Vesta and Her Children: A Tale of the Fall of Rome - Paperback

by Marcia J. H. Twain (Author)

Rome, 545 A.D. - Ten years into the Gothic Wars, the renowned scientist Vesta Plotina Cethega and her two adult children, Marcus and Constantia, are forced to flee the Eternal City ahead of yet another siege. They say goodbye to her husband, Honorius, who will stay behind and fight the Goths, and escape to the Umbrian countryside. But they find no safety there; the local Bishop takes an unwelcome interest in nineteen-year-old Constantia, and Marcus abandons both mother and sister to make his fortune in Constantinople. Danger escalates all around the two women as the married Bishop presses himself on Constantia and the restive slaves of their estate begin to take advantage of war's chaos to agitate for better treatment.

Meanwhile, in Constantinople, twenty-three-year-old Marcus uses his connections, his wiles, and his physical beauty to climb toward the highest ranks of Byzantine society, even into the bedchamber of Empress Theodora's daughter, while keeping his own desire for men a secret. Back in Umbria, Constantia's wedding to a Gothic soldier introduces Vesta to the young Ostrogoth king Totila, who dreams of restoring the glory of the Western Empire. Vesta falls in love with the dashing king, igniting a passion and purpose that surprises even herself.

Marcus, meanwhile, has become the lover of Germanus, the heir-apparent to the Byzantine throne, and is drawn into the Gothic War on the side of the Eastern Empire. Vesta's lover and son are fated to oppose each other in a historic battle that will decide whether the Western Empire shall survive or become a vassal state of the East.

In this insightful debut novel, Marcia J.H. Twain documents the intimate and personal effects of societal collapse on the women and men who must protect their loved ones despite everything. Vesta and Her Children tells the story of a mother, daughter and son, each of whom must follow their own dangerous path toward survival in an Italy ruined by decades of war and plague. Vesta and Her Children celebrates the resilience of the human spirit amidst the violence and cruelty of wartime.