Who are some of your favorite historians? What historians do you admire for their style of writing?



My favourite modern historian, and the one who first made me dream of becoming one myself, is Barbara Tuchman. Her book on the outbreak of World War One, 'The Guns of August', was always in the back of my mind while I was writing about the 50's BC; 'A Distant Mirror', her panoramic portrait of the 14th Century in Western Europe, was a massive influence on both "Rubicon" and "Persian Fire". My favourite classicist is Peter Green - his range is just astounding, and as a stylist he is incomparable. As for ancient historians, I prefer Herodotus to Thucydides, but Tacitus to Suetonius - Herodotus' 'Histories' would, I think, be my desert island book. (Either that, or Boswell's Life of Johnson - can't QUITE make up my mind.)



If you had to rewrite Rubicon would you A) Run screaming from the stacks B) Draw a warm bath and a sword C) Write a tad more about Cicero's Philippics?


I'm not sure I would have written anything more on the Philippics that I originally did - it was never part of my intention with 'Rubicon' to write an exhaustive study of the available sources - nor was it a biography, a la Anthony Everett, of Cicero himself. The true hero of the book was the Republic itself - and what interested me about the Philippics, aside from the merely political context, was the status they have as the swansong of Roman free speech. That said, I am conscious that your criticism of "Rubicon", that the last chapter felt a bit hurried, might perhaps have been not entirely unjustified. In extenuation, I can only say that my second child was due on the day I began it - fortunately, as it turned it, she was two weeks' late, or else the Augustan settlement might have turned out even more hurried than it was!


What is the back story to your proposition that Caelius was the mysterious informer during Catiline's revolt?


I did not propose it as hard fact - nevertheless, it is striking that Caelius is the only person I can think of who was on intimate terms with Cicero, Catiline and Crassus all at the same time. (And incidentally, one of the bugbears of writing about the late Republic for a non-specialist audience is that fact that so many of the leading protagonists have names that begin with 'C'...)


You've probably read Victor Davis Hanson. I regard him as an historian who successfully re-opens old histories and looks anew: country-dwelling Greeks, hoplites, etc. In retelling the history of the Roman Republic's end, what were you hoping would most catch your readers' eyes?



I do know VDH, and admire his work hugely (though not necessarily his conviction that everything that happened in the ancient world demonstrates the need for a continued occupation of Iraq). What was I hoping would catch my readers' eyes? The character and ambiguities of Roman freedom - of 'libertas' - which is not, thinking about it, so far removed from VDH's own concern with 'eleutheria'. The subtitle of the British edition of "Rubicon" spoke of the 'tragedy' of the Roman Republic - that to me is what is most powerful and moving about the whole story.



If the ancient structure of parallel biographies was ever resurrected, who from modern political and military leaders would you pair up with ancient Romans and Greeks? For example, Eisenhower and Scipio Africanus, Churchill and Cato the Elder, Blair and ?, Bush and Nero ...



This is a great question, and one I have often pondered! Churchill would have to be paired up with Themistocles - no doubt about it. If you take the Ostia bust to be an authentic likeness (which I do), the two men even looked alike! Sadam could be paired with Nebuchadnezzar - he did rebuild Babylon and stamp his name on the bricks, after all. Colin Powell with Pompey, perhaps? - the great general who never quite pulled his political weight? Bush with Crassus, if you are anti-war, or Lucullus, if you are pro. Blair, I don't know, but he reminds me of the Athenians who offered to join the Roman war effort against the King of Macedon, and then found that their chief contribution was merely a display of flowery oratory. But of all the crop of current world figures, it is Silvio Berlusconi – fittingly, perhaps – who has proved himself the truest Roman of them all. Once again, the Eternal City is ruled by a politician who exploits his wealth and patronage shamelessly, who adjusts the law to suit himself, and bribes the electorate with lavish circuses and entertainments. Just as Julius Caesar once dazzled the Roman people by dressing gladiators in silver armour, so Berlusconi wins golden opinions thanks to his ownership of A. C. Milan. The Once and Future Republic indeed.