Showing results by author "Virgil Cain" in All Categories

Born of the most prominent family in Hispania, the father of Magnus Maximus squandered his part of the family fortune before his sons came of age. While his cousins lived a life of privilege, Maximus rose through the ranks of the western armies the hard way, becoming known as the “Crusher of Rebellions” for his ability to quell uprisings of the most violent order. It was this reputation which saw Maximus sent into the hard north to tame yet another heathen rebellion. Had he been of moderate ambition, his career might have ended in Britannia, but there was nothing moderate about Magnus ...

With the West divided, it was imperative that Eastern Rome become the pillar upon which the Roman Empire could lean while it recovered its strength. That’s what made the disastrous defeat suffered by Emperor Valens at the Battle of Adrianople so devastating. The folly of Julius Valens was so wide in scope and crippling in effect that it staggered the Roman mind. No matter where the story was told, the Roman people struggled to comprehend such wholesale defeat. The Emperor was dead, the eastern armies were decimated, and the victorious barbarian horde roamed unchecked across the Balkans. ...

Old Shoe thought he’d seen it all. Having settled in Arizona two decades previous, when Cochise was still taking trophies off white folks, the arrival of the steel pony was supposed to settle all that lawlessness. A silver strike in the Dragoon Mountains changed that, drawing desperate men from every walk of life to the upstart mining camp of Tombstone. That’s when an outsider with poor intentions showed up, asking for a price on land that wasn’t for sale.

Many good men are already in the ground, and some bad ones too. The gravediggers and coffin makers are sore for the work, which has some folks questioning whether Tombstone is even worth rebuilding after a devastating fire swept across the town. With blood flowing down the San Pedro, the question is no longer if the other shoe will drop, but whose body will tumble the next time the unmistakable crack of gunfire echoes down Allen Street.

The bloodbath out at the Shoemaker Ranch has the entire county on edge just as Bob Paul finally takes office. As the body count rises, the Virginian begins to question his relationship with the Cowboys. Nor is he the only man of influence questioning their connection to Newman Clanton and his den of thieves. With less political coverage north of the border and the rurales turning up the heat south of it, the last thing the Cowboys can afford to do is go to war with the Earps.

Wyatt Earp was a gambler and a pimp long before he wore the tin star. Big Nose Kate was the daughter of a Hungarian doctor who emigrated in good standing to the Midwest when a series of unfortunate events turned her out. Doc Holliday was a gentleman from Georgia who was so well born as to be educated in Philadelphia when a diagnosis of tuberculosis forced him on an unlikely odyssey. In the Old West, no one was only one thing. Everyone had a past, and few were defined by it.

Land is only yours if you can keep it. Having wrested control of the Apacheria from the mighty Cochise and his many allies, a different fight begins to unfold south of the Gadsden Line. No longer on the offensive, Arizonans must now prove themselves capable of protecting their settlements, defending their forts, and maintaining their shipping routes if the Old Pueblo is to survive as anything more than a ghost town. With the Civil War now a figment of the past and the mighty Cochise all but whipped, the focus of the territorial government has shifted swiftly to the unrealized dream of ...

“‘This dismal calamity is but just over, and you yourself are a witness to how the Rome that commanded the world was astonished at the alarm of the Gothic trumpet. Where were then the privileges of birth, and the distinctions of quality? Were not all ranks and degrees leveled at that time and promiscuously huddled together? Every house was then a scene of misery, and equally filled with grief and confusion. The slave and the man of quality were in the same circumstances, and everywhere the terror of death and slaughter was the same, unless we may say the fright made the greatest ...

Gus served with conflicted pride in that uncivil war, seeing more battlefields than most. Disillusioned before the war began, he couldn't tell up from down by the time Joe Johnston surrendered at Durham Station. He had killed indiscriminately for four years, lacking all compassion for the men who fell by his gun so long as they wore a gray jersey. Such wanton violence made him the perfect soldier to tackle what the U.S. Government called the Indian Problem.

Charlie Clark lived a life like something from a dime novel, its pages were littered with names like William Quantrill, Jesse James, and John Chisum. A great many heard such deeds and commented that it all seemed a bit stranger than fiction. Often, Charlie wished he could stand among those who questioned its authenticity. At least then, he wouldn’t be scarred by the memory of such painful truths. The Traveling Arkansawyer recounts the struggle of countless ex-Rebels to live up to the terms of the oath they swore under duress, offering a staggering reminder that, for many, the war didn’t...

Many believe that Constantine chose Christianity because it was the only religion that could offer him absolution for the innumerable crimes committed during his historic reign. He was a deeply troubled soul, an undeniably violent man, and an immensely immoral human being, but he was also more aware of his sins than most men. He knew how desperately he needed forgiveness. That is why he waited until the end of his life to be baptized, as it was the only way to ensure that his terrible record of inhumane acts was wiped clean. How then could it be that this beastly figure who was so full of ...

To those born in the antebellum South, dying while draped in butternut gray was the only reasonable thing to do once the rebellion began. The son of a Virginia planter, running north to join with the Federals was not merely a rejection of everything that Gus McMaster knew; it was a betrayal of the first order, turning his back on his family despite knowing that his brothers would suit up and ride for the other side. So great was his desire to see his soul cleansed of the stain of slavery that he was willing to overturn every system from which he had benefited, even if it meant drawing arms ...

Though the burgeoning Christian identity of the Roman Empire was never without opposition, no one expected the Old Gods to forge a final, desperate effort to reclaim their empire some 60 years following the death of Constantine the Great. The Battle Frigidus marked the final installment of Rome’s trilogy of monumental civil wars. Those previous battles fought between Caesar and Pompey and again between Constantine and Licinius might be better remembered, but never had the stakes been higher than when east battled west in the rocky outcrops of the Julian Pass. As Rome goes, so does the ...

A dreadful pall has overtaken the west. King Alaric and his violent horde of Gothic marauders roam unchecked in central Italy, yet another usurper has risen to steal control of Gaul, and a half-dozen Germanic tribes have overrun the Rhineland and spread their havoc south across the Pyrenees. A prisoner of his own capital, Honorius is a fallen ruler clinging bitterly to a diminished throne. Every citizen in the west can picture the fall of Rome, with no need even to close their eyes. The Age of Kings is the enthralling Final installment of the epic Roman saga The Ghost of Rome.

The cascading perils of the Late Rome era were relentless, bombarding whichever emperor was so unfortunate as to inherit the Purple during the last gasp of the Roman Empire. From the moment that Julius Valens acceded to the throne of the East until the last dynasty faltered in the West, only Theodosius adequately withstood this constant avalanche of tumult. Romans far and wide shuddered to think what would become of their troubled world if the fate of Rome was to be decided by his disappointing sons, Arcadius and Honorius. The Last Dynasty is the enthralling Fifth installment of the epic ...

“There’s a delicate balance to be struck between age and wisdom. If we’re to win this war, we need young men to set the pace and old men to point them in the right direction. It’s something similar to a woodpecker. He can peck all day without a lick of progress if no one bothers to tell him that he’s banging his head on a stovepipe.” Wildflowers and Seedcorn recounts the Civil War in the Trans-Mississippi Theater from the perspective of a wealthy family from Fort Smith, offering a staggering reminder that war is a young man’s game.

The Vandals and Huns were growing bolder by the hour and the Goths already dominated the whole of Illyricum. Barbarian officers led Roman armies, held positions in Roman government, protected Roman borders, facilitated Roman trade, owned Roman land, plowed Roman fields, and even prayed in Roman churches. This was not an enemy that could be met and defeated at the border. It was an enemy that already lived among them. The only way to remove such an invasive species was to eradicate it at the root, turning Romans against their heathen neighbors in such a cruel manner as could not be justified...

The Gadsden Purchase finished what the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo started. The old Spanish presidio at Tucson – known affectionately to locals as the “Old Pueblo” – was declared American territory on June 8, 1854. Few noticed. There were only 500 citizens at the time, and a scant few were white. Most Americans looked at the dusty old presidio, situated a day’s ride north of the Mexico border and surrounded on all sides by as many mountain ranges as hostile Apache war bands, and saw only a sweatbox populated by too many undesirables to make it worth their while. A more learned ...

It was not the pursuit of glory or an age-old grievance with the Roman Empire that herded the Visigoths south to the northern border of Moesia for the first time in decades, but their fear of the Huns. The Visigoths were such skilled and aggressive warriors that their names became synonymous with the uncommon brutality of the European barbarian, and yet, this imposing horde arrived on the banks of the Danube as refugees. With a child on the throne of the West and diplomatic efforts with the Persian Empire reaching an impasse, the undeniably unimpressive Emperor Valens could be counted on to...