Romans | 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 […]

Heroines' journeys - Not always physical ones

As readers, we like to see our main character progress in some way. She or he doesn’t need to save the world, make a grand marriage with a duke or make a groundbreaking journey into space. But their story does need a resolution. It could be acceptance, it could be a move somewhere else, it […]

Julian the 'Apostate' and that spear...

Of all the ‘what ifs’ of history, the death of Emperor Julian in AD 363 has to be one of the most intriguing. He rejected Christianity, demoted its by then prominent place in the Roman state and promoted Neoplatonic Hellenism in its place. His aim was to reduce Christianity to one of many also-ran eastern […]