Buried: The Discernment of Pagans in Ancient Rome - Softcover

Troy, Frank

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1456471651 ISBN 13: 9781456471651

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2011

Synopsis

A fictional recovered manuscript from 400 AD details several years in the lives of two aristocratic Roman pagans in their late twenties, the siblings Aeneas and Honoria, as they defend their traditional values against a hostile, militant Christianity bent on obliterating every trace of paganism. The brother and sister both find lovers, but face overwhelming difficulties as the empire is drawn into a maelstrom of intrigues, religious and political rivalries, warfare, mayhem, and murder. Aeneas, an amateur boxer who loves the philosophy of Aristotle, is a soldier, adventurer, scholar, and high-ranking government official. Honoria is a vestal priestess dismissed from office by a recently Christianized emperor. They are ideally positioned to convey the brilliant and sophisticated achievements of pagan civilization and defend it against the Christian charge of worldliness and theological error. Their concise, vivid portrayals reveal intimate details of life in pre-Christian Rome, the most advanced civilization in the Western world prior to the modern era. Fast paced, suspenseful, sweeping in scope and rich in historical details and allusions to real events, Buried: The Discernment of Pagans in Ancient Rome will leave you with new insight into the pagan world and the human capacity for love.

About this title

From the Author:

Our modern world is rife with moral absolutes such as those promoted by the Bible, the Quran, and Political Correctness. We have three major monotheisms, each claiming to be exclusively right. The pre-Christian West, however, was far different. Greeks and Romans in the classical world paid tribute to multiple gods but had virtually no moral absolutes based in religion. Their culture had no widely-accepted concept of an immortal soul, or sin, or salvation and damnation. In the absence of divine prescriptions, the people of these cultures had to rely on reason and pagan wisdom traditions as the sole guides to right decisions and right action.

To the modern mind, a world without moral absolutes is difficult to comprehend or even to imagine. Many would find the concept a bit scary. Yet this was the culture of pre-Christian Athens and Rome, and it produced the greatest flowering of civilization the world had ever seen. The rapidity of its progress in numerous fields has never been equaled. Think of the classical world's rapid developments in politics, philosophy, geometry, architecture, engineering, technology, transportation, science, and all the visual, musical, and literary arts. Ordinary Romans in the fourth century enjoyed a material standard of living that would be unequalled again until the nineteenth century, and life was good. The Christian movement, however, sought to turn attention away from this world to the metaphysical realm, and it proclaimed virtually every aspect of pagan culture to be sinful. In the end, the Christians triumphed, the brilliant Greco-Roman culture collapsed, and Europe entered the Dark Ages.

This novel is about the struggle of educated pagans to defend their culture and their way of life from an incursive religion that wanted to seize control of civilization by any means possible. Their story takes place in a pre-Christian culture that seems strange and alien, yet reflects the modern world in curious and surprising ways. Writing this book was for me a kind of intellectual and spiritual journey. I hope that reading it will be a similar journey for you.

About the Author:

Frank Troy, whose birth name was Frank Hanenkrat, was born in 1939 in Appomattox, Virginia. He has BA and MA degrees from the University of Richmond and a PhD from Emory University. For over thirty years he investigated and taught the literature of the Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian traditions. This is his first novel.

About this edition

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1456471651
• ISBN 13: 9781456471651
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 638