“Emperor of the West” is Michon’s third work, and it can be regarded as the most mysterious, “difficult” and most stylistically refined. The action takes place in the year 423 of our chronology, the young Roman commander Aetius, who is on duty on the island of Lipari , near the active volcano Stromboli, meets an old man, about whom he knows that shortly before the Goths captured and sacked Rome, he was associated with the leader of these tribes, Alaric, and even for some time, at the insistence of the latter, occupied the imperial throne; the legitimate emperor of the Western Roman Empire, Honorius, was hiding in Ravenna at that time, and his sister Galla Placidia, a tasty morsel for all conquerors, was the actual ruler. The name of this old man and former emperor was Priscus Attalus. Formally, the book is about him, but in fact the main character is Alaric, a legendary warrior in whom Attalus, as well as later young Aetius, dream of finding a father, that is, a strong personality to look up to.