A biography of Horace, one of the most popular poets from antiquity, revealing the little-known man behind his famous lines“Peter Stothard is a master of modern writing about ancient Rome, of vividly bringing to life its poetry and its poets.”—Mary BeardQuintus Horatius Flaccus (65–8 BCE) wrote some of ancient Rome’s greatest poetry, melding languages and cultures with youthful ideals and a realist’s recognition of the dictatorial world aro...

In this inspiring and original book, former editor of The Times, Sir Peter Stothard, re-traces the journey taken by Spartacus and his army of rebels.In the final century of the first Roman Republic an army of slaves brought a peculiar terror to the people of Italy. Its leaders were gladiators. Its purpose was incomprehensible. Its success was something no one before had ever known.The Spartacus Road is the route along which this rebel army outfought the Roman legions betwee...

One of the most enigmatic figures of antiquity, Tiberius lacked the imperial splendour of his great predecessor Augustus and the excesses of many of his successors, and has been overlooked by history. Yet this compelling study offers a portrait of a complex and contradictory man, both emperor and exile, tyrant and recluse.Drawing on a wealth of ancient sources as well as contemporary classical scholarship, Iskander Rehman engages in a nuanced and multidisciplinary examination of Ti...

'Lets us see how power really worked, in public and private ... Stothard tells this story superbly'Dominic Sandbrook, SUNDAY TIMES14 CE: The first Roman emperor is dead. A second is about to succeed. The Forum of Rome, once fought over so fiercely, has become hardly more than a museum. The house of all power is up above on the Palatine Hill, about to become the birthplace of Western bureaucracy, a warren of banqueting and bedrooms, ...

The story of Rome's richest man, who died a humiliating desert death in search of military gloryMarcus Licinius Crassus (115–53 BCE) was a modern man in an ancient world, a pioneer disrupter of finance and politics, and the richest man of the last years of the Roman republic. Without his catastrophic ambition, this trailblazing tycoon might have quietly entered history as Rome's first modern political financier. Instead, Crassus and his son led an army on an unprov...

'A gripping history' Mary Beard'A political thriller, and a human story that astonishes' Hilary Mantel'Atmospheric and gripping, and [his] scholarship is impeccable' Greg WoolfMany men killed Julius Caesar. Only one man was determined to kill the killers.THE LAST ASSASSIN dazzlingly charts an epic turn of history through the eyes of an unheralded man. It is a hunt that an emperor wanted to hide, of torture and...

A unique, unprecedented eyewitness account of the thirty most critical days of Tony Blair’s political career as Prime Minister, from 10 March 2003 to the end of the second Gulf War, written by the former editor of The Times.For thirty extraordinary days, in March and April 2003, Tony Blair defied street protests, party revolts, allied anger and government resignations in order to send British troops to Iraq to oust Saddam Hussein.What was it like inside Downing Street during...

'Lets us see how power really worked, in public and private ... Stothard tells this story superbly'Dominic Sandbrook, SUNDAY TIMES14 CE: The first Roman emperor is dead. A second is about to succeed. The Forum of Rome, once fought over so fiercely, has become hardly more than a museum. The house of all power is up above on the Palatine Hill, about to become the birthplace of Western bureaucracy, a warren of banqueting and bedrooms, ...

A biography of Horace, one of the most popular poets from antiquity, revealing the little-known man behind his famous linesQuintus Horatius Flaccus (65–8 BCE) wrote some of ancient Rome's greatest poetry, melding languages and cultures with youthful ideals and a realist's recognition of the dictatorial world around him. Horace is famed for his fine phrases, lyric sex, and guidance on how to live, but he was a poet maddened by war, and many of his most self-revealin...

Finding himself in Alexandria in the winter of 2010, Peter Stothard, editor of the TLS and former editor of The Times, is forced to contemplate his past in circumstances he does not expect. The aftermath of a bombing and the onset of the Arab Spring place obstacles in his plans to complete a long-delayed biography of Cleopatra. Minded by two guides, whose motives are mixed and mysterious, he visits Alexandria's ancient sites and revisits places and people from his own lif...

'A gripping history' Mary Beard'A political thriller, and a human story that astonishes' Hilary Mantel'Atmospheric and gripping, and [his] scholarship is impeccable' Greg WoolfMany men killed Julius Caesar. Only one man was determined to kill the killers.THE LAST ASSASSIN dazzlingly charts an epic turn of history through the eyes of an unheralded man. It is a hunt that an emperor wanted to hide, of torture and terror, politics and poetry, of i...

The story of Rome’s richest man, who died a humiliating desert death in search of military gloryMarcus Licinius Crassus (115–53 BCE) was a modern man in an ancient world, a pioneer disrupter of finance and politics, and the richest man of the last years of the Roman republic. Without his catastrophic ambition, this trailblazing tycoon might have quietly entered history as Rome’s first modern political financier. Instead, Crassus and his son led an army on an unprov...