The Gladiators is a powerful historical novel of ancient Rome. It is the story of a young Briton of the first century captured in battle by the Roman legions invading his country. Being enslaved, he's transported to the "Eternal City" at the time of Vitellus and Vespasian. There, he enters a gladiator school to become a warrior destined to fight to the death in the arena. This superb and highly regarded historical trilogy contains combat, assassination, intrigue, love, and war. Moreover, it embraces many of the important events of the time, culminating in the siege of Jerusalem by Titus and the fall of the Temple in A.D. 70.

George John Whyte-Melville (1821 – 1878) was a Scottish novelist and poet. In his novels, he was much concerned with sports, riding, and traveling. He achieved immediate success as a writer of fox-hunting stories and his first novel Digby Grand in 1854. In the mid-1850s, he traveled to the Middle East to serve as an officer of Turkish irregular cavalry in the Crimean War.