Didn't hit the mark for me.The premise was sound, I thought - an interesting time in history, chock full of big personalities and momentous events - and Laidlaw seems to have done his research - the author includes a discussion on this topic, and each chapter is opened with a quotation from a pri...
537 ‘Ave Petronius Rufius,’ Symmachus greeted the cloaked and hooded figure that the porter had just shown into the vestibulum of the senator’s house in Ravenna. He instructed the porter to see to the stabling of the visiter’s equipage of currus (light carriage) and pair, and to arrange for the d...
560 Seated in Cyrene’s theatre beside her ‘patron’ – Hecebolus, governor of Libya Pentapolis – Theodora was hot, bored, and uncomfortable. The parasol held above her head by a slave was scant protection against the fierce African sun, as was the silk cushion against the hardness of the marble tie...
Victor of Vita, History of African Persecution, after 484 ‘It grows dark, old friend, yet surely at latest it can only be the eighth hour.’ Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, scourge of heretics, the foremost intellect and most influential churchman of the West, raised his wasted head from the pillow of...