This is a historical novel of the final years of the Roman Empire -- the fall of the ordered world. To some degree speculative, but trying to be as accurate as possible, and making a few pretty reasonable extrapolations from accepted historical evidence.

Essentially the core argument is that the Goths had become highly Romanized in a lot of ways, and the intrigue at the end wasn't the very simply taught "Rome became weak and was overrun by attackers from outside". The former part is well supported by history; the specific characters and intrigues in the book might or might not be accurate but are plausible, supported by some evidence, and highly entertaining. It's obvious that there were some truly great people involved in an event as momentous as this, and the book makes a reasonable attempt at portraying them.

Unfortunately there's no way to buy this book on Amazon in digital format in the US (some rights issue); I ended up using Rakuten Kobo with a VPN to Germany to buy a copy (in English, though). ( )