Ein Kampf Um Rom: Historischer Roman. Zweiter Band

The Gothic War (535-554 AD) was one of history's most brutal collisions between empires, and no novelist has captured its devastation with more sweeping ambition than Felix Dahn. When Emperor Justinian dispatches the legendary general Belisarius to reclaim Italy from the Goths, two civilizations that have already shaped the medieval world crash together in a conflict that will leave both scarred. The narrative follows the fall of Theodoric's great Gothic kingdom through the eyes of warriors and statesmen, lovers and traitors: the noble Totila, who rises like a bright blade to defend his people; the coldly brilliant Cethegus, last Roman prefect of Rome, whose machinations run through the narrative like steel; and the Byzantine court with its beautiful, scheming Empress Theodora. Dahn's masterpiece renders the tragic glory of the Goths, that most gifted of Germanic peoples, with operatic intensity. Their brief flourishing in Italy and their ultimate destruction become the pulse of this powerful narrative. For readers who crave historical epics that explore the breaking points of civilization and the poignant glory of doomed heroism.