The whole History Books Review organisation was saddened to hear this week of the death of Michael Foot. In addition to his career as a politician he was of course also a historian of some note and his biography of Aneurin Bevan is on the list of books I intend to review. This particular book

Marcus Aurelius would probably have been remembered as a philosopher even if he had not gone into politics, a unique achievement.   At an early age, long before becoming the Emperor was even a remote possibility, Marcus embraced the philosophy of the stoics. It seems that from that time on he was first and foremost

Hadrian had a tough act to follow, but he did hit the ground running. His only problem was that Trajan had never actually nominated him as his successor until he was on his deathbed – and even this was only witnessed by Plotina his pro-Hadrian widow. 

Whatever we may think of the model created by Augustus – it had staying power. Augustus reigned from 27BC. There was an emperor on the throne continually until 479AD – just over 500 years.

  Imagine you are running a world superpower, but you are a bit strapped for cash. Your enemies all seem to be well funded, and you can’t keep up with them. Who do you turn to?

Augustus Returns Gossip must have been at fever pitch in Rome in 27BC, the year Augustus’ reign is generally held to have started. Whenever somebody new takes over, there is always a lot of speculation ahead of their arrival. But there can’t have been many situations where quite so many people had quite so little