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Be there or be square! I’m doing a talk on Friday night in the Grosvenor Museum with Ruth Downie, of the excellent Ruso mysteries. It kicks off at 7 p.m, and if you’re in the area, we’d love to see you. The festival proper starts on the Saturday, and runs until Sunday afternoon. It opens at 10.30 a.m. in the city’s Grosvenor Park, and features reenactors from all over the UK, traders selling replica Roman kit, and various authors hawking their books! 😉 Each day, there’s a show in the amphitheatre, with gladiators and lots of gore. Again, if you’re around, please pop by. The weather is set to be good, and if last year’s event was anything to go by, the place will be jammed!

[Read more…] about This is Chester Roman Festival: 3/4/5 June

After last year’s fiasco of writing down nearly a hundred names to put in a bag, I vowed not to repeat it. Amazing what one discovers when one types ‘Random Number Generator’ into a search engine. Anyway, my job was made incredibly easy just now. Listed the number of entries, and pressed ‘Generate’. Whey hey, what with Twitter, FB and random number generators, I don’t know myself.

Anyway, the first number out of the ether corresponded with an email sent by Jon Charles, who lives in/near London. He’ll be pleased to win a genuine Roman quinarius as well as a copy of Hannibal: Enemy of Rome. And the second number corresponded to Mark Tinkler, who lives near Abingdon, in the UK. Like Jon, he wins a spanking new signed first edition of my new book. Congratulations to you both, and commiserations to everyone else.

What with publication date coming up, I thought I’d do a few posts about Carthage, and the iconic general from there who so nearly conquered the Roman Republic. What first comes to mind are the amazing textbooks I read while plotting my new quadrilogy *cough, sorry, trilogy*. There are lots of good texts out there, but some are outstanding. 

Some of these would be The Punic Wars by Nigel Bagnall, Greece and Rome at War by Peter Connolly (a great all-round text, a must for any Roman enthusiast),  Hannibal’s War by J.F. Lazenby, and the recent (2010) really great read Carthage Must Be Destroyed by Richard Miles (who often has excellent documentaries on TV). There are a host of others, which I referred to at the back of Hannibal: Enemy of Rome 😉

If you’re after some really informative, interesting and amusing TV about Hannibal, watch the 6-part BBC minseries by Ben, Danny and Sam Wood, three Aussie brothers who last year cycled the route taken by Hannibal from Spain to Italy. Watch On Hannibal’s Trail here. There’s also rather a good BBC film about Hannibal, called Rome’s Worst Nightmare. Still plenty of room for a good Hollywood blockbuster about the man, however! Just not one starring Vin Diesel, please.

Well, it’s been months in the planning, and has taken up a lot of my IT guru, Philip Jones’ time, but here it is, everyone – my new look website. The amazing background artwork comes from the incredibly talented Steve Stone, my cover artist. He was very generous in supplying the piece, which is the basis for the new book cover.

This overhaul has all been timed of course to tie in with the release of Hannibal: Enemy of Rome. Not all of the functionality is there yet – I don’t think the FB or Twitter buttons work yet, but they’ll be up in about a week or ten days. Exhausted by his efforts on my site, Philip is taking a well-earned break. Cheers, Philip – you’re a star.

The content of the site has changed somewhat, but not that much. The pressure is on me now to update it all in time for 9 June. Anyway, have a look around, press buttons, enjoy, tell me if something’s not working. And most of all, tell your friends to have a look!

Many of you may have visited Rome, and seen the Forum Romanum, Trajan’s Column and the incredible sight that is the Colosseum. On the slopes of the Esquiline Hill, near the Colosseum, is a little visited ruin. [Read more…] about Nero and the wonders of CGI

It’s always been my stated intention to respond to every email that I receive from readers – abusive/complaining ones excluded. (Those are incredibly rare, thankfully.) However, due to a technical fault of mine, I have not always succeeded in achieving that aim. Let me explain. [Read more…] about An apology