Research | Alison Morton's Thrillers

Slaves, damnati and freedmen in ancient Rome

In 161 BC, the Roman jurist Gaius wrote: “Slavery is a human invention and not found in nature. Indeed, it was that other human invention, war, which provided the bulk of slaves, but they were also the bounty of piracy … or the product of breeding.” (Institutiones)

A cold, yet trenchant statement. As in many […]

Politics of extremism - Fiction, fact or both?

Republished June 2024 All countries go through unhappy periods – change, uncertainty, economic instability – which often provoke fear of ‘the other’ and of the unknown. People question their government, values, their purpose and place in life. They become sensitised to the negative and ignore the positive things they forget they have.

Roma Nova […]

Military women – in war and fiction

An updated post Several years ago now, I posted on my writing blog about my OU studies in history and how I turned my MA dissertation into a self-published book: Military or Civilians?The curious anomaly of the German Women’s Auxiliary Services during the Second World War. This was my first venture into self-publishing when you […]