The Conquered, Naomi Mitchison’s first novel, published in 1923, is a historical novel set during Julius Caesar’s conquest of Gaul. Rather than telling the story primarily from the perspective of Rome and its victories, Mitchison places the reader close to the people being conquered. Her central character, Meromic, is a young Gallic prince whose life is transformed by war, enslavement, friendship, and divided loyalties.
What makes the novel especially interesting is that Mitchison does not present the conflict as a simple battle between good and evil. Meromic develops a deep friendship with Titus Barrus, a young Roman officer, even though Rome is responsible for the destruction of his homeland. This creates the novel's most powerful tension: Can someone love an individual belonging to the enemy while still remaining loyal to his own people? Meromic's relationship with Titus makes the political conflict intensely personal.
Mitchison's depiction of conquest is also unusually concerned with its human consequences. The destruction of a nation isn't reduced to armies moving across a map. Families are broken apart, people are enslaved, and characters are forced to make choices between survival and loyalty. Meromic's experiences give the historical events an emotional weight that a conventional military history might lack.
One of the book's greatest strengths is its atmosphere. Mitchison pays considerable attention to the physical world of ancient Gaul and Rome—customs, clothing, food, violence, and social life. A contemporary review in The Spectator praised precisely this vividness, arguing that the novel captured not only historical details but also the psychological realities of conqueror and conquered.
The Spectator Archive
The novel isn't perfect. At times, its historical setting can feel more important than the individual characters, and some of its emotional intensity may feel unfamiliar to a modern reader. Mitchison was also writing her first novel, so the work can occasionally feel ambitious rather than completely polished. Still, the energy of the storytelling compensates for much of this.
What I find most compelling about The Conquered is that Mitchison makes victory itself feel morally complicated. Rome wins militarily, but the novel continually asks what that victory actually costs. Meromic's struggle suggests that being conquered isn't merely losing a battle—it can mean losing one's home, identity, family, and certainty about where one belongs. One scholarly study similarly describes the novel as a story of defeat, enslavement, revenge, loyalty, and betrayal in which the ultimate triumph is not military victory but a return to fundamental bonds of land, family, love, and identity.
I'd describe The Conquered as a surprisingly modern historical novel disguised as an ancient one. Its real subject isn't Caesar or the Gallic Wars; it's what happens to human beings when a powerful civilization conquers another.
Mitchison's decision to tell the story from the side of the defeated gives the book its distinctive character. Instead of asking, “How did Rome win?”, she asks a much more uncomfortable question: “What did it mean to be one of the people who lost?”
For readers interested in historical fiction, ancient Rome, or stories about identity and conflicting loyalties, The Conquered is worth discovering—particularly because it was Mitchison's first novel and established themes that would remain important throughout her long literary career.
Rev
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