Mars the Avenger

Download or read book Mars the Avenger written by Alan Scribner and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2012-01-24 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Mars the Avenger is an historical mystery set in the year 158 CE, during the reign of Antoninus Pius, a period often called the height of the Roman Empire. It is also a daily life in ancient Rome at that time a sojourn into the world of Roman life and courts, police and criminal law. In the novel, Marcus Flavius Severus, a judge of the Court of the Urban Prefect investigates the disappearance of the wife of a Roman senator. At the same time, a sensational crime is perpetrated in the City when a body of a murdered man is discovered on the steps of the Temple of Mars the Avenger. As the investigation unfolds, the two cases become connected to a love affair seventeen years before in the Roman orient. Judge Severus, with the assistance of his court and police aids, tracks down clues and witnesses, leading them through the City and society of ancient Rome. Scenes are set, among other places, in a slave market, in the majestic public baths of Trajan, in wealthy villas and tenement apartment houses in which most Romans lived, in a tavern in the notorious Subura district and at the chariot races in the Circus Maximus. There are also scenes in a Roman Court and the book is accurate as to the criminal laws of the time, including the use of judicial torture. All laws, rescripts and legal procedures are from Roman law sources. The novel also introduces a perspicacious new detective in the person of Roman judge Marcus Flavius Severus."--Back cover.