"Legions of the Eagle" by Henry Treece

Gwydion, the son of a Belgic lord, the right-hand man to King Caratacus, and his Silurian slave Math, are captured by the Romans invading Britain. Math escapes but Gwydion is sent to Gaul as a slave to be the companion of centurion's son Gaius. Following a plague, the boys return to Britain seeking Gwydion's mother and the father of Gaius. They also find Math and a whole lot of trouble.

I loved this boys' adventure story when I was nine. Now I don't. Gwydion is the typical Treece hero (see his Viking books): brave, boastful, and reckless. His experiences as a slave don't seem to have changed this. He doesn't seem to learn. He's also blond and Treece seems to have favoured flaxen hair: the dark-haired (and dark-faced) Math might be cunning but he is despicable. Although there are moments when Gwydion catches glimpses of Math's resentment of the master-slave dynamic (despite the author's protests that Gwysion and his mother treat Math like one of them) this doesn't spill over into justice in terms of the story arc and I have to conclude that Treece, like Gwydion, never properly understood that a favoured slave is still a slave, that power can only exist with powerlessness, and that conquest does not give the conquerors the moral right to belittle the conquered in any way, even by patronising them. At the end, Gwydion says: "Life isn't given to us just so we can exert our strength on other men and turn their lives inside-out for our own advantage." (Epilogue). But there is no evidence, in his character, or in that of his best friend Gaius, that he understands this. The lesson is learnt by Math, perhaps, but by this time Math is the antagonist.

Furthermore, the history seems surprisingly sloppy for such a well-known author. "Then Gwydion saw his mother do a strange thing; she suddenly stood in her stirrups" (4.1). This would have been strange indeed during the Roman conquest of Britain (43 CE).  Although rope loops may have been used as early as 200 BCE (in Asia, perhaps reaching Rome but probably not Britain) there is no evidence for the stirrup as such before 500 CE. Furthermore, Gwydion travels through "Londinium" (2.1) but there is no evidence for pre-Roman settlement in London and Londinium as such was founded by the Romans after their invasion.

A very disappointing read.

Selected quote:

• "When men go to war, they do not think of their opponents as being of the same nature as their own families." (2.5)

August 2021

This review was written by the author of Motherdarling  and The Kids of God