Sold into slavery to the Northmen in the tenth century, a young Englishman becomes involved in a blood feud which leads him to Constantinople and a totally different way of life.

Six episodes chronicle the lives of a family in Roman Britain over three hundred years.

'We are the scum and the scrapings of the Empire. They tipped out the garbage-bin of the Eagles to make us what we are.'

In disgrace after a mistake that cost the lives of half his men, Alexios arrives in Castellum. It's his first command, but it isn't really a promotion. The Frontier Wolves who man this outpost in the far north of Roman Britain are a fierce and savage bunch, a far cry from the regular legions he'd served in before. Alexios will only survive if he learns to understand them and win their respect - and he's determined to try.

From Amazon.co.uk:
Blood and Sand
Why on earth, in the Year of Our Lord 1807, was he in Egypt, fighting the Turks?
Like many a soldier before him and after, Private Thomas Keith of the 78th Highlanders had very little idea of why he and his comrades were about to be thrown into battle against superior forces, far away on a foreign field.
And later, lying wounded and a prisoner in a village headman's house, one of a pitiful handful of survivors, he could have had no idea at all that he was at the start of an extraordinary series of adventures that would see him rise to become Emir of the holy Islamic city of Medina.
From: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blood-Sand-Rosemary-Sutcliff/dp/0340497424/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1335148130&sr=8-1