The Emperor’s Servant
About a week into September, I remembered that I had booked a line-edit from the marvellous Helen Baggott (http://www.helenbaggott.co.uk/). Cue the end of all the research for the as-yet-formless third novel and a scurry of activity as I realised that I couldn’t send off the already-revised and polished manuscript without ONE LAST READ. Mistake (though […]
The House of Augustus and the two Professors
Augustus’ house on the Palatine Hill, at the heart of Rome, makes a couple of appearances in The Emperor’s Servant so I read T.P.Wiseman’s The House of Augustus the moment I saw that it was published. Now I’m having to go back and rewrite my descriptions of the house, the approach, the Temple of Apollo… […]
David Wishart
Currently doing my research for the next novel by re-reading a series I’ve always loved – David Wishart’s Marcus Corvinus books, beginning with “Ovid”. This series features one of the best wise-cracking heroes, the young aristocrat Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus – yes, four names, he really is that posh! Find the books on Amazon: And […]
Lucius Sestius’ coin
In 43 BC, Lucius Sestius was travelling through Asia with Marcus Junius Brutus the assassin of Julius Caesar. Brutus and his fellow assassin Cassius Longinus were busy raising troops and money for the battle they knew would come: back in Rome, Caesar’s heir Octavian had declared them to be enemies of that state. The young […]
In the sewer
I have started to think about what a reader might like to known about the world in which Lucius lived, material which one can’t necessarily shoe-horn into a novel, and on asking around, the most popular answers were to do with food and waste disposal. Fortunately, there is a magnificent sewer being excavated in Herculaneum […]
Dawn’s page
This is the result of a suggestion of a friend who told me that I needed to give a short explanation of the historical setting; after all, Lucius Sestius lived about halfway through a more-than-thousand year story. But I am to keep it to no more than a page…! So here is “A Very Short […]
The fasces
One of the strangest symbols of power, and one of the longest-lasting – who would have thought that a bundle of rods with an axe would give rise to one of the most feared words of the twentieth century? Every Roman magistrate of the Republic who was allowed to wield imperium – official authority – […]
Plague and pestilence
While researching the historical events of the year of Lucius Sestius’ consulship, 23 BCE, I found the historian Cassius Dio very informative. In Book 53 of his Histories, he tells us that this year and the next were not good for people’s health, and certainly we know of two famous people who fell seriously ill […]
Roman names
Hold onto your hats, especially if you are female… By Lucius Sestius Quirinalis’ time, most Roman male citizens had three names- the praenomen – Lucius the nomen – Sestius the cognomen – Quirinalis Unless, of course he had only two, such as Gaius Maecenas…. The praenomen This was the name chosen for a baby boy […]
Winning poem
I am absolutely thrilled that I have won the English section of the Nartha poetry competition here in Qatar. The competition was run by the Qatar Poetry Centre, along with the British Council. See this post on Instagram and Twitter The Flame Inside Beyond the window let unsureness run. The glossy bird hops up to […]
