Mercenary of Rome

The Mercenary of Rome trilogy returns to Atticus Perennis and Septimus after the First Punic War has left Carthage defeated, indebted and unable to pay the multinational army that fought for it. The resulting Mercenary War draws the Roman sailors into a conflict of mutiny, piracy, hostage-taking and siege, even though Rome and Carthage have only recently been enemies.

Atticus must cooperate uneasily with the Carthaginian commander Hamilcar Barca while Roman senators debate how far their republic should intervene. As the revolt becomes the exceptionally brutal struggle later known as the Truceless War, shifting alliances test Atticus’s loyalty to Rome, his respect for former opponents and his responsibility for the crews who follow him. The trilogy treats naval adventure as part of a wider crisis of unpaid service, political calculation and retaliatory violence.