Roman Empire

[kero319.livejournal.com]

Now its obvious that Alera is based on the Roman Empire, and Jim Butcher publicly acknowledges Ancient Rome as his inspiration. But what of the actual references to Rome?

Just three good examples of references are:

Appia, most likely a reference to the Appian Way(a.k.a. "Via Appia"), an important rode in Ancient Rome.
Tiber: The majority of events of Cursor's Fury takes place at a bridge on the Tiber River.
Romanic Era: This is a direct reference to Rome. At one point Tavi explains the terms "Romanic" and "Romans" to Max. Romanic Era refers to an era in Aleran history when a people dubbed the Romans, lived and flourished, surprisingly without the aid of Furies

Comments

[tsk1979.livejournal.com]

Actually Alera is set in the future. Remember all the talk about ancients who built big buildings without furies? Well thats "us". Somewhere down the line magic came and technology went, but then as sir Arthur C Clarke says "Any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic"

[jimbutcher.livejournal.com]

Technically, Alera is set more or less in the present. :) It just isn't happening on Earth.

There's plenty of Lost Roman Legion stories out there. Mostly, the stories are about where they went, and what they did when they got there. This one just happens to be about the world they got lost on, and the society that developed there over the next couple of thousand years.

Jim

[(Anonymous)]

I belive your reason to make the most sense since their world does not in anyway resemble our own so they cannot be one and the same. It also brings the question what happen to the romans most likely they became intergrated with the already established Alerans. Which would also explain the reason why Alerans use alot of roman words and descriptions and the lost of the history of the romans who built the buildings without furies.

Alera

[(Anonymous)]

Ur retarded

Re: Alera

[cowboysandy.livejournal.com]

I like how you call the author of the books retarded for his post (and you can't even spell "you are" right)

As for is "jimbutcher" the author, clicking on his name here, and going to his offical website and clicking on the link "blog" takes you to the same Live Journal blog page. So it seems like it's a good chance it is him.

Re: Alera

[(Anonymous)]

I was calling the guy who responded to Jim Butcher retarded. Of course the author is right, you don't have to try to sound smart by agreeing with him.