Marius' Mules: The Invasion of Gaul [Paperback]

The author of Marius's Mules has made a number of key decisions in planning what will (hopefully) be a long series of historical novels. Firstly, he has selected a model, in this case the professional officers of the Roman Army behave not unlike professional officers of the British Army - the enemy being of less importance much of the time than internal loyalties and rivalries. This worked very well indeed in the novel "Imperial Governor" by George Shipway and S.J.A Turney uses it to advantage here. This model gives us men who, while living in an alien world, address it much as we would. Secondly, he has decided to proceed (as armies proceed) slowly. This novel only takes us up to the defeat of Ariovistus. It will take a number of novels to complete De Bello Gallico. This means characters and their actions are not hurried along but develop at their own pace. The result will be immensely pleasing to a lot of readers, especially those who do their homework on the subject.

I could not quite stretch to five stars (though 4.5 is what I wanted) because I found the characters suffered to a degree from Richard Sharpe Syndrome, they were often either all Good or all Bad. The hatchet job on P. Licinius Crassus is excellent for plot (a rich useless aristo just like Sir Henry Simmerson) but not, I think, for history. The sketch of C. Julius Caesar was much more complex however, he is clearly a leader of men, and a bit of a rotter in the eyes of our hero, the stern M. Falerius Fronto.

However, who knows what lies ahead for I see we are off to fight the fearsome Belgae in the next volume.

When I was asked to look up this title I have to say I was unsure!
Its not main stream publication, its got little or not marketing behind it...etc. etc...
But im a sucker for a roman historical fiction book, and the tag line:
"It is perhaps time we looked at Caesar more as a scheming warmonger than a heroic warrior."
This appealed to me, ole JC gets his behind kissed a bit too much so it would be good to see him portrayed a little differently.

This is the up to date more edited version, an advantage over the big publishing houses, the author has the ability to go back do those corrections and updates and edits and then resubmit them for the next print run very easily. especially for the kindle versions of this book.

This is a great title, with a great bunch of characters, set in a pivotal period of history. really is a winner on so many levels, don't miss it!
(Parm)

I was delighted to win a copy of S.J.A. Turney's The Invasion of Gaul, which is the first in a series of novels about these heavily burdened, mile marching legionaries known as Marius' Mules (after the popular military hero of Republican Rome Marius) who followed Julius Caesar across Gaul in the mid 1st century BC.

Julius Caesar might be the most important man of the novel but our attention focuses on Marcus Falerius Fronto, the legate in command of the Tenth. Fronto is a man from a wealthy and privileged background but he has turned his back on a potentially rewarding political career in the senate or as a province governor in favour of leading a legion - not for a year or two, but for good. As such, he is one of the few high rankers that Caesar can trust, not that this necessarily means that Fronto trusts him back. As well as Fronto, we get to know his primus pilus, or chief centurion, Priscus, the chief training officer, Velius, the extraordinary military engineer, Tetricus, the commander of the Eighth, Balbus, and Longinus, the legate of the Ninth and commander of the cavalry. And that's just to name a few. There are quite a few more I could mention. That is one of the great strengths of Marius' Mules - it introduces us to a range of men aiming to do Caesar's bidding while keeping their own men alive on the march, in the camp and on the battlefield. After a chapter or two, you'll be very concerned to know how they fare.

The story is straightforward. Caesar is out to win political glory through military conquest and the best way to do that is to stir up the tribes of Gaul and Germania. Matters are helped by the fact that the tribes spend as much time fighting each other as they do the Romans but Caesar isn't after a diplomatic solution. He wants victory, land and the kind of honour he would get from leading the chieftains of Gaul in chains behind his chariot in triumph back in Rome. As a result, this is a novel about life on the march, broken up by regular battles or skirmishes. In the second half of the book, Caesar's mission focuses on one man, the enemy King Ariovistus but to conquer this real threat takes a little more ingenuity and strategy - just the kind of service Caesar expects from Fronto.

Although the attention is very much on the men leading the legions from the front, these are mostly career soldiers respected by their soldiers or young men experiencing their first command and earning their dues. As the soldiers get to know them, so do we. Fronto might be a skilled strategist but he's happiest on the frontline, away from Caesar's staff especially the unpleasant Crassus, and he spends the majority of his time getting into scrapes, getting battered and drinking it off. There's no time for niceties when you're on the march, constantly looking over your shoulder for enemy scouts, risking an arrow in the back. Fronto and his friends are hard drinking (they're regulars in most of the taverns of the empire), gambling, joking, jostling men, who know that each day may be his last and enjoying it all the same.

Caesar isn't quite the hero we're used to. He makes his mistakes and he surrounds himself with both good and bad advisers, largely because he can't take one eye off the senate, and he is prepared to sacrifice thousands of lives - Roman and barbarian - for his ambition and still proclaim it for the glory of Rome. Nevertheless, he is the boss and we see little more of Caesar than Fronto shows us. Likewise, because this is the story of Fronto and the other legates, we see relatively little of the enemy, except as glimpses in the forest or on the other side of the shieldwall

By the end of Marius' Mules there won't be much you won't know about the construction of Roman camps, Roman battle formations and troops, military equipment and uniform, personal possessions, the treatment of the dead and life on the march. I was as fascinated by all of that as I was entertained by the repartee between Fronto and his friends. It all feels very realistic while letting you get close to the men due to their banter and bravery in the field. As a result I felt quite moved in places. This is a self-published book but it deserves to be on the shelves of our bookshops. I'm delighted to say that I have already bought Marius' Mules II: The Belgae and look forward to seeing what Fronto and Caesar get up to against the next bunch of unlucky barbarians.