The Eagle of the Ninth Quotes

“The Commander was a complete contrast to his men: Roman to his arrogant finger-tips, wiry and dark as they were raw-boned and fair. The olive-skinned face under the curve of his crested helmet had not a soft line in it anywhere - a harsh face it would have been, but that it was winged with laughter lines, and between his level black brows showed a small raised scar that marked him for one who had passed the Raven Degree of Mithras.”
― Rosemary Sutcliff, The Eagle of the Ninth

“They were sweeping at full gallop round the mile-wide curve of the woodshore.
To Marcus that moment was always like being born from one kind of life into another.”
― Rosemary Sutcliff, The Eagle of the Ninth

“Here in Isca Dumnoniorum, Rome was a new slip grafted onto an old stock - and the graft had not yet taken.”
― Rosemary Sutcliff, The Eagle of the Ninth

“That rose-bush gave Marcus a sense of continuance; it was a link between him and those who had been here before him, here on the frontier, and the others who would come after.”
― Rosemary Sutcliff, The Eagle of the Ninth

“... would there not be another hunger on him all his life? For other scents and sights and sounds; pale and changeful northern skies and the green plover calling?”
― Rosemary Sutcliff, The Eagle of the Ninth