1066 and all that, or not...

Suppose there had been a Roma Novan around trying to intervene in 1066 between Harold’s Saxon England and William’s Normandy? Could she have influenced either of these tough, ambitious and determined men?

No, I’m not veering off and writing a new book – I’m too immersed in drafting RETALIO, Book 6 of the core Roma […]

Roman taxing times

As I sit down to fill in my tax return, I’m looking for any distraction. I wondered how the ancient Romans were taxed. Today we have income tax, company/corporation tax, sales taxes/VAT, excise duties (road fund licence (UK), alcohol, cigarettes), local taxation, inheritance tax, to name but a few. But how similar are our taxes […]

Publishing the Roman way...

Money-­making booksellers, exploited and impoverished authors, celebrity book launches and the danger of writing controversily. Sound familiar?

Although without the current technology of print-on-demand, digital publishing, even the lithographic or moveable type of not so long ago, the Roman world had a thriving publishing industry. Production was by teams of slaves (and some freedmen) […]