The author has taken the Fishbourne Roman villa with a perfectly preserved dolphin-mosaic floor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishbourne_Roman_Palace#/media/File:Dolphin_mosaic... ; a temple to Minerva and Neptune [well, the cornerstone anyway] and a signet ring, all discovered near Chichester, and woven a captivating story of the Romanized Briton, Togidubnus, his family, and a young girl and her illegitimate daughter exiled from Rome and sent to live with him. Nero is the father and wants to rid himself of them so sends them far away. Antonia, the Roman girl, spends her time resenting her situation and dreaming of a return to Rome. There are three strands of the story: Antonia's, that of Lucia, her daughter, who finds a friend in Togidubnus' son, Catuarus, and adapts to the life in Britannia. The third is that of Togidubnus, a client king of the Romans, who hopes his cooperation will bring peace between him and Rome. He feels this is the wave of the future but discovers the bad faith of Romans and stands up more for his own people. The villa is one Nero causes to be built for his own purposes, sending his own architect, to model it on his own Golden House. The story was well paced and all the characters were most believable, even the secondary ones, such as Niko, the Greek freedman and healer, and the ex-legionary, Gallus, who oversees the building of the temple and gives his life for someone else.

I enjoyed this clever novel, especially the psychological growth of Antonia, and even misted over in more than one place. I only wondered at her brother, Valentinus, a centurion in his early 20s; I thought that he was much too young and that he would be too inexperienced for such a heavy responsibility.

Highly recommended. ( )