About This Book
In the declining days of the great Roman Empire, the 12th century AD, Constantinople clung to one treasure that could protect her from oblivion - the Palladium - a small statue of the goddess Athena, given by the gods to render their civilisation impregnable. Troy had once held it, then Carthage, then Rome. For as long as each had the Palladium, no outsider could defeat them. Yet her loss was their undoing, each catastrophically falling, while she leant her power to a new rising star. This, then, is the story before the fall of the Roman Empire, the last gasp of the vanished culture of Byzantium, the Middle Ages and the crusades. A story of pride, servitude, adventure and misfortune. Moreover, this is the story of a statue long forgotten, yet whose name lingers on, at the edge of awareness. Of how she came to be removed from her sacred seat, and where she was taken. The Palladium is real. For thirty-three centuries, great authors wrote about her. Homer, Plutarch, Ovid, Livy and Virgil, to name a few. Chronicles that survive, for all to see. The Palladium was worshipped by sacred Vestal Virgins, Elagabalus and saintly Emperor Constantine, until she abruptly vanished from our history books, for the last seventeen hundred years. That is, until now…
