The historian Lindsay Powell revisits the ancient sources and comes to a different conclusion about Tiberius Caesar, revealing a 2,000-year-old story of slander against Rome’s second emperor. Something strange happens in the mind of a historian while doing research about long dead people. Printed words evoke feelings, photographs morph into flesh, and unfamiliar names take […]
Historia exhibition review: Legion: life in the Roman army
Legion: life in the Roman army is the British Museum’s latest big exhibition. The historian Lindsay Powell reviews it for Historia and finds it “has seemingly achieved the remarkable and the impossible.” The Romans knew that their way of war was special. Their legendary legion was different from forms of military unit deployed by other […]
On the trail of an emperor, a rebel, and a lion
To research his latest book, historian Lindsay Powell set out on the trail of the rebel leader who, in AD132, led an uprising of the Jewish people against the Roman Emperor. Who was Bar Kokhba? And what caused the war? For my latest book I wanted to tell the true story of the consequential clash […]
Eat, drink, and be merry the Pompeian way
Historian Lindsay Powell reports on an exhibition in Oxford which shows, through images and objects from Pompeii, the variety of the Roman diet and the places associated with its preparation and consumption, from filthy kitchens to elaborate banquets. “Vivamus, moriendum est” – “let us live, for we must die” – the effusive Vibius Gallus is recorded […]