The Barbarian is Douglas Jackson’s 13th novel of the Roman Empire. Set in the first decade of the Fifth Century AD, its historical framework offers license for rich invention. You could say that this is a novel steeped in history, but the history itself is full of uncertainties and there is little in the way of reliable documentation. Even the most learned and scrupulous of historians must resort to “may haves and might haves”. So it is fertile ground for a novelist with Jackson’s flair and exuberant imagination.

It begins in Britain in 406, only a few years before the province would be abandoned by the Empire and the legions withdrawn. The hero Marcus, a Briton by birth and family, but a Latin-speaking Roman officer, receives a letter from his former commander, Stilicho, the last great Roman general in the West, though a Vandal by birth, calling on his services. However, aware of a plot against his life, he leaves, with a hand-picked body of troops and his sister Valeria, a bold warrior herself, in another direction, across the North Sea to Germany. There is another motive for this: eight years ago his young son, Brenus, was carried off by Saxon invaders, and he intends to regain him. Only when he has done this will he try to join Stilicho. Even a cursory look at the map provided by the publisher shows that this will be a long, arduous and dangerous journey.

It begins with the sea voyage to the mouth of the River Elbe, a voyage made all the more demanding by the requirement to transport the cavalry horses and the quantity of food they require. Some whose knowledge of the Roman Army derives from their acquaintance with Caesar’s account of his Galic Wars may be surprised by the importance Jackson attaches to the cavalry, but while it had been the legions, foot-soldiers, who won the Empire, things were different 400 years later, and not only because there were fewer pitched battles.

Douglas Jackson PIC: Ian Rutherford / The Scotsman

The battles here are ferocious, even though some are no more than skirmishing raids. Jackson spares the reader nothing when recounting the brutality and horror of man-to-man conflict. His battle scenes are as bloody and violent as any Tarantino movie. Yet he does this in a matter of fact way. There is no horror for horror’s sake, and no quasi-pornographic dwelling on killing and mutilation. He offers what we may accept as a description of what hand to hand conflict is really like.

The Empire in the West is in the process of disintegration. The Emperor himself, Honorius, lurks idle and fearful in Ravenna, and his own armies are staffed mostly by members of barbarian tribes now Romanized, often superficially. Yet this is the paradox of late Empire in the West, admirably brought to life by Jackson: that the name of Rome still matters, and barbarians now within the bounds of the Empire identify themselves with it and are proud to speak the Latin they have learned. So his hero, Marcus, born a member of the Brigantes tribe not far south the Hadrian’s Wall, sees himself as a Roman officer among whose battle honours is a great victory over the Picts.

There is a great sweep to the story of Marcus’s epic journey. It makes for exhilarating reading, and there are fine battle scenes, among them one which brings him into conflict with the Huns, the most terrifying of all the barbarian invaders of the Empire. Readers would be wise to pay close attention to the maps provided; without them understanding of the great journey would be difficult. Likewise preliminary and subsequent attention to the Glossary is advisable. Such attention will make the course of action more easily understood and add to the enjoyment of a novel full of incident and adventure, the product of the author’s fertile imagination and knowledge of the period. The last sentence hints that Jackson’s next novel will take his hero back to Britain, and the guttering candle-light of the Empire here.

The Barbarian, by Douglas Jackson, Bantam, 353pp, £20

Book review: The Barbarian, by Douglas Jackson