"Action, intrigue and  
     unbridled passion are
     just the beginning in 
     this novel of ancient
     Rome."
     ForemostPress.com

 

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"We're dealing with a magician for an empire," said Verus. "I can't say I like that." "A very wealthy magician. Those coins are real." Verus looked at the stacks of gold on the table. They had been apportioned to each man, but not equally. The commander of Raphanae attained to a somewhat larger share. As was proper. "So he buys a Roman garrison for a few gold pieces." "More than a few." "Still, he's gotten it cheap." "If he has it. Does he?" Verus smiled. "How much are you culling from this venture, Marcellus?" "Expenses." "They must be high. This is a fine villa. The food was fine. The women magnificent." I shrugged. "You don't bother to reckon accounts." "Not unless we're speaking of figures." "What do you imagine we're doing?" One thing about Verus: he was direct. He was also corrupt, but circumstances made that welcome. Macrinus could at any moment decide we were worth his violent attention. "Three million sesterces." "Five," he said. "If you deliver within the month." Verus looked as if he had expected more haggling. He held his hand up as if to count his fingers. "This is the month of the goddess Maia, good wife of Mars," he said. "I must say war seems appropriate." more excerpts

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Septimus Severus and his wife Julia Domna,
founders of the Severan dynasty

 

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Excerpts | Comments And Reviews | Author Info

If you were the man to lead an all-out rebellion against the might of ancient Rome, you would storm out of the East at the head of your army and smash all opposition. To universal acclaim, you would become Lord of the World, the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. You would take it as your task to overturn the gods, laws and traditions of the Roman Empire in a furious nonstop revolution. You would explore all the passions and intrigue that unlimited power can offer a young man. This is your story, told by the people who knew you best.

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The Severan Prophecies is the latest feather in the cap of highly talented writer David Chacko. At home in Istanbul, Mr. Chacko is a world traveler who is intimately familiar with various cultures and also the times that both culture and religion clash. Thus far he has penned 14 novels which all have reached high acclaim; his genres vary although crime and mystery are central to each and every one.

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I live in Europe and the Middle East most of the year, and taking the pulse of the places and people where this story passes was more than a job of research and writing. Syria and Turkey, where many of the episodes in this book take place, are especially rich in Roman ruins. I remember standing in a museum in Alanya in south Turkey looking at the well-rendered full-length statues of Septimus Severus and his wife Julia Domna, the founders of the Severan dynasty. There were no recognized statues or paintings of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, the character around whom most of the story turns, because all were destroyed when his name and image were erased from history. But one day I found myself staring at another statue in the south of Turkey that looked very much like the profiles of him that survive on the coins minted during his reign. The legend at the base of the bust said A Young Roman Boy, but I'm pretty sure I met my subject that day. Although it didn't matter much what he looked like, I felt as if I had exchanged an eighteen-hundred-year handshake that day. It might even have been better, because I thought I had found what no one around seemed to recognize as the historical record. And I started to think of all the reasons why no one had seen fit to write about the most original and fanatic ruler the Roman Empire had ever known. There was no reason for him to keep to the darkness where the Roman Senate had condemned him. There was every reason for him to come out. David Chacko

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