The Emperor's Games

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The Emperor's Games

Author	Damion Hunter
Language	English
Genre	Historical novel
Publisher	Ballantine Books; New Ed edition (January 12, 1984)
Publication date	1984
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print
Pages	369 pp (paperback edition)
ISBN	978-0-345-29827-0 (paperback edition)
Preceded by	Barbarian Princess

The Emperor's Games is the third and last book in a historical fiction trilogy about the 1st-century Roman Empire. Set primarily in Rome and Lower Germany circa AD 81-83, it follows the adventures of a pair of Roman brothers – one free-born and one slave-born – as they serve in the Roman legions.

The Centurions trilogy was written by Amanda Cockrell writing under the pseudonym Damion Hunter. The other two books in the series are the eponymous The Centurions which begin the tale of the two brothers and their extended family and Barbarian Princess.

Correus Appius Julianus is the slave born son of retired Roman general Flavius Appius Julianus who is currently posted as a senior centurion to the Roman naval base of Misenum in modern-day Naples near Pompeii. The novel opens with Correus frustrated at serving in a peacetime establishment and requesting transfer to a more active post. After overseeing the new emperor Titus's games, including a naval fight, Correus' wish is granted as he is sent off to destroy some pirates while his young wife Ygerna has to remain behind to give birth to her baby. She also has to try to assert her authority as a stepmother over Correus' five-year-old son, which provokes a family war with Correus' half-sister Julia, who has raised the boy for the past five years.

Upon returning from his successful mission to destroy the pirates, Correus is caught up in the new emperor Domitian's determination to win a triumph at the expense of Correus' old adversaries on the German border. This is complicated by Correus' own off-again, on-again friendship with the German chief and his half-brother Flavius' romance with the widow of that same former chieftain. There is also a complicated subplot involving a truly nasty Senator who is attempting to orchestrate a plot to depose the emperor – a plot that the Julianus family ends up being intimately involved in through the actions of their brother-in-law Paulinus. The fast-paced conclusion ends with the defeat of the Germans, and the transfer of Correus to a new post in the Roman province of Dacia.