From
Stephen Saylor's web site:
ROMAN BLOOD
The novel that began the series. The city is Rome, the year is 80 B.C. When an aspiring young advocate named Cicero takes on his first big murder case, he draws the wrath of the dictator Sulla...and turns for help to Gordianus the Finder. “Gripping...A combination of Hitchcock-style suspense and vivid historical details.” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
This sounds familiar. Isn't this the one where the penalty for patricide is to be sewn up into a bag with rabid dogs and thrown into the Tiber River? It is well-written, and goes into the seamier side of life in Rome, like the HBO series
Rome.
Another series,
Oath of Empire by Thomas Harlan, is also set in the context of the Roman Empire, but it's an alternate history / fantasy world with magic as well as military conquest.
Oath of Empire is a series of four alternate history/fantasy books (Shadow of Ararat, Gate of Fire, Storm of Heaven, The Dark Lord) which follow the adventures of a handsome Roman prince (Maxian), an Irish lad (Dwyrin MacDonald), a young Latin woman (Thyatis Julia Clodia) and an Egyptian priest (Ahmet) through triumph, trouble and epic conflict between the Roman and Persian Empires in the 7th century AD.
Oath of Empire has love, romance, slaughter, intrigue, enormous battles, high sorcery and sacrifice... a Cinerama / De Mille movie on paper!
I've only read the first in this series, but I plan to get back to it "one of these days."
I've also read the first two novels in his other series,
In the time of the Sixth Sun (
Wasteland of Flint and
House of Reeds).
The Japanese refugees (the Nisei) arrive in North America in about AD 1200, and the events of Wasteland (and following books) occurs in the AD 2400's. ... Unlike Oath of Empire, which is set in an alternate past, the Sixth Sun novels are set in an alternate future and past. ... Two of the primary characters [are] Mitsuharu Hadeishi (a Terran Federation lieutenant commander, serving aboard the Imperial M鸩ca Navy Astronomer-class destroyer Henry Cornuelle) and a University of New Canberra xeno-archaeologist, Gretchen Anderssen.