The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff

A book review

The Eagle of the Ninth is a young-adult novel about a young Roman centurion posted in Roman Britain. Marcus Flavius Aquila is discharged from his legion after being badly injured in his first battle. Years ago, his father was lost when the Ninth Legion mysteriously disappeared in northern Britain. When this novel was first published in 1954, the Ninth Legion's disappearance in Britain was believed to be fact. More recent evidence shows the legion was actually moved to the Rhine River after serving in Britain. But whether the legion's disappearance is fact or fiction makes little difference to a reader's enjoyment of the novel.

Crippled, his military career gone forever, Marcus thinks his useful life is over. Still, he makes friends with a native Briton despite unpromising circumstances. He acquires a wolf. He attracts a girl. And he sets off on a dangerous adventure in quest of the golden eagle standard of his father's legion. Without it, the disbanded legion can never regain its honor and be revived. Worse, in the hands of hostile British tribes the eagle could become the focus of a serious uprising.

Sutcliff writes vividly of battle, the camaraderie of military life, the tensions between Romans and native Britons, and the wild, green, wet landscape of Britain in the second century. Native British culture was strikingly different from the orderly culture of Rome. "Look now at this shield-boss. See the bulging curves that flow from each other as water flows from water and wind from wind, as the stars turn in the heaven and blown sand drifts into dunes. These are the curves of life..." Adult readers will enjoy this novel as much as teens. (1954; the 2010 movie tie-in edition has 210 pages. Recommended for ages 14 and up.)