historical | 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 […]

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 […]