The Light Bearer

The Light Bearer is a 1994 historical novel by Donna Gillespie set in first century Rome, spanning the reigns of the Emperors Nero and Domitian. The novel centers upon three historical events: the Emperor Domitian’s war with the Germanic Chattian tribe in 83 A.D.; the inauguration of the Colosseum, or Amphitheatrum Flavium; and the assassination of Domitian, 4.1 see Assassination. In dramatizing the assassination, the author follows closely the details given by first-century Roman historian Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, b. A.D. 69.
Plot summary
The fictional protagonists are a proto-Germanic tribeswoman, Auriane, daughter of a Chattian war leader; and Marcus Arrius Julianus, a Roman senator and imperial advisor whose character and circumstances are loosely based on the Roman philosopher Seneca, as well as another contemporary in the reign of Nero, Stoic philosopher and statesman Helvidius Priscus, a man much praised by his contemporaries for his outspokenness...