What do you think?
Rate this book
Four Horses for Tishtry
Tishtry's wish to buy her family's freedom from slavery in the Roman Empire inspires her to perform dangerous feats of stunt riding.
218 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1985
About the author
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
262 books478 followersA professional writer for more than forty years, Yarbro has sold over eighty books, more than seventy works of short fiction, and more than three dozen essays, introductions, and reviews. She also composes serious music. Her first professional writing - in 1961-1962 - was as a playwright for a now long-defunct children's theater company. By the mid-60s she had switched to writing stories and hasn't stopped yet.
After leaving college in 1963 and until she became a full-time writer in 1970, she worked as a demographic cartographer, and still often drafts maps for her books, and occasionally for the books of other writers.
She has a large reference library with books on a wide range of subjects, everything from food and fashion to weapons and trade routes to religion and law. She is constantly adding to it as part of her on-going fascination with history and culture; she reads incessantly, searching for interesting people and places that might provide fodder for stories.
In 1997 the Transylvanian Society of Dracula bestowed a literary knighthood on Yarbro, and in 2003 the World Horror Association presented her with a Grand Master award. In 2006 the International Horror Guild enrolled her among their Living Legends, the first woman to be so honored; the Horror Writers Association gave her a Life Achievement Award in 2009. In 2014 she won a Life Achievement Award from the World Fantasy Convention.
A skeptical occultist for forty years, she has studied everything from alchemy to zoomancy, and in the late 1970s worked occasionally as a professional tarot card reader and palmist at the Magic Cellar in San Francisco.
She has two domestic accomplishments: she is a good cook and an experienced seamstress. The rest is catch-as-catch-can.
Divorced, she lives in the San Francisco Bay Area - with two cats: the irrepressible Butterscotch and Crumpet, the Gang of Two. When not busy writing, she enjoys the symphony or opera.
Her Saint-Germain series is now the longest vampire series ever. The books range widely over time and place, and were not published in historical order. They are numbered in published order.
Known pseudonyms include Vanessa Pryor, Quinn Fawcett, T.C.F. Hopkins, Trystam Kith, Camille Gabor.
After leaving college in 1963 and until she became a full-time writer in 1970, she worked as a demographic cartographer, and still often drafts maps for her books, and occasionally for the books of other writers.
She has a large reference library with books on a wide range of subjects, everything from food and fashion to weapons and trade routes to religion and law. She is constantly adding to it as part of her on-going fascination with history and culture; she reads incessantly, searching for interesting people and places that might provide fodder for stories.
In 1997 the Transylvanian Society of Dracula bestowed a literary knighthood on Yarbro, and in 2003 the World Horror Association presented her with a Grand Master award. In 2006 the International Horror Guild enrolled her among their Living Legends, the first woman to be so honored; the Horror Writers Association gave her a Life Achievement Award in 2009. In 2014 she won a Life Achievement Award from the World Fantasy Convention.
A skeptical occultist for forty years, she has studied everything from alchemy to zoomancy, and in the late 1970s worked occasionally as a professional tarot card reader and palmist at the Magic Cellar in San Francisco.
She has two domestic accomplishments: she is a good cook and an experienced seamstress. The rest is catch-as-catch-can.
Divorced, she lives in the San Francisco Bay Area - with two cats: the irrepressible Butterscotch and Crumpet, the Gang of Two. When not busy writing, she enjoys the symphony or opera.
Her Saint-Germain series is now the longest vampire series ever. The books range widely over time and place, and were not published in historical order. They are numbered in published order.
Known pseudonyms include Vanessa Pryor, Quinn Fawcett, T.C.F. Hopkins, Trystam Kith, Camille Gabor.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 17, 2016
Despite the brief appearance of St. Germain at the end of this short novel, it is really straight historical fiction. Tishtry, a character from Blood Games, is the center of this novel. The book details her journey via performance in the Roman games.
The plot is pretty basic, but Yarbro steers clear of the standard over used cliches. She captures the time pretty way, and while making the horses stand out from each other, doesn't turn them into huge dogs. It is more of an adventure story than anything else, but it is, at times, a thrilling read.
The plot is pretty basic, but Yarbro steers clear of the standard over used cliches. She captures the time pretty way, and while making the horses stand out from each other, doesn't turn them into huge dogs. It is more of an adventure story than anything else, but it is, at times, a thrilling read.
March 30, 2012
Horses? check. Capable determined young teenaged girl? check. Exciting appearances in the arenas of Rome? check. Yep, a book that might appeal to boys and girls alike, despite being written over 20 years ago.
Set in the eastern portions of the Roman Empire during the reign of Nero, Four Horses for Tishtry centers on a talented young girl (13-15 over the course of the book) who is determined to not only earn enough to purchase her family but also make a name for herself in the arena before earning enough to gain her own freedom and retiring from the games. Tishtry is a bestiarii, a type of slave in the Roman Empire who performed with animals in the arena games. This differed from the racing charioteers in that the animals or the human (or both) did tricks, although in the case of horses, the team might do circuits of the arena while performing. Specifically, Tishtry works with a team of horses drawing a chariot--specifically a four-horse quadrigae chariot (hence the title)--and performs acrobatic tricks on (and under) the horses as they gallop around the arena. As a side note, Four Horses for Tishtry is a prequel to Yarbro's 1979 Saint Germain novel, Blood Games; Tishtry, a secondary character in that book, was a performer at the Circus Maximus.
As the book begins, the thirteen year old Tishtry begins her career, setting off from her native Cappadocia for the arenae in Appollonia3and later Troas4 and Salonae. These were progressively larger communities with correspondingly larger arenae and sophisticated audiences; to excel, Tishtry must not only improve her own skills but train her horses to a higher standard and acquire equipment more appropriate to the stunts expected by these more cosmopolitan audiences. Her progress, though exhilarating and fulfilling for her personally, does require a number of sacrifices and disruptions: for starters, she has to leave her family behind and the only home she's ever known. She must travel alone across distances that would daunt most teenagers today, under conditions that would make adults of today blanch: while the Roman Empire was quite sophisticated for its day, with a system of roads and ships that were the envy of cultures of the time...but the distances and difficulties of traversing them meant that each time Tishtry moved she had to leave friends and familiarity behind with little chance of seeing any again. The book ends before she reaches that ultimate dream of any arena slave, the Circus Maximus in Rome but judging by her trajectory, it's strongly implied in this book that not only could she purchase her family but would reach that height, if purchased by someone with sufficient importance.
Overall, the language and material would probably be appropriate for kids in the 10-15 range, with a few caveats. Slavery is a significant theme in the book. While slavery in the Roman Empire was significantly different than in the United States--slaves could purchase their freedom and were for the most part the same race as their owners though they might be from different countries--this might require a bit of background explanation/reading for kids not up on history, as Yarbro doesn't fill in much of the historical differences. Yarbro uses Latin period terms for many of the things specific to that time and location, which in some ways helps define the plot by that different time, but may confuse kids who aren't familiar with the time period (I still have to double check some of the terms, though Yarbro included a glossary of the terms more likely to be unfamiliar.)
Despite being a prequel to Yarbro's St. Germain vampire series, Four Horses for Tishtry has no supernatural elements--I didn't know it was a prequel to Blood Games until I searched for more information on the book prior to doing this review. It's simply a historical tween/teen novel about a young girl making her way in the world.
Set in the eastern portions of the Roman Empire during the reign of Nero, Four Horses for Tishtry centers on a talented young girl (13-15 over the course of the book) who is determined to not only earn enough to purchase her family but also make a name for herself in the arena before earning enough to gain her own freedom and retiring from the games. Tishtry is a bestiarii, a type of slave in the Roman Empire who performed with animals in the arena games. This differed from the racing charioteers in that the animals or the human (or both) did tricks, although in the case of horses, the team might do circuits of the arena while performing. Specifically, Tishtry works with a team of horses drawing a chariot--specifically a four-horse quadrigae chariot (hence the title)--and performs acrobatic tricks on (and under) the horses as they gallop around the arena. As a side note, Four Horses for Tishtry is a prequel to Yarbro's 1979 Saint Germain novel, Blood Games; Tishtry, a secondary character in that book, was a performer at the Circus Maximus.
As the book begins, the thirteen year old Tishtry begins her career, setting off from her native Cappadocia for the arenae in Appollonia3and later Troas4 and Salonae. These were progressively larger communities with correspondingly larger arenae and sophisticated audiences; to excel, Tishtry must not only improve her own skills but train her horses to a higher standard and acquire equipment more appropriate to the stunts expected by these more cosmopolitan audiences. Her progress, though exhilarating and fulfilling for her personally, does require a number of sacrifices and disruptions: for starters, she has to leave her family behind and the only home she's ever known. She must travel alone across distances that would daunt most teenagers today, under conditions that would make adults of today blanch: while the Roman Empire was quite sophisticated for its day, with a system of roads and ships that were the envy of cultures of the time...but the distances and difficulties of traversing them meant that each time Tishtry moved she had to leave friends and familiarity behind with little chance of seeing any again. The book ends before she reaches that ultimate dream of any arena slave, the Circus Maximus in Rome but judging by her trajectory, it's strongly implied in this book that not only could she purchase her family but would reach that height, if purchased by someone with sufficient importance.
Overall, the language and material would probably be appropriate for kids in the 10-15 range, with a few caveats. Slavery is a significant theme in the book. While slavery in the Roman Empire was significantly different than in the United States--slaves could purchase their freedom and were for the most part the same race as their owners though they might be from different countries--this might require a bit of background explanation/reading for kids not up on history, as Yarbro doesn't fill in much of the historical differences. Yarbro uses Latin period terms for many of the things specific to that time and location, which in some ways helps define the plot by that different time, but may confuse kids who aren't familiar with the time period (I still have to double check some of the terms, though Yarbro included a glossary of the terms more likely to be unfamiliar.)
Despite being a prequel to Yarbro's St. Germain vampire series, Four Horses for Tishtry has no supernatural elements--I didn't know it was a prequel to Blood Games until I searched for more information on the book prior to doing this review. It's simply a historical tween/teen novel about a young girl making her way in the world.
April 15, 2022
Solid middle-grade historical adventure/horse girl story. Some of the details seemed more high empire than mid-1st century and the story depends on there being FAR more legal protection for slaves than there was in reality, but these quibbles are far outweighed by the setting in Armenia and several cities along the Adriatic: it's a great picture of the greater "Roman world" from the point of view of people who are only peripherally concerned with Rome. Roman games are the path through which Tishtry hopes to earn the money to free her family and herself, and Roman rule is a fact in the cities where she performs, but we meet very few Romans and here refreshingly little potted history about Roman politics/culture/concerns. Tishtry is also an excellent middle-grade protagonist; her utter confidence in her abilities was charming. The pacing is a bit episodic, but don't worry: it still builds to a dramatic and climactic chariot race finale! Still, I wish I had found this book when I was 10 or so; it would be a great recommendation for fans of Tamora Pierce.
February 2, 2018
First read this book in 4th grade, I think, when I was horse obsessed and pretty much read every single horse book the library had. It became one of my favorites and I still go back and read it every few years.
August 27, 2007
I would give this book to a girl interested in horses and Roman history. It is not brilliant, but it is interesting, and as far as I can tell, well-researched.
February 9, 2016
This is a prequel to Yarbro's Blood Games.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews