Interview


What is it about the world of Ancient Rome that captures your imagination – why are you drawn to it?
It’s the appeal of the power and glory, the epic tale of a civilization a thousand years in the making, the way it bound together vastly different communities and peoples in a single world empire, and how it rose and fell. I have spent many years studying the Roman army, visited many of the surviving remains across Europe and the Mediterranean and have assembled a large collection of coins from the period. Perhaps because of it, at a spiritual level, I feel a close affinity with the Romans, particularly of the first century of the Common Era.
My interest was sparked, when I was 12 or 13, by the film Spartacus. I was studying Latin at the time and when the class reached volume 8 of the Cambridge Latin Project I found a whole piece about gladiators at the back of the booklet. There was something appealing and appalling about combats fought to the death as thousands of spectators looked on, cheering. But my interest was piqued.
In the early '70s the BBC aired I, Claudius. That was rivetting viewing. It also made Augustus, Livia, Germanicus, Tiberius and other members of the Julio-Claudian family, and a few others like Sejanus and Macro, household names.
In 1979, the Pompeii AD 79 exhibition came from Naples to the Royal Academy of Arts and my patient parents took me by train from Cardiff to London to see the show. I was used to seeing fragments of artifacts at the National Museum of Wales. I was awestruck by the items at the Academy. These items were whole and complete – gladiator helmets, swords, shields, wall paintings. By then, the Roman world was no longer strange but the names and places had become familiar. When a similar exposition went to The Fields Museum in Chicago in 2006, my sense of awe had not been diminished by the intervening 27 years!

What has being associated with The Ermine Street Guard meant for you?
While at high school, I discovered the Ermine Street Guard when they appeared on BBC TV’s Pebble Mill at One during a lunch break taken at home. Modern people dressed as Roman legionaries? Cool! But it was not my time to join the Guard yet. I had to go to university first.
When the Guard exhibited at the Boys School in Guildford in 1985, two years after entering the world of multinational marketing, I went along to see for myself. I joined up and I was to remain a full member for ten years, which makes me a veteran (Living in the US as I do, I continue today as an associate member). The Guard is renowned the world over as the first and still the leading reenactment group for the Roman army of the first century of the Common Era. Through it, I got a very real sense of what it was like to serve with the eagles. There is a particular sound as the metal plates of the armour chink against metal plates or the clatter of metal of the armour against the wood of the shield while on the march. That tells you the Roman army could never use stealth to approach an enemy – the noise would give them away. Indeed, the Roman army used the noise to intimidate an enemy. The acrid, slightly sweet smell of sweat on metal inside a helmet or the musty dampness of a woolen tunic at the end of a show are distinct and etched in my memory. Warfare stinks! Literally. You can’t get that from reading a history book.

How did you start writing?
In 1979, on the urging of my Latin teacher, Eira Lewis, I entered a competition with a submission on the given subject of Omens, Oracles and Prophecies in the Roman World to the Cardiff and District branch of the Classical Association. To my surprise, I won! It was an auspicious start to a writing career. The Guard has also kindly published several of my research papers in their acclaimed journal Exercitus, including that piece on Omens, Oracles and Prophecies. The readership includes eminent archaeologists and historians, and indeed, some scholars have chosen the journal over other titles to publish their findings. Guard members are very well informed on matters Roman and happy to engage in debate on new finds and interpretations, so you can be sure of feedback.
I am a contributor to Ancient Warfare magazine. My most recent article, 'Bella Germaniae', tells the story of the German Wars of Augustus' stepsons, Drusus the Elder and his brother Tiberius. I have reviewed a number of books for the magazine.

What themes appeal to you?
Ambition, betrayal, deceit, heroism, revenge, what drives people to make the decisions they take – these are the big themes that make great stories. Roman history is filled with tales of men and women who shaped the destiny of their world motivated by these powerful drives.
Let’s look at some examples.
Arminius, or Hermann as he is often known, was an aristocrat tribesman from northern Germany. He was educated in the international school in Augustus Caesar’s court, went on to become a high ranking cavalry officer in the Roman Army and took a Roman wife and by her had a child. Yet something changed in his life to compel him to tear apart that world and destroy the Roman army in the forested hillsides of Teutoburg in 9CE. What caused that 27-year old man to effectively turn his back on his Roman mentors and become the champion for his tribe?
Verica and Caratacos. Why, in the 40sCE after ruling for some thirty odd years, did Verica son of Commios flee to the Romans for help, leading to their invasion in 43CE? Why did Caratacos son of Cunobelinos stay and become the leader of the resistance for the next eight years?
Carausius and Allectus. What gave Carausius the idea that he could create a Romano British Empire, an independent state on the edge of the greater Roman Empire, become its head and get away with it? And what motivated his finance minister, Allectus, to assassinate Carausius, only to declare himself commander in chief?

What do you enjoy reading?
I have a very large library of books. The non-fiction books I particularly enjoy are those written by a new generation of experts who take a multi-disciplinary approach to interpreting the past. Not so long ago, archaeologists, biologists, epigraphers, numismatists and historians tended to work in silos and, as an enthusiast for ancient times, it was quite difficult to get a complete view of life centuries ago. Among the books I have read recently are Guy de la Bedoyère’s Eagles Over Britannia, Francis Pryor’s Britain BC, John Manley’s AD43, David Mattingly’s An Imperial Possession and Peter Wells’ The Barbarians Speak. In some purist circles, these multi-disciplinary writers may be considered mavericks. But for the rest of us, they are shedding light on the complexity of lives lived and times lived through before us. We should not forget that the ancient history that has come down to us was written by the people who could write – their subjugated peoples often did not write things down – so the legacy is somewhat one sided. New, interdisciplinary studies are revealing, often in unexpected ways, the perspective of the other side.
The result is now that the barbarians appear to have been more civilized than we thought, while the Romans were perhaps more barbaric, but overall, our ancestors look to be much more like us, and just as clever. We live in an exciting age of inquiry. Accepted wisdom, traditional interpretations in all walks of science and the arts, are being challenged. The result is a much more balanced and multi-layered view of our common heritage.
In the course of my research, I have been reading the writings of real soldiers, men who have suffered in war. Fortunately for me, there has been a resurgence of interest in the common soldier in recent years. Andrew Carroll's Behind the Lines documents the lives of American and foreign troops in wars fought by the US since 1776 in what are often deeply moving letters. Bob Carruthers assembled personal accounts of survivor's of Hitler's armed forced in Servants of Evil, which, in parts, is an uncomfortable read. In The Forgotten Soldier, Guy Sajer tells the unforgettably grim tale of life on the Russian Front in 1942. And more recently vets from Gulf Wars I and II have been writing their accounts of life at the 'sharp end' and revealing how often they are let down by their own side, as in Anthony Swofford's Jarhead and John Crawford's The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell. These first hand accounts provide an authentic voice in the telling of the history of battle. Yet, I was struck by the common thread that runs through the lives of soldiers, even ones separated by time and place. Amid the awfulness of the misery and the gore, the noise and the stench, there's the bond of cameraderie. It's captured in that expression immortalised by William Shapespeare in King Henry V Act 4, scene 3, and used by Stephen Ambrose for the title of his best seller, "band of brothers". I was amazed to find when reading Alan Bowman's Life and Letters on the Roman Frontier, that nineteen centuries ago, Roman soldiers in the north western outpost of Vindolanda referred to each other in the same way, as frater - brother. Isn't that amazing?

You have talked about non-fiction – what about fiction?
The fiction I enjoy is found on the action thriller and historical shelves of the bookstore. What I like about good action thrillers is the way the storyteller weaves together the apparently independent strands of characters’ lives and unconnected events into an ultimate resolution. I especially enjoy stories where the action takes place in different places simultaneously – London, Los Angeles, Tokyo – in that ‘meanwhile in …’ vein. I am fortunate to have traveled extensively worldwide and have been to many countries and cities, so these stories tap into my personal experience. This approach also gives the stories an expansive quality that greatly appeals to me.
I still remember devouring Frederick Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal in three days as a teenager. It is a fast paced, cat and mouse chase that features a ruthless central character who is out to assassinate French President Charles de Gaulle, pitted against a detective who uses deductive reasoning and instinct to track down the killer. Similarly, in Eye of the Needle, Ken Follett pits a spy, who has uncovered the truth about a secret that could break the Allies and win the war for the Nazis, in a high stakes chase against a police detective.
A couple of years later I discovered a paperback copy of Wallace Breem’s Eagle in the Snow. This made a lasting impression on me. Breem takes on the extraordinary story of a military leader, Maximus, appointed “General of the West” by the emperor, who, against the odds, rebuilds an army to stave of an anticipated attack by the Barbarians from the east bank of the Rhine. You almost believe Maximus and the Romans can pull it off and stall the advance. But, and it’s a devastating ‘but’, they haven’t reckoned on Nature playing a cruel trick. As an exceptionally cold winter digs in, the Rhine freezes over. The migrating horde from the north then crosses the river and, overwhelmed and under manned, the Roman forces collapse. In so doing, the Empire, of four hundred and fifty odd years, falls. To have tried so hard and yet to have failed: I actually felt a sense of loss after reading that novel. To me, that’s how a story should be told. You know the Empire will fall because that’s historical fact, but Breem as the storyteller creates an engrossing world in which the outcome might, just might, be different. I am delighted that it is back in print both in the UK and US for a new generation of readers to enjoy.
These novels also share a sense of an unfolding disaster or search for a hidden truth. In Robert Harris’ Fatherland, Germany has won the Second World War. It’s 1964 and Hitler is about to mark his 75th birthday. March, a Gestapo detective, sets out to solve the mystery of a murder. Reluctantly, he partners with an American journalist and in the course of their investigation together they uncover a terrifying secret. Despite being Gestapo, March turns out to be a decent man driven to expose an injustice. In Fatherland, Harris creates a tremendous atmosphere. Throughout, you get the uncomfortable and claustrophobic sense of life under a totalitarian regime. It’s a disquieting but great read. Alan Furst is another author with an amazing talent for creating a sense of place, a mood of the time. In The Polish Officer the bright salons and dark alleys of Paris come vividly to life in the imagination.
Strong characters, of course, make the story. In Tides of War, Steven Pressfield is masterful at telling story of Polemides, a mercenary soldier cum assassin. Through him, you feel the hopes, broken promises and abject misery of life during the disastrous campaign of the Athenians in Sicily. Polemides' language is gritty and colourful, the authentic voice of a soldier. In Gates of Fire, Pressfield uses a survivor to tell the tale of the 300 Spartans and their allies at Thermopylae in 480BC. This ‘band of brothers’ led by heroic King Leonidas holds up against the invading Persians, numbering in the hundreds of thousands. Pressfield's description of the battle, the best telling of an ancient world battle in a modern work of fiction, made a great impression on me.
Another trait of a good read for me is a sense of humour. Through her hero Marcus Didius Falco Lindsey Davis marvelously, and with dry wit, evokes the Rome of the first century of the Common Era, with its universe of characters, from penny-pinching Emperor Vespasian down to the ‘your rent is late’ landlady, and all the rogues in between. My favorite books are still The Silver Pigs and The Iron Hand of Mars: her descriptions of the military characters, and the legionaries in particular, remind me of members of the Ermine Street Guard I know!
Lastly, there's novelty, the ability to surprise and delight. In Household Gods, Harry Turtledove created a wonderful sense of the mundane, ordinary lives of townsfolk in a provincial Roman town. The novelty is seeing that world through the eyes of a modern legal attorney transported back in time by the ancient gods who have lain dormant and neglected for centuries and who, by accident, have been awaken. It’s pure fantasy, but he cleverly evokes a bygone world in which he reminds us how our views and experience of our ancient and modern worlds are at once the same – worries over money, family, sickness and death – and different – how disease is caused and cured, the absence of communications technology. Pathos and humanity come through the pages of the novel.

Who are your favourite authors?
I have already mentioned several. They include Lindsey Davis, Alfred Duggan, Ken Follett, Frederick Forsyth, Robert Harris, Conn Iggulden, Steven Pressfield, Simon Scarrow and Wallace Breem. On the non-fiction side, I would name Barry Cunliffe, Peter Connolly, Michael Grant and Francis Pryor.

To learn more about the books and programmes mentioned in the interview, click here Lindsay Powell Recommends .