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Historical person

Caratacus

15–54

Caratacus was a British ruler, probably of the Catuvellauni, who led resistance to the Roman invasion begun in AD 43. After defeats in south-eastern Britain he continued the struggle among the peoples of Wales until Queen Cartimandua of the Brigantes handed him over to Rome. According to Tacitus, his dignified speech before Claudius impressed the emperor, who spared him and his family. His later life is unknown.

Caratacus appears in Douglas Jackson’s Claudius and in Roman military series such as Simon Scarrow’s Eagles of the Empire. Fiction often combines the fragmented campaigns recorded by Roman sources into a sustained personal duel between a native king and the invading legions. His famous speech provides a powerful dramatic scene, though its polished wording almost certainly reflects Tacitus’s literary composition rather than a verbatim record.

In K. M. Ashman’s The Rise of Caratacus, By AD 50 Roman forces hold much of southern Britain, but Caratacus has rebuilt resistance among the western tribes. In Simon Scarrow’s Warrior: The King in Rome, the exiled Caratacus tells a young Roman writer about his childhood as a son of Cunobeline after Boudica’s revolt has been defeated. Other novels featuring Caratacus include Michael Arnold’s The Savage Isle, Simon Scarrow’s The Eagle’s Prey, Simon Scarrow’s The Blood Crows, Simon Scarrow’s Brothers in Blood, and Simon Scarrow’s Warrior: The Druids’ Lair.

Series

Series featuring Caratacus (9 series)

Eagles of the Empire in Order

by Simon Scarrow 24 books 4.5

The Eagles of the Empire series follows Roman soldiers Macro and Cato from the reign of Claudius into that of Nero. Their service takes them through the invasion and occupation of Britain, Mediterranean piracy, revolt, imperial court intrigue and Rome’s eastern wars, combining military campaigning with the politics…

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Dark Eagle in Order

by K. M. Ashman 12 books 4.5

The Dark Eagle series follows the Occultum, a fictional Roman covert unit modelled loosely on the scouts, informants and reconnaissance personnel used by imperial armies. Beginning during the reign of Claudius, the sequence sends small teams beyond normal military support into Germania, Britannia, Egypt, Africa, the eastern Mediterranean…

All books in this series

Warrior in Order

by Simon Scarrow 6 books 4.4

The Warrior sequence tells the life of Caratacus from his youth as a prince of the Catuvellauni through Druid training, tribal conflict and resistance to the Roman invasion. The story is framed partly by his later exile in Rome, where the defeated British ruler looks back on the…

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The Sword of Cartimandua in Order

by Griff Hosker 13 books 4.4

The Sword of Cartimandua is a Roman Britain sequence following auxiliary cavalry and frontier soldiers from the age of Cartimandua through the Flavian and early Hadrianic period. The books use Brigantian politics, Roman conquest, northern campaigning, Caledonia and Hadrian’s Wall to show Britain as a frontier province where…

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Vespasian in Order

by Robert Fabbri 9 books 4.4

The Vespasian series follows Titus Flavius Vespasianus from obscure young nobleman and soldier to the imperial contender who will found the Flavian dynasty. The novels use Vespasian’s career to move through the Julio-Claudian court, frontier warfare, Britain, Armenia, North Africa, Judaea and the civil-war crisis of AD 69.…

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Claudius Series in Order

by Robert Graves 2 books 4.4

The Claudius Series is Robert Graves’s two-volume fictional memoir of the Roman emperor Claudius and the Julio-Claudian dynasty. I, Claudius follows the imperial family from Augustus to Caligula through Claudius’s wary, observant voice, while Claudius the God covers his own reign and the forces that undermine it. Together…

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Roman Trilogy in Order

by Douglas Jackson 2 books 4.1

The Roman Trilogy follows Rufus, a young slave whose skill with animals brings him from the gladiatorial world into the dangerous centre of imperial power. In Caligula he becomes keeper of the emperor’s elephant and is caught among the conspiracies surrounding a ruler feared for cruelty and unpredictability.…

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Savage Isle in Order

by Michael Arnold 3 books 4.2

The Savage Isle series begins in AD 42, as the death of Cunobeline fractures the political order of southern Britain and Emperor Claudius prepares a Roman invasion. Cullen, an orphan of the Atrebates captured by the Catuvellauni, grows from vulnerable outsider into a warrior whose fate is tied…

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