Leptis Magna: Emperor’s Dream on the Edge of the Desert

In a world of fading Roman power, raiding tribes, and corrupt imperial officials, the people of Leptis Magna look to their bishop for guidance and protection. He is tormented by what he has done to become bishop, and does not know which way to turn. In the deafening silence and remorseless presence of the Sahara desert, an answer appears.

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Set in Roman Africa in the province of Tripolitania, this searching and historically accurate memoir by the son of a noble family tells of his journey to the court of the emperor to appeal for the protection of his city from raiding tribes. When he is accused of treason by a corrupt general and court official, his fate and that of his family and his city are forever changed by the way he answers this charge. Based on a true story by a Roman historian.

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Leptis Magna was the family home of an imperial dynasty founded by Emperor Septimius Severus at the height of the Roman Empire. This story is written from the point of view of a son from that same family 200 years later. His is a world much changed since his great, great, great, granduncle was emperor. There are parallels between his world and ours. He lived in an age historians call Late Antiquity, a time when one world came to an end and a new world was born. It was a time of epic cultural transition.