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Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site Shops at: Zazzle & PrintFection Wallace Breem's Eagle in the Snow is
widely recognized as a modern classic in the historical fiction
genre, creating living characters, set in a factually correct
past, that is brought to life through the skill of the writer. It was recently re-released in both hardback and
paperback (although still hard to come by).
And there are plenty of
second-hand copies in circulation. There is, again, talk
of adapting it to film. Interest in the book was
renewed partly because the character of Maximus, Quintus and others
that appeared in the Oscar-winning film Gladiator, were
inspired at least in part by Mr. Breem’s characters.
And the opening sequence of the film, on the Eastern border of
the Roman Empire, was straight from Mr. Breem’s book. Many Eagle in the Snow
fans regret that Gladiator only took a few characters and
settings, rather than adapted the whole novel.
They all agree that Breem’s story is far superior to the Gladiator
story, which is a miss-mash of old Hollywood Roman-Sandal movies. Wallace Breem's book covers 30
years in the life of Maximus, a fictional Roman General,
possibly based partly on a real general, Marcus. He
defends the Roman Empire from invasion by hordes from the North, and
then the East under Roman General Stilicho (present day France from present day Germany) and is
shamed and shocked to see the poor state of Rome's famous legions.
The winter invasions over the frozen Rhine River in 406-407 are often
sited as the beginning of the end of the Roman Empire. You should read the rave
reader reviews at both Amazon.com
and Barnes
and Noble. One reader-reviewer wrote: "...there is a
poignant Latin coda at the end of the original text, along the lines
of a Roman funerary inscription, that is MISSING from both Rugged Land
editions (hardback and paperback) -- how do these things happen? Shame
on the publisher. This ties up some lingering questions about how
Maximus' narrative came to be and is a fitting sign-off to this
powerful story." Here is that epitaph, in case your edition is
missing it: DIS MANIBUS And a rough translation (please contact me if you
have a better one): To
the spirits of the departed (To the gods of the afterlife, or in
today's wording 'In Loving Memory') Paulinus
Gaius Maximus son of Claudius Arelatis, Prefect
of the First Cohort Tung of the 20th Legion Valeria Victrix, Commander
at Mainz defender of Gaul In
the year 367, and Quartermaster under Veronius Prefect of
the Wing, and Prefect Petria of the Second Cohort Astur, Master
of the Horse (Head of the Cavalry) for Upper Germany, in his 56th year died
in the Battle of the Rhine in the year 407. His
friend Saturninus erected this. If you're into battle scenarios and war-games,
check out this fan's
analysis of Maximus's battles to defend the Roman Empire's Eastern
flank. "Banished to the Empire’s farthest outpost, veteran warrior
Paulinus Maximus defends The Wall of Britannia from the constant
onslaught of belligerent barbarian tribes. Bravery, loyalty,
experience, and success lead to Maximus’ appointment as
"General of the West" by the Roman emperor, the ambition of
a lifetime. But with the title comes a caveat: Maximus needs to
muster and command a single legion to defend the perilous Rhine
frontier. (This profile was published previously in Solander,
the the magazine of the Historical Novel Society, and is authored by
Mr. Alan Fisk (see below).) In
1970, the Times Literary Supplement ran a dismissive
review of a new historical novel called Eagle in the Snow, by
an unknown writer called Wallace Breem. The
review was read by no less a personage than Mary Renault, who sent a
scathing letter to the TLS, praising the book and lambasting
the reviewer. Eagle in the Snow became a major success,
being reprinted twice within the same year, and Wallace Breem seemed
set to become one of the big names in historical fiction. In
July 2002 Eagle in the Snow will be reissued by Phoenix Press.
(A full review of Eagle in the Snow will appear in a future
issue of The Historical Novels Review.) Negotiations are in
progress for a possible film. Sadly, Wallace Breem himself cannot
enjoy this success, having died in 1990, but his widow Mrs. Rikki
Breem kindly granted an interview to Solander to help with this
article. The
interest in the novel and a film partly arise because the Roman
general Maximus, the hero of Eagle
in the Snow was an inspiration for the Roman general Maximus,
the hero of the film Gladiator. Eagle
in the Snow covers a period of over 30 years, starting in
late fourth-century Britain, and finishing in a harrowing climax when
the freezing-over of the river Rhine on 31 December 406 allows a vast
horde of Germanic barbarians to pour into the western provinces of the
Empire. Maximus is a loyal officer and husband, and a devotee of the
cult of Mithras, but his steadfastness is not repaid by loyalty on the
part of those close to him. This Maximus is no tiger-fighting
gladiator, but a passionate and unhappy man driven into deep waters
against his will. Breem
achieved his ambition, and was commissioned into the Queen
Victoria’s Own Corps of Guides, a very distinguished regiment
that had long served on the Northwest Frontier. He
looked forward to a lifelong career in the Guides, apparently not
foreseeing that there would be no place for men like him in the
independent India that was soon to come into being. His years in the
Guides would always haunt him. Upon
Partition in 1947, Wallace Breem left the Army and sailed back to
England, with no plan at all for his life. He had so wanted to make a
career in the Guides. On
the voyage home, Breem began writing the novel that would one day
appear after many revisions as his third novel, The Leopard and the
Cliff, of which more later. When
he arrived home Breem took a series of short-term casual jobs, not
really knowing what to do with himself. He worked as an assistant to a
veterinary surgeon, spent some time working in a tannery, and for a
while he was a rent collector in the East End of London, a job which
was perhaps nearly as dangerous as his combat service on the Northwest
Frontier. Eventually
an acquaintance suggested that he join the staff of the Inner
Temple legal library. Breem had no training or experience in legal
librarianship. Today nobody would get such a job without a handful of
appropriate certificates, but in the 1940s character counted for more
than paper qualifications. Wallace Breem settled into the Inner Temple
library, where he would work for the rest of his life. There
was much to do. A large part of the Inner Temple’s 500-year-old
collection had been lost to enemy air raids in 1941/2, because of a
stubborn decision not to move it out of London. Breem started as an
Assistant, and then became a Sub-Librarian in 1956. While
he spent his working life in the library, Wallace Breem had never lost
his interest in writing and in history. He had kept the manuscript of The
Leopard and the Cliff, and planned several other novels. As
he rose through the ranks of the Inner Temple library, Breem was also
busy writing. Over the years he experienced frustration as a
succession of promising schemes came to nothing. At one stage a
publisher had asked him to write a book for children, but it was
cancelled. In
1965 Wallace Breem became Chief Librarian and Keeper of Manuscripts,
and in the following year he married his Deputy Librarian Daphne
“Rikki” Parnham. When asked to list his interests, he cited
“Books and Reading, Poetry, Music, Theatre, Early Cinema, Ancient,
Mediæval and Military History, Travel, and Cats”. Oddly,
the list does not include any reference to writing historical fiction.
Eagle in the Snow had originated as a short story that he had
written as a Christmas present for Rikki, but as he worked on the
story it became longer and longer until it turned into a novel. When
Eagle in the Snow became Wallace Breem’s first published
novel, he was already 54, but it had been worth waiting for. After
that first scornful review in the Times
Literary Supplement, the praise rolled in from all directions.
Mary Renault described it as “Pure pleasure... I had to stop reading
it at night - its intense reality kept me awake”, and R.C. Sheriff
said “It springs to life on the first page and never falters”. Eagle
in the Snow was reprinted twice in its first year, and there was
already talk of filming it. Breem himself always wanted Charlton
Heston to play the part of Maximus! Wallace
Breem set his stories, where possible, in places that he had visited
himself. If that was not possible, he researched them thoroughly. His
second novel, The Legate’s Daughter, was largely set in
Tunisia, a country that he did not see until after the book had been
published. The
first half of The Legate’s Daughter is set in Rome in 24
B.C., where the former centurion Curtius Rufus is working as an
unenthusiastic civil servant in the water-supply office of the city. Curtius
Rufus and his friend the unsuccessful Macedonian poet Criton are
forced to travel to North Africa, ostensibly to help the young
Mauretanian client king Juba to set up a programme of building works,
but really to try to recover a teenage girl, the legate’s daughter
of the title, who has been abducted to unknown whereabouts. Curtius
Rufus strives to understand the complex tribal politics of the North
African kingdoms, and establishes a close but troubled relationship
with Juba’s queen, Cleopatra Selene, the daughter of Cleopatra of
Egypt. (Breem was always fascinated by Queen Cleopatra, and planned to
write about her one day.) The
Legate’s Daughter was published in 1974, but did not match the
success of Eagle in the Snow, although it has at least as many
interesting and memorable characters. Breem’s gift for creating
images that communicate the atmosphere of a distant time and place was
as strong as ever, but the book does not quite have the grip of Eagle
in the Snow.
After another four years, The Leopard and the Cliff,
which Breem had first written on that unwanted voyage back from India
30 years before, was published in its final form. It
is based loosely on a real incident from the nearly-forgotten Third
Afghan War, which lasted for only 26 days in 1919. Sandeman
considers himself to be a mediocrity and a failure. Apart from his own
situation, he is also concerned for his much younger wife Sophie, who
is expecting their first child. She is 300 miles away, and Sandeman
has not seen her for four months. He
has to recall his officers and men to the fort at Khaisora, and to try
to keep the Scouts together although they are drawn from several
tribes with a history of mutual distrust. Sandeman has to abandon
Khaisora and lead his column on a long march through territory where
both the land and its inhabitants are their enemies. If
you think that all Northwest Frontier novels are the same, this one is
different. Major Sandeman’s struggles against his enemies, against
the harsh conditions of Waziristan, and against his own doubts about
his abilities, make an intensely moving story all the way until the
very last pages of this novel, when the last survivors of the Scouts
struggle to the end of the march at Fort Gumal. The
Leopard and the Cliff shares a common theme with Wallace Breem’s
other two novels: a man has great responsibilities thrust upon him
that he did not seek, and does his best to discharge them and protect
his companions. His heroes also always face treachery and betrayal
from those whom they should be able to trust. Breem
planned a fourth novel, about the disaster to the Roman general Varrus
who lost three legions in the Teutoberg forest in Germany in 9 A.D.,
but he never completed it. The success of Eagle in the Snow had
proved a false dawn, and he never became a full-time writer of
historical novels. In
any case, Wallace Breem’s time was filled by his work as a legal
librarian. He used his writing skills in that field as well, making an
important contribution to the standard Manual of Law Librarianship. Breem
never lost his love of historical fiction. He acted as an adviser on
military matters to Rosemary Sutcliff, notably in her Frontier Wolf. He planned a novel about Richard III, with his usual high
standards of research. Rikki Breem remembers accompanying him around
the site of the battle of Barnet. He still dreamt of a novel about
Cleopatra. Meanwhile,
readers who had been delighted by Eagle in the Snow and
its successors wondered what had become of the promising Wallace
Breem. Few of them knew that he was probably the country’s leading
law librarian, an occupation which most people would have thought
suited to a dry-as-dust pedant, not to a man of action like Wallace
Breem. General
Maximus honored by his legionnaires in the film Gladiator. (Roman
history buffs and film pundits have pointed out that Romans did not
use stirrups at that time. But the actors did, because riding a
horse Roman style is very, very difficult! Others point out that
the Roman costumes in the film are all from the wrong time
periods. One person even complained that the point on the top of
a helmet wiggled as the fighter ran, showing it to be made of
rubber. And a spectator in the Forum was spotted wearing
designer sunglasses.) After
his death, the British and Irish Association of Law Librarians set up
the Wallace Breem award for legal librarianship in his honour. In
Wallace Breem’s obituary in The Independent, Bruce Coward
wrote that “...writing of his quality is seldom found in historical
writing today. All his books have long been out of print, but deserve
reprinting, because they would surely delight those readers who look
for integrity as well as excitement in their historical fiction”. The
reissue of Eagle in the Snow, and the film of it if it is made,
will attract a new audience for the historical novels of this
thoughtful writer, who was so skilled at creating characters and
atmosphere that always live on in the memory of his readers. (As well
as thanking Mrs. Rikki Breem, Solander would like to express
its appreciation to Ms. Margaret Clay, the present Librarian and
Keeper of Manuscripts at the Inner Temple, for her help in the
preparation of this article.) Alan
Fisk
is the author of The Strange Things of the World (1988), The
Summer Stars (1992 and 2000), Forty Testoons (1999),
and Lord of Silver (2001), and Cupid and the Silent
Goddess (2003). His website. From Reviews: "...captures the atmosphere of sixteenth-century Florence and
the world of the artists excellently. this is a fascinating
imaginative reconstruction of the events during the painting of
Allegory with Venus and Cupid." Marina Oliver, historical
novelist. "A witty and entertaining romp set in the seedy world of
Italian Renaissance artists." Elizabeth Chadwick, award-winning
historical novelist. You can read
the first chapter on-line, and reviews from other authors. The painting on the cover, and described in the book, is by
Bronzino and is currently in the collection at the National
Gallery in London. Another look at the painting... Visit my History of Italy Page
- Ancient Rome
More
About Wallace Breem...
Eagle
in the Snow
P GAIO MAXIMO FILIO CLAUDII ARELATIS
PRAEFECTUS I COH TUNG LEG XX VAL VIC
DUX MOGUNTIACENSIS COMES GALLIARUM
ANN LVII CCCX ET Q VERONIO PRAEFECTUS
ALAE PETRIAE PRAEFECTUS II COH ASTUR
MAGISTER EQUITUM GERMANIAE SUPER ANN
LVI CECIDIT BELLO RHENO CCCCVII
SATURNINUS AMICUS FECITFrom The Publisher:
On
the opposite side of the Rhine River, tribal nations are uniting;
hundreds of thousands mass in preparation for the conquest of Gaul,
and from there, a sweep down into Rome itself. Only a wide river
and a wily general keep them in check.
With discipline, deception, persuasion, and surprise, Maximus holds
the line against an increasingly desperate and innumerable foe.
Friends, allies, and even enemies urge Maximus to proclaim himself
emperor. He refuses, bound by an oath of duty, honor, and
sacrifice to Rome, a city he has never seen. But then
circumstance intervenes. Now, Maximus will accept the purple
robe of emperor, if his scrappy legion can deliver this last crucial
victory against insurmountable odds. The very fate of Rome hangs
in the balance.
Combining the brilliantly realized battle action of Gates of Fire and
the masterful characterization of Mary Renault's The Last of the
Wine, Eagle in the Snow is nothing less than the novel of the fall
of the Roman empire."Profile of Wallace
Breem by Alan Fisk
Wallace
Breem was born in 1926, and went to Westminster School. As a boy, he
developed a desire to serve in the Indian Army, a desire which was
kindled by the books of Rudyard Kipling and by seeing Gary Cooper in The
Lives of a Bengal Lancer. The 1930s Saturday cinema matinées have
much to answer for.
The
character of the ex-soldier Curtius Rufus, and the louche Rome in
which he lives, oddly prefigure the “Falco” novels of Lindsey
Davis.
Major
Sandeman of the Khaisora Scouts, a regiment recruited from Pathans and
other tribes of Waziristan on the Northwest Frontier, is in acting
command of the fort of Khaisora when he receives a signal that a large
force has crossed over from Afghanistan and is attacking the scattered
outposts.
Cupid
and the Silent Goddess
