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Legions of the Eagle
Legions Of The Eagle
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1967
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About the author
Henry Treece
104 books37 followersHenry Treece (1911-1966) was a British poet and writer, who also worked as a teacher and editor. He wrote a range of works but is mostly remembered as a writer of children's historical novels.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
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March 12, 2019This was a great favourite of mine as a child, along with anything by Rosemary Sutcliff. The story takes place at the time of the Roman invasion of Britain in the reign of Claudius. The main character is a young boy, his father is a senior warrior in service to Caratacus, his best friend is a family slave - a boy from Wales, he feels he has a good life, a handsome dog, a fine knife, essentially everything a pre-Roman iron age boy might want.
The story goes with the fortunes of war and shakes everything up, perhaps according to the rules of karma, since good deeds have good outcomes in this story, the past is revisited from different points of view - growing up is not here a case of becoming to be physically bigger but of coming to have bigger perspectives.
So the boy in turn becomes a slave to a Roman boy, but when his father goes missing in action the two make their way to war-torn Britain to find the man - the children taken on the adult role.
Taken prisoner by his old childhood friend who has grown up to become a Welsh chief, the boy is reunited with his mother and meets Caratacus again, in my mind Caratacus has blended together with Enoch Powell, except with a somewhat droopier moustache in my imagination. However the future is Roman, the heroes of his boyhood revealed to be bloated and cruel. There is no going back to the past. And thanks to his mother throwing off the bonds of the oppressed ancient British house wife, Gaul beacons with a sunny glow as a land of peace, quiet prosperity, and multi-cultural living. There is something about thinking of the books I read as a child, rather like looking at the negatives of old photographs, the sense of both familiarity and distance at once.
The story goes with the fortunes of war and shakes everything up, perhaps according to the rules of karma, since good deeds have good outcomes in this story, the past is revisited from different points of view - growing up is not here a case of becoming to be physically bigger but of coming to have bigger perspectives.
So the boy in turn becomes a slave to a Roman boy, but when his father goes missing in action the two make their way to war-torn Britain to find the man - the children taken on the adult role.
Taken prisoner by his old childhood friend who has grown up to become a Welsh chief, the boy is reunited with his mother and meets Caratacus again, in my mind Caratacus has blended together with Enoch Powell, except with a somewhat droopier moustache in my imagination. However the future is Roman, the heroes of his boyhood revealed to be bloated and cruel. There is no going back to the past. And thanks to his mother throwing off the bonds of the oppressed ancient British house wife, Gaul beacons with a sunny glow as a land of peace, quiet prosperity, and multi-cultural living. There is something about thinking of the books I read as a child, rather like looking at the negatives of old photographs, the sense of both familiarity and distance at once.
December 5, 2018
Published in 1954, Legions of the Eagle is the story of a friendship between a Celtic and a Roman boy during the Claudian invasion of Britain. Treece was a highly respected poet and writer of fiction for both children and adults but this is frankly terrible. The plot meanders all over the place; events and dialogue are summarised rather than properly narrated; when the author does introduce dialogue it is stilted and improbable; characterisation is black-and-white; the description if often self-consciously poetic; and the narrator constantly resorts to telling readers what conclusions to draw rather than letting them work this out for themselves. It's like an object lesson in how not to write. I love children's fiction set in the Roman period but I couldn't possibly recommend this.
August 20, 2019
Treece takes an excursion to Roman Britain, sparking another life-long interest.
March 15, 2019
A fine reading; a little bit biased towards Rome, maybe; and a plot very rushed at times. Pre-teens would certainly enjoy it.
August 31, 2021
Gwydion, the son of a Belgic lord, the right-hand man to King Caratacus, and his Silurian slave Math, are captured by the Romans invading Britain. Math escapes but Gwydion is sent to Gaul as a slave to be the companion of centurion's son Gaius. Following a plague, the boys return to Britain seeking Gwydion's mother and the father of Gaius. They also find Math and a whole lot of trouble.
I loved this boys' adventure story when I was nine. Now I don't. Gwydion is the typical Treece hero (see his Viking books): brave, boastful, and reckless. His experiences as a slave don't seem to have changed this. He doesn't seem to learn. He's also blond and Treece seems to have favoured flaxen hair: the dark-haired (and dark-faced) Math might be cunning but he is despicable. Although there are moments when Gwydion catches glimpses of Math's resentment of the master-slave dynamic (despite the author's protests that Gwysion and his mother treat Math like one of them) this doesn't spill over into justice in terms of the story arc and I have to conclude that Treece, like Gwydion, never properly understood that a favoured slave is still a slave, that power can only exist with powerlessness, and that conquest does not give the conquerors the moral right to belittle the conquered in any way, even by patronising them. At the end, Gwydion says: "Life isn't given to us just so we can exert our strength on other men and turn their lives inside-out for our own advantage." (Epilogue). But there is no evidence, in his character, or in that of his best friend Gaius, that he understands this. The lesson is learnt by Math, perhaps, but by this time Math is the antagonist.
Furthermore, the history seems surprisingly sloppy for such a well-known author. "Then Gwydion saw his mother do a strange thing; she suddenly stood in her stirrups" (4.1). This would have been strange indeed during the Roman conquest of Britain (43 CE). Although rope loops may have been used as early as 200 BCE (in Asia, perhaps reaching Rome but probably not Britain) there is no evidence for the stirrup as such before 500 CE. Furthermore, Gwydion travels through "Londinium" (2.1) but there is no evidence for pre-Roman settlement in London and Londinium as such was founded by the Romans after their invasion.
A very disappointing read.
I loved this boys' adventure story when I was nine. Now I don't. Gwydion is the typical Treece hero (see his Viking books): brave, boastful, and reckless. His experiences as a slave don't seem to have changed this. He doesn't seem to learn. He's also blond and Treece seems to have favoured flaxen hair: the dark-haired (and dark-faced) Math might be cunning but he is despicable. Although there are moments when Gwydion catches glimpses of Math's resentment of the master-slave dynamic (despite the author's protests that Gwysion and his mother treat Math like one of them) this doesn't spill over into justice in terms of the story arc and I have to conclude that Treece, like Gwydion, never properly understood that a favoured slave is still a slave, that power can only exist with powerlessness, and that conquest does not give the conquerors the moral right to belittle the conquered in any way, even by patronising them. At the end, Gwydion says: "Life isn't given to us just so we can exert our strength on other men and turn their lives inside-out for our own advantage." (Epilogue). But there is no evidence, in his character, or in that of his best friend Gaius, that he understands this. The lesson is learnt by Math, perhaps, but by this time Math is the antagonist.
Furthermore, the history seems surprisingly sloppy for such a well-known author. "Then Gwydion saw his mother do a strange thing; she suddenly stood in her stirrups" (4.1). This would have been strange indeed during the Roman conquest of Britain (43 CE). Although rope loops may have been used as early as 200 BCE (in Asia, perhaps reaching Rome but probably not Britain) there is no evidence for the stirrup as such before 500 CE. Furthermore, Gwydion travels through "Londinium" (2.1) but there is no evidence for pre-Roman settlement in London and Londinium as such was founded by the Romans after their invasion.
A very disappointing read.
March 4, 2026
Loved Henry Treece's historic tales for children. This was a favourite of mine as a child. . The story takes place at the time of the Roman invasion of Britain in the reign of Claudius. The main character is a young boy, his father is a senior warrior in service to Caratacus, his best friend is a family slave - a boy from Wales, he feels he has a good life, a handsome dog, a fine knife, essentially everything a pre-Roman iron age boy might want.
June 27, 2013
I really hated this book. I had to read it for school. Flat characters, and boring storyline
Did not finish
August 22, 2017How long can any children's book stay on someone's Currently Reading shelf before they admit that they're not going to finish it? I don't know if there's an objective answer, but this one, despite being no thicker than my finger so really not that long, has been there for at least eight months and I'm not making any progress. It just... managed to be historically dubious about SO MANY THINGS in the space of SO FEW pages, and that put me off. Also, the author made the very odd decision to name characters after Very Notable characters from medieval Welsh literature, without them seeming to have any connection to said literature. So that just threw me off, and I was never going to get very far. It remains unfinished. I remain unconvinced that it will ever be finished. Nor will this Currently Reading shelf, but I'm going to try and clear it up as best I can.
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