From the dust cover:
In this vivid, dynamic novel, Hella Haasse has once more brought the past to life. This time she has chosen to illuminate a crucial, yet relatively obscure period of history: it is 414 A.D. and the once-powerful Roman Empire is in its death throes - split between East and West, menaced by barbarian hordes almost literally at its gates. The Emperor Honorius, an incompetent weakling, cowers in the marsh-bound city of Ravenna, where he has moved the government; he rarely "makes entry" into Rome. Christianity is now the official religion of the Western Empire; pagan beliefs and practices are being systematically and ruthlessly repressed.
This is the brilliant canvas against which the characters in this drama interact. There is the Prefect Hadrian, a powerful official and fanatical Christian convert who is a disquieting forerunner of a new world; there is Marcus Anicius, the pagan aristocrat who is clinging to a dying past, and there is the Jew Eliezar ben Elijah, hemmed in by his own traditions and burdened by his dark vision of the future. And at the heart of the novel is the mysterious Egyptian Claudianus, a man who is both a victim and a hero.
There is intrigue and uncertainty of life at Honorius's court where we meet the Vandal general Stilicho and his beautiful wife Serena, and there are the streets and tenements of Rome, pulsating with life and with corruption. Here we find the prostitute Urbanilla. And the sinister, shoddy actor Pylades and his henchmen, the strong man and the dwarf.
Threshold of Fire was first published in 1964 and has remained in print continuously. Considered to be one of Hella Haasse's finest novels, it appears now in English for the first time.
In this vivid, dynamic novel, Hella Haasse has once more brought the past to life. This time she has chosen to illuminate a crucial, yet relatively obscure period of history: it is 414 A.D. and the once-powerful Roman Empire is in its death throes - split between East and West, menaced by barbarian hordes almost literally at its gates. The Emperor Honorius, an incompetent weakling, cowers in the marsh-bound city of Ravenna, where he has moved the government; he rarely "makes entry" into Rome. Christianity is now the official religion of the Western Empire; pagan beliefs and practices are being systematically and ruthlessly repressed.
This is the brilliant canvas against which the characters in this drama interact. There is the Prefect Hadrian, a powerful official and fanatical Christian convert who is a disquieting forerunner of a new world; there is Marcus Anicius, the pagan aristocrat who is clinging to a dying past, and there is the Jew Eliezar ben Elijah, hemmed in by his own traditions and burdened by his dark vision of the future. And at the heart of the novel is the mysterious Egyptian Claudianus, a man who is both a victim and a hero.
There is intrigue and uncertainty of life at Honorius's court where we meet the Vandal general Stilicho and his beautiful wife Serena, and there are the streets and tenements of Rome, pulsating with life and with corruption. Here we find the prostitute Urbanilla. And the sinister, shoddy actor Pylades and his henchmen, the strong man and the dwarf.
Threshold of Fire was first published in 1964 and has remained in print continuously. Considered to be one of Hella Haasse's finest novels, it appears now in English for the first time.
