“A Chronicle of the Roman Twilight (A Novel)” by John Ranger is now available for purchase
“Perhaps his greatest mistake was simply in hoping itself. He felt as though his very soul cried out from within him: “It was all for nothing. Every dream we dreamed, every ambition we cherished, every struggle we fought were all in vain. All our victories were mere preface to disaster.””
– an excerpt from the book
AR Press is honored to publish “A Chronicle of the Roman Twilight (A Novel)” by John Ranger. The book is now available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and the ARPress website.
Every generation believes that its passing marks the end of an era. As the end of the first decade of the fifth century approached, people started to witness not just the conclusion of an era but the end of an epoch. Events were in motion that would shatter the western half of the Roman world.
John Ranger, a retired computer programmer and database administrator who spent 32 years at IBM, has a B.Sc. degree from the University of Manitoba, Canada, and a lifelong interest in Roman history. He has one son and lives in Wappingers Falls, New York.
“A Chronicle of the Roman Twilight (A Novel)” presents the story that begins in A.D. 364 when the author of this memoir, Marcus Cedranus, is born into a middle-class landowner’s family in western Britain. While his material prospects are promising, his deteriorating relationship with his parents causes him to leave home for the continent. In Gaul, he becomes a teamster for a freight hauling company, meets an older woman who will eventually play a major role in his life, and is drafted into the Roman army in 382.
He is assigned to Legion XXII in Mainz, and in 383 he is temporarily transferred to Belgrade on the Danube. A revolt in the West makes this transfer permanent. He participates in several military campaigns and takes part in a triumph in Constantinople in 386. In 388, his regiment took part in the eastern offensive against the revolt in the West that had by now spread to Italy. With the revolt suppressed, he is assigned to a new imperial guard regiment for the restored Western emperor, Valentinian II. During another transfer to the east, Marcus suffers a terrible personal tragedy from which it is impossible to recover.
Another civil war breaks out in the West and is suppressed with terrible casualties. Marcus is appointed tribune and made a member of the personal staff of Stilicho, the new generalissimo of the West. Further military adventures take place in Greece, Britain, and Italy. A massive barbarian invasion of the West on December 31, 406, triggers political instability, leading to revolts in both Britain and Italy. This inevitably led to the sack of Rome by Alaric and his Visigoths in 410.
“A Chronicle of the Roman Twilight (A Novel)” by John Ranger is now available for purchase via ARPress Bookstore: https://authorreputationpress.com/bookstore/a-chronicle-of-the-roman-twilight-a-novel/.