As a small boy I desperately wanted a telescope. I loved looking at the stars and the Moon. Light pollution meant I could only rarely make out the Milky Way – when I did it just looked like light cloud – but I really wanted to see it in more detail. I’d also heard that

It is easy to forget that the biggest threat to the Roman Empire throughout its history was the Persians. We read a lot about all the barbarian inroads into the empire, and know that the western empire was destroyed by the Goths and the eastern one by the Turks, so it is easy to underestimate

The Persians and the Romans had been longtime rivals. In fact from Julius Caesar’s time when Pompey had established hegemony over Armenia and Colchis the Persians had been either resisting further Roman expansion, attempting to subvert Rome’s clients in the region or when the wind was up their tails trying to push back into Egypt

Saint Gregory is the superstar of early medieval Catholicism.

Is there a way of keeping on Twitter without it taking too big a chunck of my life and my attention? I have tried going cold turkey a couple of times, but always came back to it. The basic problem with it is that it is too easy to engage with. You open the screen

Maurice was on the way to putting the empire back on its feet, but was overthrown by a usurper. Heraclius deposed him and got things back on course.