 pages