The Lantern Bearers

The Lantern Bearers is a historical novel for children by the English writer Rosemary Sutcliff, first published by Oxford University Press in 1959 with illustrations by Charles Keeping.

It is set in Roman Britain in the fifth century, and it begins with the final withdrawal of the Roman troops, around the year 410. Aquila is a young officer who has to decide where he belongs once the army he served goes home, and the decision is not an easy one to make.

He decides that his loyalty is to Britain, and he joins the forces of Ambrosius, a Roman-British leader, to fight the Saxon invaders. The novel is about the years of fighting that come after that decision, and about the life Aquila makes in the middle of them.

The book won the Carnegie Medal, which recognised the year's best children's book by a British writer. It is one of a group of her books set in the same period of British history, and the themes of loss, estrangement and loyalty are more complicated than in the earlier ones.