by Carol Ashby
Glossary
aureus: gold coin worth 25 denarii
cisium: two-wheeled cart with forward-facing seat located above the axis
corbita: merchant ship, typical size 90 feet long, 25 feet wide with one large sail midship and a second small angled sail in the bow
denarius: coin equal to about one day’s wage for a worker.
dupondius: coin worth 1/8 denarius
first table: the main (second) course of a three-course Roman dinner
gladius: short Roman military sword
palla: woman’s large rectangular shawl (60 x 120 inches) worn wrapped around the body and sometimes over the head
paterfamilias: legal head of a Roman family with absolute control over all his children, even when grown or married.
peregrine: a person who is not a Roman citizen
praetor: a judge in the Roman court system; the second level magistrate in the senatorial course of honors
quadrans: smallest denomination Roman coin worth 1/64 denarius
raeda: a four-wheeled closed-in carriage
second table: the dessert (third) course of a three-course Roman dinner
sestertius: coin worth 1/4 denarius
stola: a long robe worn by married women fastened by clasps at the shoulder and worn over a tunic
strigil: a metal scraper used to remove oil, sweat, and dirt
vestibulum: short hall between the entrance and atrium of a Roman town house
Scripture References
Scripture quotations marked ESV are from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001, 2007, 2011, 2016 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations marked CSB are taken from the Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible® and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.
Chapter 5: John 11:25-26 (ESV) and John 14:26-27 (CSB)
Chapter 57: Matthew 10:34-39 (ESV)
Acknowledgements
First, I want to thank God for blessing me with the opportunity to write stories about difficult friendships and life-changing decisions in dangerous times, where forgiveness and love open hearts to discover their own faith in Christ. Nothing could be better than spending so much time with characters whose love for Jesus powers their lives, even in the hardest times.
It would never be possible to write the best book I can without the help of many others. Special thanks go to my critique partner, Katie Powner, who’s an award-winning author herself. I’m especially thankful for the deep wisdom and spiritual insight of my trio of beta readers: alpha beta Regina Fujitani, who gets so many things tried out on her more than once, and my kindred spirits, Lisa Garcia, and Patti Stouter. I’m also thankful for my New Mexico compatriot and fellow author, Andrew Budek-Schmeisser, who lets me test the life-changing conversations on him to make sure they feel like the real deal between people, not just characters in a book.
Many thanks also to my wonderful friends who love to read and gave me many helpful comments. Some willingly read the earliest versions of The Legacy when I was first starting to write novels and it had a different name. My deepest thanks go out to each, and here they are alphabetically: Seaborn Ashby, Martha Kreklow. Christopher Miller, and Antoinette Smith. Your insights and suggestions made the characters more real and the situations more authentic. Many thanks!
Many thanks to my marvelous editor, Wendy Chorot, whose spiritual insights and editorial skills helped me refine the turning-point conversations so they have the ring of truth. On top of that, she’s a blast to work with!
Yet again, I want to thank Roseanna White for making another gorgeous cover that captures the theme of the series, the Light in the Empire. She made a truly beautiful cover even when I told her it had to include the “ugliest man in the Empire.” Her elegant use of light and shadow makes it sheer pleasure to look at. I can hardly wait to see what she creates for the next novel in the series.
I also want to acknowledge the invaluable advice for refining the cover design from Hy Tran and Andrew Budek-Schmeisser, without whose insights I might never have figured out what keeps the cover of a historical novel about spiritual transformations with a romantic subplot from looking too much like a simple romance that turns off male readers. Thanks, guys!
I especially want to thank my wonderful family. My son Paul been writing himself since 8th grade, so he’s my kindred spirit who understands how addictive it is. My daughter Lydia does her part to keep me from writing all the time by being so much fun to do things with.
The best characters are inspired by real people, and my husband Jim is the inspiration for the best characteristics of my heroes. What could be a greater blessing than being married for decades to a man who is smart, kind, funny, and able to put up with me? God truly blessed me when He brought Jim from Texas to Idaho to get his wife!
About the Author
Carol Ashby has been a professional writer for most of her life, but her articles and books were about lasers and compound semiconductors (the electronics that make cell phones, laser pointers, and LED displays work). She still writes about light, but her Light in the Empire series tells stories of difficult friendships and life-changing decisions in dangerous times, where forgiveness and love open hearts to discover their own faith in Christ. Her fascination with the Roman Empire was born during her first middle-school Latin class. A research career in New Mexico inspires her to get every historical detail right so she can spin stories that make her readers feel like they’re living under the Caesars themselves.
Read her articles about many facets of life in the Roman Empire at carolashby.com, or join her at her blog, The Beauty of Truth, at carol-ashby.com.
The Light in the Empire Series
Dangerous times, difficult friendships, lives transformed by forgiveness and love.
The Light in the Empire Series follows the interconnected lives of the members of three Roman families of the senatorial order during the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian. Join them as they travel the Empire, from Germania and Britannia to Thracia, Dacia, and Judaea and, of course, to Rome itself.
Available in paperback and Kindle at Amazon.com
and epub version at Kobo.com
Forgiven
Are some wounds too deep to forgive?
With a ruthless father who murdered for the family inheritance, Marcus Drusus plans to do the same. In AD 122, Marcus follows his brother Lucius to Judaea and plots to frame a zealot for his older brother’s death. But the plan goes awry, and Lucius is rescued by a Messianic Jewish woman. Her oldest brother is a zealot and a Roman soldier killed her twin, but Rachel still persuades her father Joseph to put his love for Jesus above his anger with Rome and hide Lucius until he heals.
Rachel cares for the enemy, and more than broken bones heal as duty turns to love. Lucius embraces Joseph’s faith in Jesus, but sharing a faith doesn’t heal all wounds. Even before revealed secrets slice open old scars, Joseph wants no Roman son-in-law. With Rachel’s zealot brother suspecting he’s a Roman officer and his own brother planning to kill him when he returns, can Lucius survive long enough to change Joseph’s mind?
Available in paperback and Kindle at Amazon.com
and epub version at Kobo.com
Blind Ambition
Sometimes you have to almost die to discover how you want to live.
It’s AD 114 in the Roman province of Germania Superior, and being a Christian carries a death sentence. Tribune Decimus Lentulus is on the fast track for a stellar political career back in Rome. When he’s robbed, blinded, and left for dead, a young German woman who follows the Way finds him. Valeria knows it’s his duty to have her and her family killed, but she chooses to obey Jesus’s command to love her enemy and takes him home to care for him.
It’s not his miraculous recovery that shakes Decim
us to his core. It’s the way they love him like family and their unconcealed love for Jesus. In spite of himself, he falls in love with the Christian woman Rome wants him to kill. Can Valeria hide her faith to follow him into the circles of Roman power? Or should he abandon his ambition to help rule the Empire and choose to follow a different way?
Join many of the people you met in Faithful eight years earlier. What began as a bored man's decision to try a different road turns into an emotional and spiritual quest that changes the direction of his entire life.
Available in paperback and Kindle versions at Amazon.com
and epub version at Kobo.com
Faithful
Is the price of true friendship ever too high?
In AD 122, Adela, the fiery daughter of a Germanic chieftain, is kidnapped and taken across the Roman frontier to be sold as a slave. When horse-trader Otto wins her while gambling with her kidnappers, he entrusts her to his friend and trading partner, Galen. Then Otto is kidnapped by the same men, and Galen must track them half way across the Empire before his best friend loses a fight to the death in a Roman arena.
Adela joins Galen in the chase, hungry for vengeance. As the perilous journey deepens their friendship, will the kind, faithful man open her eyes to a life she never dreamed she’d want?
A trip to the heart of the Empire poses mortal danger to a man who follows Jesus, especially when he must seek the help of an enemy of the faith for Otto to survive. Tiberius hunted Christians when he governed Germania Superior and banished his own son when he became one.
When Tiberius learns sparing Galen offers a chance at reconciliation, he joins the trio on their journey home. Can his animosity toward the followers of Jesus survive a trip with the Christian man whose courage and faithfulness demand his respect?
Follow the continuing saga of the people you met in Blind Ambition from the frontier of Germany to the heart of the Empire.
Coming in November 2018
Second Chances
Must the shadows of the past destroy the hope of the future?
In AD 122, Cornelia Scipia, proud daughter of one of Rome's noblest families, learns her adulterous husband plans to betroth their daughter to the vicious son of his best friend. Over her dead body! Cornelia divorces him, reclaims her enormous dowry, and kidnaps her own daughter. She plans to start over with Drusilla a thousand miles away. No more husbands for her. But she didn’t count on meeting Hector, the widowed Greek captain of the ship carrying her to her new life.
Devastated by the loss of his wife and daughter, Hector’s heart begins to heal as he befriends Drusilla. Cornelia’s sacrificial love for Drusilla and her courage and humor in the face of the unknown earn his admiration…as a friend. Is he ready for more?
Marriage to the kind, honest sea captain would give Drusilla the father she deserves…and Cornelia the faithful husband she’s always longed for. But while her ex-husband hunts them to drag Drusilla back to Rome, secrets in Hector’s past and the chasm between their social classes and different faiths erect complicated barriers to any future together. Will God give two lonely hearts a second chance at happiness?
Join the people you met in The Legacy eight years later in this tale of hope and a future never imagined until God opens the door.
Coming in May 2019
True Freedom
The chains we cannot see can be the hardest ones to break.
When Aulus runs up a crushing debt gambling with his father’s political enemy, he’s desperate to pay it off before his father returns to Rome. All seems hopeless until his best friend Marcus suggests they fake the kidnapping of Aulus’s sister Livia and use the ransom to pay his debt. But when the kidnappers decide they can make more money selling Livia into slavery, Aulus is catapulted into a desperate search to find her and bring her home before his father's return.
Torn from his childhood home by Rome’s conquering armies and sold as a farm slave to labor until he dies, Dacius’s faith gives him strength to bear what he must and serve without complaining. After a deadly accident makes him one of Livia’s litter bearers, Dacius overhears Marcus advising her brother to kidnap her. When Dacius almost dies thwarting the kidnapping, a Christian couple pretend Livia and Dacius are their children to keep her brother from finding them.
But pretending to be free again makes returning to slavery more than Dacius can bear, while acting like a common woman opens Livia’s eyes to dreams and destinies she never knew existed. With her brother closing in and her father almost home, can Livia find a way around Roman law and custom to free them both for the future they long for?
I’d love to hear what you think of The Legacy!
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