The Silver Branch (Sutcliff novel)

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The Silver Branch

First edition
Author	Rosemary Sutcliff
Illustrator	Charles Keeping
Language	English
Genre	Children's, Historical novel
Publisher	Oxford University Press
Publication date	December 1957
Publication place	United Kingdom
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	223
ISBN	0-374-46648-3
OCLC	27934892
LC Class	PZ7.S966 Shl 1993
Preceded by	The Eagle of the Ninth
Followed by	The Lantern Bearers

The Silver Branch is a historical adventure novel for children written by Rosemary Sutcliff and published in 1957, with illustrations by Charles Keeping. Set in Britain in the last decade of the 3rd century, it is the story of Justin and Flavius, two cousins in the Roman legions who find themselves in the intrigue and battle surrounding the struggles between Carausius, a self-proclaimed emperor in Britain, Allectus, Carausius's treasurer, and Constantius, emperor in Rome.^[1][2]

The silver branch of the title is an article in the possession of Carausius's slave Cullen, his eccentric fool who calls himself Carausius's hound and who wears a dog's tail as part of his motley. Subtle allusions to the silver branch recur in other novels in the Eagle of the Ninth series, and it presumably refers to the otherworldly musical instrument mentioned in the medieval Irish narrative The Voyage of Bran. The Silver Branch was also a symbol of authority and a temporary "pass card" used by the Celts, consisting of a sprig of mistletoe or an apple branch.

The Silver Branch is second in Sutcliff's Roman Britain Series, following The Eagle of the Ninth (1954) and preceding Frontier Wolf (1980), The Lantern Bearers (1959), and Sword at Sunset (1963).