Harry Sidebottom, the novelist and lecturer in Ancient History, explains why he writes both fiction and history relating to a period of Roman history which is so little known about that he describes it as obscure. What is it about the third century AD that makes it a goldmine for scholars and for novelists? Why […]
I’m Spartacus! Slave revolts in Rome
Harry Sidebottom’s latest novel, The Burning Road, is set in Sicily during a revolt of enslaved people against the Roman Empire. He wonders why there were so few such uprisings during the many centuries of Roman rule – and why we’ve only heard of the one led by Spartacus. “I am Spartacus!” At first in […]
Why the Roman Empire grew so big
They came, they saw, and they kept on conquering. Why did the Romans expand their empire so dramatically? And who benefitted most from Roman imperialism? These are questions Harry Sidebottom needed to confront while writing his latest novel, The Return, he tells Historia. In the last two and a half centuries BCE Rome expanded from […]
The Dark Legacy of Rome
“Apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?” The classic comedy of Monty Python’s Life of Brian sums up the modern perception that the Roman empire was a force for good. But there are darker aspects […]
Desert Island Books: Harry Sidebottom
Harry Sidebottom picks his top five historical novels for castaways. Alfred Duggan, Family Favourites (1960) As a boy I got into historical fiction through the novels of Alfred Duggan, as well as those of Graham Shelby, George Shipway, R. F. Tapsell, and Wallace Breem. I have chosen Duggan’s Family Favourites, not only because it is a […]