The Kept Flame

Seven cities. Seven letters. One flame worth keeping.
biblical / Roman-historical fictionadult

The seven cities of Roman Asia as they actually stood — the harbours and theatres, the guilds and law-courts, the household lamps — and the ordinary people keeping an old faith alight while the first fervour cools.

The series

What you can read

Still to come

6 more series in this world
LaodiceaPergamumPhiladelphiaSardisSmyrnaThyatira

Written or in the works — not published yet, so there is nothing to click. The list tells you when each one lands.

Inside the world — 16 entries

The people and places of The Kept Flame

Places

9

Patmos

Patmos is not the bare prison rock of legend. It is a small, populated Aegean island south-west of Miletus, with villages, terraced fields, temples…

The Artemision (Temple of Artemis)

One of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world, the Temple of Artemis stood a mile and a half outside Ephesus — and was far more than a sanctuary. It…

The Asia Coastal Road — The Seven-City Circuit

The seven cities of Roman Asia were strung along a real road — the postal circuit that ran Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia…

The Harbour of Ephesus (and Harbour Street)

Ephesus lived by its harbour. A colonnaded avenue half a kilometre long ran from the theatre down to the wharves, and the whole trade of Roman Asia…

The Temple of the Sebastoi

Dedicated around AD 89 to the Flavian emperors, the Temple of the Sebastoi stood on the upper terrace of Ephesus and made the city twice neokoros…

Niko's Household (above the State Agora)

A modest, respectable house in the streets above the State Agora — not one of the painted terrace houses of the rich, but a comfortable place with a…

Philaretos's Workshop (the craftsman quarter)

A small scroll-copyist's workshop in the craftsman quarter of Ephesus, with the living rooms above it and an inner stair between. One high, narrow…

The Ephesian Assembly Meeting-Places (Household-Group Network)

The Christians of Ephesus had no church building. They met in houses — dining-room gatherings of a dozen or so across the whole city, lamp-lit, with…

The Great Theatre of Ephesus

The largest theatre in the Roman world at the time: some twenty-five thousand seats carved into the hillside where Marble Street meets the road to…

Your free book

Join the readers' list and we'll send you What the Scrolls Were Worth — the opening chapters, free — plus a quiet note whenever there's a new book. No noise.

Get a free book

One list per world. Unsubscribe any time.