The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff is so much more than the usual riveting adventure story - though it is most definitely that. It's deep in thought and emotion, vibrantly vivid in character and setting, and rich with living history and with truths about life and people. The Eagle of the Ninth (The Roman Britain Trilogy Book One) (The Roman Britain Trilogy, 1). About The Eagle of the Ninth. This indispensable classic, Rosemary Sutcliff’s The Eagle of the Ninth–an adventure story that unfolds in Roman Britain, published in 1954–set the standard for all historical fiction for children that came after.

Book Review by Jason Golomb

Rosemary Sutcliff’s 1954 classic “The Eagle of the Ninth” is an archetypical tale of human connections, self-discovery, redemption and choice. In tone and emotional scope, one is reminded of John Knowles’ “A Separate Peace” or J.D. Salinger’s “A Catcher in the Rye”. The book will resonate with fans of Roman Empire-era fiction; and those that are familiar with the story from their youths, will reconnect warmly and fondly with Marcus Flavius Aquila and his cadre.
Sutcliff explains in her original introduction that “Eagle” is based on the legendary disappearance of the Roman Ninth Legion after marching to Northern Britain in response to a rising among Caledonian tribes. The Eagle of the Ninth is the traditional legionary standard – a bronze eagle sculpture with bolts of lightning clutched tightly in its claws. Sutcliff combined this tale with modern excavations at Silchester that uncovered a wingless Roman eagle, a cast of which is still on display at the Reading Museum.
Marcus Flavius Aquila is the son of the Commander of the First Cohort of the infamous IX Legion Hispania. Marcus is Pilus Prior Centurion of the Fourth Gaulish Auxiliary of the Second Legion, based in southern Britain – leading his six hundred troops to relieve a command in Durinum. Marcus’ connection to his father runs deeply and the tenor of our character is set early.
Marcus is left wounded and unable to continue with his military career after successfully leading the defense of his fort from a local native uprising. He removes himself to the home of his paternal Uncle in nearby Calleva (home to the modern day Reading Museum of Silchester).
Enter Esca – a defeated gladiator that Marcus purchases as his personal slave. Their relationship quickly becomes much more than master and slave, and we find that Esca and Marcus are almost mirror reflections of each other. Esca is from the Brigantes tribe from northern Britain – his father, like Marcus’, was a commander, a clan chieftain. In a battle against the Legions, Esca was injured, taken prisoner and enslaved to fight as a gladiator. But Esca describes how, ten years earlier, he watched a Legion marching north that never came marching back - “I had never seen such a sight before. Like a shining serpent of men winding across the hills; a grey serpent hackled with the scarlet cloaks and crests of the officers.”
This memory of Esca’s echoes Marcus’ own memories of his father’s farewell, watching the Ninth march off, never to return.This symbolic tether that binds the characters is but the first of several similarly themed relationships: Pup, the wolf cub rescued by Esca after a hunting trip results in the death of the mother wolf; Cottia, the parentless pretty young thing living with her Aunt and Uncle next door to Marcus; Guern the Hunter, a former Ninth legionary who went native after fighting under the command of Marcus’ father.
Through each of these characters we see another major characteristic of “Eagle” – choice. Each character faces a key moment in their existence, teetering on a boundary (both real and existential) of the freedom to choose one’s own direction. These decisions set the path on which the characters will stride and provide them their opportunity for redemption.
Marcus faces his key decision after an old legionary doctor heals his leg to the point where he can have a normal physical life (though not with the Legions). His decision is the commitment to find and return the Ninth’s eagle, to create the opportunity for the Ninth to be reborn and to bring substantive meaning and redemption to his father’s mission and death.
Esca’s decision comes right after Marcus commits to finding the eagle. Marcus sets Esca free and asks him to join his journey now that he has the real freedom to choose. Esca stays loyal and the pair plans their adventures north.
Shortly before the dramatic scenes between Esca and Marcus, the two young men bring Pup to the edge of the woods in which he was found. They walk home and allow Pup the choice to reconnect with the wild, or return to his domesticated life. A few hours later, Pup returns home to the boys.
The boys meet Guern the Hunter shortly after they cross north past the Wall to find the eagle. By all outward appearances, Guern is from a Northern tribe. But through subtle and not-so-subtle hints, we find that Guern is Roman and fought alongside Marcus’ father 10 years earlier. Guern’s character represents a key guidepost – ultimately leading the boys to the eagle and later leading them to the Wall and safety on their way home.
Guern’s choice is whether to stay with his native family or return home to the Latin world with Esca and Marcus. He chooses to stay with his family and Marcus and Esca return home alone.“Eagle” is rife with symbols that seep in and throughout the book like the mists so prevalent in Sutcliff’s Caledonia and Valentia. Marcus’ name – Aquila – in fact, means eagle in Latin.
Roman Britain is the uniquely penetrating texture to a story that could, conceivably, take place in the early American West, Colonial Africa or even Exploration-era Central and South America. Sutcliff is passionate in her exposition of Britain. The reader feels the claustrophobia and breathlessness as she writes of the weighty softness of the mists of the North. It’s no wonder that “Eagle of the Ninth” is currently in production for the big screen. It’s ready-made for the mood-riddled cut-aways of Marcus and Esca riding through Caledonia, and the mist-lined fort skirmishes as they battle their way home.
Hadrian’s Wall and the northern Roman forts and signal-towers bring to mind the image of ancient ruins and crumbling stones that are strewn across the modern British landscape. These portals are very alive in Marcus’ world, representing the wild, a passage from one world to another, the past and future.
In addition to the expansive symbolism and vivid realism, “Eagle of the Ninth” is simply a terrific story. Esca and Marcus’ escape with the Eagle moves at a lightning pace, leaving the reader with intense anticipation at each phase of their race south to the safety of the Wall.
The first half of the book is spent developing the characters, their motivations and establishing the connective themes between them. Sutcliff’s patient and crafty development results in characters to which the reader can relate. An emotional bond connects the characters to each other and the reader to the characters. By comparison, Conn Iggulden’s focus on more “supreme” characters makes them unrelatable almost by definition (it’s hard to find much in Julius Caesar or Genghis Khan that I can relate to). Simon Scarrow’s characters are fun, but also more cartoonish – his Macro and Cato are like acquaintances compared to the more familial Marcus Aquila.
The book is written for young adults; however, vocabulary and phrasing nod to the book’s British origins in the 50’s. It’s a quick and fun read, and I found myself pausing at different points, tying together the symbolic links between characters. The book will appeal to a broad audience who’ll enjoy Sutcliff’s adventure and vividly real experience, while connecting to her characters and their growth as the story progresses.

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The Eagle of the Ninth is a historical adventure novel for children written by Rosemary Sutcliff and published in 1954. The story is set in Roman Britain in the 2nd century AD, after the building of Hadrian's Wall.

Plot[edit]

Discharged because of a battle wound, a young Roman officer Marcus Flavius Aquila tries to discover the truth about the disappearance of his father's legion in northern Britain. Disguised as a Greek oculist and travelling beyond Hadrian's Wall with his freed ex-slave, Esca, Marcus finds that a demoralized and mutinous Ninth Legion was annihilated by a great rising of the northern tribes. In part, this disgrace was redeemed through a heroic last stand by a small remnant (including Marcus's father) around the legion's eagle standard. Marcus's hope of seeing the lost legion re-established is dashed, but he is able to bring back the gilded bronze eagle so that it can no longer serve as a symbol of Roman defeat – and thus will no longer be a danger to the frontier's security.

Development[edit]

The Eagle of the Ninth is one of Sutcliff's earlier books, but may be her best-known title. It is the first in a sequence of novels, followed by The Silver Branch, Frontier Wolf, The Lantern Bearers (which won a Carnegie Medal), Sword at Sunset, Dawn Wind, Sword Song, and The Shield Ring. The sequence loosely traces a family, of the Roman Empire and then of Britain, who inherit an emerald seal ring bearing the insignia of a dolphin.The book has also been published as The Eagle. It has been adapted a few times, most notably as the 2011 film The Eagle.

Historical basis[edit]

Sutcliff wrote in a foreword that she created the story from two elements: the disappearance of the Legio IX Hispana (Ninth Legion) from the historical record following an expedition north to deal with Caledonian tribes in 117; and the discovery of a wingless Roman eagle in excavations at Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester). The Museum of Reading, which now houses the Silchester eagle, states that it 'is not a legionary eagle but has been immortalized as such by Rosemary Sutcliff'.^[1] It may originally have formed part of a Jupiter statue in the forum of the Roman town. Sutcliff also assumed that the legion's title of 'Hispana' meant that it was raised in Hispania (now Spain and Portugal), but it was probably awarded this title for victories there.

At the time Sutcliff wrote, it was a plausible theory that the unit had been wiped out in Britain during a period of unrest early in the reign of the Emperor Hadrian (AD 117–138).^[2] Scholarly opinion now disputes this, for there are extant records that have been interpreted as indicating that detachments of the Ninth Legion were serving on the Rhine frontier later than the year 117, and it has been suggested that it was probably annihilated in the east of the Roman Empire. This in turn is disputed by other historians, who assert that it was indeed destroyed in northern Britain.^[3]Sheppard Frere, a Romano-British historian, has concluded that 'further evidence is needed before more can be said'.^[4]

In other media[edit]

The Eagle Of The Ninth Book Review

Radio[edit]

Eagle Of The Ninth Release Date

• The BBC Home Service produced a radio dramatisation which was first broadcast in six parts in Children's Hour between 27 February and 3 April 1957, repeated between 7 September and 12 October 1958, and later re-edited into a 90-minute radio play version broadcast in June 1963. The adaptation was by Felix Felton and Marius Goring took the lead role.^[5] An extract from the fourth movement of Ottorino Respighi's symphonic poem The Pines of Rome was used as the theme music.
• It was adapted again by the BBC in a full-cast radio drama in 1996 starring Tom Smith.^[6]

Television[edit]

• A BBC television series was made of the book in 1977, scripted by Bill Craig, Donald Bull and Arden Winch, and with Anthony Higgins as Marcus Aquila.^[7]

Film[edit]

• A film adaptation titled The Eagle was released in 2011,^[8] directed by Kevin Macdonald and with Channing Tatum as Marcus Aquila and Jamie Bell as Esca.^[9]

References[edit]

1. ^Reading Museum's Silchester Eagle PDFArchived 24 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine
2. ^Cf., Winston Churchill, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, vol. 1 1956.
3. ^Miles Russell, Bloodline: The Celtic Kings of Roman Britain p 180-5 (2010)
4. ^Frere, S. S. (1987). Britannia: A History of Roman Britain (Third, extensively revised ed.). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. p. 124. ISBN0-7102-1215-1.
5. ^Peplum: L'Aigle de la IXe Légion (in French)
6. ^BBC, Eagle of the ninth. ISBN1-4084-6776-3
7. ^IMDb page for 'The Eagle of the Ninth' (1977 TV series).
8. ^IMDb page for 'The Eagle' (2011 movie).
9. ^Raphael, Amy (5 April 2009). 'We went from a state of crisis to State of Play'. The Observer.

External links[edit]

• Eagle of the Ninth, 6-part BBC Scotland 1977 TV series produced by Pharic MacLaren. Original BBC publicity notes and synopsis of the story, plus cast list and synopses for each episode.