Books Like Simon Scarrow: My Recommendations for Fans of Roman Historical Fiction

You know the feeling. You close the last page, set the book down – and don’t know what to do with yourself. Under the Eagle, Centurion, The Legion – you’ve read them all. You’ve followed Macro and Cato across the empire, fought alongside them, survived with them, laughed with them. And now there’s silence.

If you love Simon Scarrow, you know exactly what I mean: that particular blend of authentic military history, real camaraderie between two very different men, and a writing style that grabs you on the first page and refuses to let go. As an author who lives in this same world – Roman Britain in the first century AD – I’m constantly asked: “What should I read next if I love Scarrow?”

Today I’m answering that question. Personally, from the perspective of an author who knows these books not just as a reader, but as someone who has been shaped by them.

Why We Love These Books – And What They Share

Before I share my recommendations, I want to think for a moment about what makes this genre so special. Because the best Roman military historical novels share a common DNA.

They show us a world that is simultaneously alien and familiar. The Romans were, in many ways, frighteningly modern – with bureaucracy, career politics, corruption, and the eternal struggle of the ordinary man against the system. And yet they lived in a world of gladius blows and legionary marches, of smoking sacrificial fires and merciless gods who stay silent precisely when you need them most.

And then there are the characters. Always two mismatched men whose friendship carries the reader forward. One experienced, rough, cynical. The other young, idealistic, still being shaped. This dynamic is no accident – it mirrors the heart of every great military story: what does a person become when the chaos of war puts everything to the test?

Simon Scarrow: The Master of the Odd Couple

Let’s start where many of you began: with Simon Scarrow himself. His Eagle series is, for me, the benchmark of the genre. Centurion Macro and his optio Cato are an unbeatable pairing. Macro: the battle-hardened veteran who has survived more campaigns than he can count. Cato: the intellectually gifted newcomer for whom the empire is still a strange land and war still an abstraction.

What Scarrow does so masterfully: he conveys military authenticity without ever becoming dry. You feel the weight of the scutum on your forearm, you smell the campfire at the end of a thirty-kilometre march. If you haven’t read all the volumes yet – correct that immediately. Start with Under the Eagle. The rest of the night you’d planned on sleeping will take care of itself.

Anthony Riches: Raw, Direct, Relentless

Anthony Riches is for those of you who like it a little rougher. His Empire series begins with Wounds of Honour and follows the young tribune Marcus Valerius Aquila, who flees to northern Britain and finds refuge with an auxiliary cohort.

Riches writes with a directness that sometimes leaves you breathless. No softening of the war’s brutality, no romantic gloss over what soldiers do and suffer. At the same time, he has a deep understanding of the camaraderie between soldiers – that strange, rough affection between men who have walked through hell together.

If you’re fascinated by northern Britain, Hadrian’s Wall, the raw frontier between the ordered Roman world and the free, untamed north – the Empire series is essential reading.

Bernard Cornwell: The Foundation of the Genre

If Scarrow is the master, then Bernard Cornwell is the grandfather of the modern military historical novel. He writes primarily about the Middle Ages and the Napoleonic wars, but his influence on every author who came after him – myself included – is impossible to overstate.

His ability to describe battle scenes with an almost physical immediacy set the standard for everyone who followed. Scarrow fans should know Cornwell’s Sharpe series – a different historical setting, but the same soul: a man fighting his way up from nothing, surrounded by enemies and a system that would prefer him to fail. Start with Sharpe’s Rifles. You won’t be disappointed.

Colleen McCullough: For Those Who Want the Epic

One name I can’t leave out: Colleen McCullough and her monumental Masters of Rome series. These books – beginning with The First Man in Rome – are not light reading. They are a mountain range you have to climb. But the view from the top is breathtaking.

McCullough tells the last decades of the Roman Republic with a historical precision that impresses even professional historians. Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Caesar – they all receive their full due here, not as myths, but as human beings of flesh and blood. For anyone who wants to go deeper into the political soul of Rome after Scarrow: this is the door.

And Then: The Eagle Saga

I wouldn’t be honest if I wrote this article without mentioning my own series. I do so with the necessary self-awareness – but also with genuine conviction.

The Eagle Saga – Sons of Rome is my attempt to write exactly what I wanted to read: a story set in early Roman Britain, with the same themes that captivate me in Scarrow and Cornwell – camaraderie, honour, betrayal, and the merciless collision of two worlds.

My protagonists are Tribune Gaius Julius Maximus and his centurion Brutus. Two men who could not be more different – and who for that very reason would fight for each other to the last. The story begins in 43 AD, with the first clash between the Roman legions and the tribes of Britain under the charismatic Caratacus.

If Macro and Cato feel like old friends, if you’ve already seen the forests and mists of Britain in your imagination – I believe you’ll feel at home with Maximus and Brutus from the very first page.

The Short Reading List

For those who want it concise – my personal reading order for Simon Scarrow fans:

1. Simon Scarrow – Under the Eagle (Book 1 of the Eagle series) – the classic that started it all.
2. Anthony Riches – Wounds of Honour – for raw, authentic frontier Britain.
3. Bernard Cornwell – Sharpe’s Rifles – the foundation of the modern military novel.
4. Colleen McCullough – The First Man in Rome – for those who want to go deeper into the heart of Rome.
5. Marc Beuster – In the Shadow of the Eagle – a new story in a familiar world.

Happy reading. And if there are recommendations you feel are missing – write to me. As an author, I’m always looking for the next book that keeps me up at night.