Tros of Samothrace

Talbot Mundy's legendary account of the Druid Warrior Tros and his unwilling service to the Roman Empire. First serialized in Adventure, the book chronicles Tros' attempts to keep Julius Caesar from conquering the Britons, and of the young man's efforts to free his father. Stunning for its time, this work of action that shatters anything R.E. Howard could dream up also makes the case that Celtic peoples were far more sophisticated than the wicker-burning freaks they'd been painted as, and goes deeply into the mind of Caesar, depicting the supposed Worthy as a proto-fascist and demon fully capable of massacring comparatively defenseless barbarians on a whim. No mere hack and slash work, Mundy's Tros grows as the narrative presses along, and survives, ironically, in the service of Rome. This book is the author's finest work, though one that, sadly, ended his relationship with a publisher (who'd been expecting something shorter, and about Cleopatra.)