Book details

  • Genre:fiction
  • Sub-genre:Historical / Ancient
  • Language:English
  • Pages:318
  • eBook ISBN:9781953728623

Gravitas

Collapsing Empire

By Barry Sheinkopf

Overview


Four people scattered across the Roman Empire have been struggling to understand the altered circumstances of their lives. Born into a stable world, they recognize it less and less as Commodus Antoninus rule continues.
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Description


In 190 A.D., Commodus Antoninus has been ruling the Roman Empire for eleven years and replaced the measured government of his immediate predecessors with the capricious behavior of a madman. He is universally hated and feared. Four people scattered across the Empire—in Rome, Ostia, Spain, and Germany—have been struggling to understand the altered circumstances of their lives. Born into a stable world, they recognize it less and less as his rule continues. Little by little, the time-honored principle of Gravitas—restraint, decency, service to country, respect for tradition, and care for others—is vanishing, and they wonder whether Commodus is the cause of the dilemma or its consequence. Now, each of them has to find their way in this altered world or fall with it. Sound familiar?
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About The Author


Barry Sheinkopf has been writing since he was fourteen years old and won Barton's Bonbonniere Passover Poetry Contest. His prize was a five-pound box of Barton's chocolate, which he couldn't eat due to his severe acne, and he jokes that his career has gone downhill since. A hybrid author having published traditionally as well as self-published, "Gravitas" is his thirteenth book in print. He is an active member of both the Author Guild and Mystery Writers of America, the director of The Writing Center in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey—where he teaches professional writing courses—and the publisher of "Full Court Press," which has over 350 titles in print. Additionally, Barry has been an adjunct professor of writing at the College of Staten Island and an editor for various New York and New Jersey publishing houses for many years. Currently, he resides in Northern New Jersey with his wife, the essayist and novelist Eugenia Koukounas.
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