Tros of Samothrace

What It's About

Set in the first century BC, this historical adventure follows Tros, a sea captain from the Greek island of Samothrace, as he is drawn into the struggle between Julius Caesar and the tribes of Britain. Tros is no soldier but a shrewd, principled mariner and initiate of the island's ancient Mysteries, and his path takes him from the British coast to Spain and finally to Rome itself. Along the way there are sea battles, treachery, gladiatorial games and a running contest of wits with Caesar, as Tros tries to protect his friends and his own freedom against Rome's ambitions. The book first appeared as a magazine serial, which shows in its pace and its constant plot turns.

Key Concepts

Mundy treats the Druids not as the savages of Caesar's own account but as guardians of an ancient spiritual wisdom, linked to the Samothracian Mysteries. This reflects his own interest in Theosophy. The novel sets personal honour, loyalty and freedom against imperial power and expediency. Its cynical, ambitious Caesar caused a long and heated controversy among readers when it first appeared. The book is also often seen as a forerunner of sword-and-sorcery fiction, and its chapter epigraphs and historical footnotes lend it an air of scholarship. Some readers find it long, dense and relentless in its violence.

About the Author

Talbot Mundy was the pen name of William Lancaster Gribbon, an English-born writer of adventure fiction. Born in Hammersmith, London, he left England as a young man and spent years in India and Africa before settling in the United States, where he became a citizen in 1917. He wrote mainly for the pulp magazines, and his lifelong interest in Theosophy and Eastern mysticism runs through much of his fiction.