A Struggle for Rome (Vol. 1-3)

A Struggle for Rome is a historical novel written by Felix Dahn. It tells about the events that follow the death of Theodoric the Great. His successors tried to maintain his legacy: an independent Ostrogothic Kingdom. However, they are opposed by the Eastern Roman Empire, ruled by emperor Justinian I. The lack of a strong heir pushed the network of alliances that surrounded the Ostrogothic state to disintegrate. Further, the Visigoth kingdom regained its autonomy under Amalaric. The relations with the Vandals turned increasingly hostile. The Franks embarked again on expansion, subduing the Thuringians and the Burgundians and almost all evicting the Visigoths from their last holdings in southern Gaul. The whole story is full of intrigues, stories of love, dignity, loyalty, and friendship. Although most characters are fictitious, the novel gives a great picture of the epoch

Felix Dahn (1834 - 1912) was a German law professor, author, poet, and historian. Dahn's writings were influential in the conception of the European Migration Period in German historiography of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His multi-volume Prehistory of the Germanic and Roman Peoples, a chronology of the Migration Period that first appeared in print in 1883, was so definitive that abbreviated versions were reprinted until the late 1970s.