Product Description

First published in 1954, a story which follows the exploits of a Roman boy, Marcus Aquila, who sets out to discover what happened to his father and the Ninth Legion when they marched into northern Britain.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #721785 in Books
• Published on: 1977-03-31
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Customer Reviews

The Lost Eagle
'The Eagle of the Ninth' follows the story of Centurion Marcus Aquila, orphaned son of an Eagles Centurion, who takes up his first command in the South of Britain.
His father's legion disappeared in the North many years ago, when dispatched to fight the Picts, and Marcus dreams of finding and restoring to glory the name of the Legion, even of finding some trace of his father.
However, he is not as free to take up research into the matter as he had hoped: the area around the fort is unsettled, and a bad harvest creates even more unrest. Before his career is properly begun, an attack invalids Marcus out of the Eagles, with his career irretrievably gone, and sends him to recuperate with his unknown uncle Aquila.
Slowly Marcus begins to recover, and soon he accumulates a small circle of friends: his body-slave, bought from the arena, Esca MacCunoval, Cub, his wolf-cub, and Cottia, the niece of his uncle's next-door neighbours.
It is a friend of his uncle's, a Legate of one of the Egyptian Legions, who revives Marcus's desire to clear the name of his father's Legion, and who sponsors him and Esca to go North and make what they can of the many-years' cold trail.
'The Eagle of the Ninth' follows Esca and Marcus as they search for traces of the Eagle North of the Frontier, an Eagle which seems to have been taken up by one of the heavy Northern fogs and to have disappeared as completely as fog afterwards ...
This book has been one of my favourites for years. Rosemary Sutcliff can create very evocative word-pictures, like the outline sketches that fill her illustrated books, and the story is one to catch the reader's imagination.

A son's search for his fathers lost legion
Set in Roman Britain Marcus has recently been injured in battle, whilst recovering at his unlcle's house he hears a rumour of the lost eagle of his fathers legion, The Ninth. The Ninth Legion disappeared into the Scottish mist to sort out the troubles there and was never seen again. This book is a good read for father and son and is worth sharing. Jack (9 - son) and David (35 - father) Smith, UK.