Peter Stothard

Lets us see how power really worked, in public and private ... Stothard tells this story superblyDominic 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 treacherous household where it takes special talents to survive. This is a Roman history with a cast of new men and newly dominant women, those reviled too often in the past as flatterers and gluttons, uppity slaves and former slaves, lawyers-for-hire, chancer arrivistes and unhinged party animals. Palatine uncovers the lives of the Vitellii, perhaps Romes least admired imperial clan, of Publius, an old-fashioned soldier snared in the politics of the new age, of Lucius, an exceptionally skilled and sycophantic courtier, and of Aulus a genial sluggard whose prowess at the table carries him all the way to the throne before collapsing his familys reputation for ever. Few now remember them. Yet in their creeping ascent to the very summit of the imperial hierarchy lie neglected truths about a lasting legacy of Rome.

A gripping history Mary BeardA political thriller, and a human story that astonishes Hilary MantelAtmospheric 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 ideas and their consequences, a gripping story of fear, revenge and survival.

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 between 73 and 71BC, bringing both fears and hopes that have never wholly left the modern mind. It is a road that stretches through 2,000 miles of Italian countryside and out into 2,000 years of world history. In this inspiring and original memoir, the former editor of The Times, Peter Stothard, takes us on an extraordinary journey. The result is a book like none other at once a journalists notebook, a classicists celebration, a survivors record of a near fatal cancer and the history of a unique and brutal war. As he travels along the Spartacus road through the ruins of Capua to Vesuvius and the lost Greek cities of the Italian south Stothards prose illuminates conflicting memories of times ancient and modern, the simultaneously foreign and familiar, one of the greatest stories of all ages. Sweepingly erudite and strikingly personal, On the Spartacus Road is non-fiction writing of the highest order.

La fascinante persecución a los asesinos de Julio César. Muchos hombres acabaron con la vida de Julio César, pero solo uno daría caza a los asesinos. A partir de la primavera del 44 a. C., el hijo ad

La fascinante persecución a los asesinos de Julio César.Muchos hombres acabaron con la vida de Julio César, pero solo uno daría caza a los asesinos. A partir de la primavera del 44 a.?C., el hijo adoptivo de Cesar, el futuro emperador Augusto, se cobraria su terrible venganza: estaba decidido a acabar con los asesinos de los idus de marzo; y no solo con Bruto y Casio, sino con todos y cada uno de los diecinueve hombres que habian conspirado contra el dictador.Tras mas de una decada de violenta persecucion a traves de varios continentes, el ultimo de los conspiradores en morir fue Casio de Parma, un poeta, dramaturgo y marinero casi desconocido que lucho en todos los bandos durante las guerras civiles que asolaron a la moribunda Republica, salvo en el ganador. Durante catorce años, los asesinos de Cesar trataron de escapar a los cazadores enviados por Octaviano, pero, uno por uno, fueron cayendo hasta que solo Casio permanecio en pie. Su apasionante huida, que hasta ahora no ha sido mas que una nota a pie de pagina en los anales, se convierte en esta obra en un tapiz que retrata el convulso final de la Republica romana.El ultimo asesino es el relato epico de una caza que un emperador quiso ocultar, una historia trepidante de torturas y terror, de politica y poesia. Es, en definitiva, una vivida narracion de uno de los periodos mas turbulentos de la historia de Roma en el que se enfrentan la venganza y el instinto de supervivencia.

A unique, unprecedented eyewitness account of the thirty most critical days of Tony Blairs 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 that time? What was it like while the Prime Minister risked his job for such an unpopular cause? Why did he do it? Peter Stothard, who for a month was given unprecedented access to shadow almost every move the Prime Minister made, gives a unique view from the inside.From the den of Ten Downing Street to the back corridors of the House of Commons, through councils of war in the Azores, recriminations in Brussels, personal diplomacy in Belfast and Camp David, this book takes us backstage. 30 Days throws an intimate and frequently humorous light on the domestic and political life of Number Ten at a time of crisis; it shows the Prime Ministers relationships not only with the President of the United States but with the writers, strategists, make-up artists and other members of the close-knit Number Ten team. It illuminates his frankest dealings with the world leaders who both backed and opposed him. The result is a groundbreaking record of history in the making, and a gripping day-to-day chronicle of four tense and tempestuous weeks. Note that it has not been possible to include the same picture content that appeared in the original print version. Note that it has not been possible to include the same picture content that appeared in the original print version.