Excerpt from EXSILIUM

Rome, September AD 392

[Lucius Apulius narrates. It’s dawn and he’s going to wish his friend and brother in arms, Gaius Mitelus, a good journey as Gaius goes off to join the rival emperor Eugenius’s forces.]

The Mitelus domus wasn’t far away, perched on the summit of the Mons Cispius, part […]

Exile - what does it actually mean?

I expect we can all name a number of famous exiles without too much bother – Napoleon Bonaparte, Leon Trotsky, Benazir Bhutto, Roman poet Ovid, Marlene Dietrich, Aristotle, the von Trapp family, Albert Einstein, to name but a few.

Exile is essentially a separation from your homeland and can be temporary or permanent. Sometimes […]

The Roman home front

Our first encounter with Romans is often a film or TV series depicting soldiers marching in armour, being tough, shouting and thrusting a sword into some barbarian in a dark, wet and enemy-infested wood. Or perhaps we think about the ruins left of magnificent imperial or public buildings?

But what about the calmer side of […]