{"title":"Books by Peter Stothard","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9781474620994","title":"Palatine","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Lets us see how power really worked, in public and private ... Stothard tells this story superbly'\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eDominic Sandbrook, \u003ci\u003eSUNDAY TIMES\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e14 CE: The first Roman emperor is dead. A second is about to succeed. The Forum of Rome, once fought over so fiercely, has become hardly more than a museum. The house of all power is up above on the Palatine Hill, about to become  the birthplace of Western bureaucracy, a warren of banqueting and bedrooms, a treacherous household where it takes special talents to survive.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e This is a Roman history with a cast of new men and newly dominant women, those reviled too often in the past as flatterers and gluttons, uppity slaves and former slaves, lawyers-for-hire, chancer arrivistes and unhinged party animals. \u003ci\u003ePalatine \u003c\/i\u003e uncovers the lives of the Vitellii, perhaps Rome's least admired imperial clan, of Publius, an old-fashioned soldier snared in the politics of the new age, of Lucius, an exceptionally skilled and sycophantic courtier, and of Aulus a genial sluggard whose prowess  at the table carries him all the way to the throne before collapsing his family's reputation for ever. Few now remember them. Yet in their creeping ascent to the very summit of the imperial hierarchy lie neglected truths about a lasting legacy of Rome.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":57685905080693,"sku":"9781474621014","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"Hardback","offer_id":43128695324850,"sku":"9781474620994","price":22.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781474621014.jpg?v=1792599139"},{"product_id":"9780300256581","title":"Horace – Poet on a Volcano","description":"A biography of Horace, one of the most popular poets from antiquity, revealing the little-known man behind his famous lines“Peter Stothard is a master of modern writing about ancient Rome, of vividly bringing to life its poetry and its poets.”—Mary BeardA New Statesman Book of the Year 2025Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65–8 BCE) wrote some of ancient Rome’s greatest poetry, melding languages and cultures with youthful ideals and a realist’s recognition of the dictatorial world around him. Horace is famed for his fine phrases, lyric sex, and guidance on how to live, but he was a poet maddened by war, and many of his most self-revealing poems have rarely been read. He could be sublime and obscene, amusing and abusive, a model of moderation and anything but.   In this book, the first modern retelling of Horace’s life, Peter Stothard follows the poet from his birth as the son of a formerly enslaved father through his rise to the highest circles of Roman society. He shines a light on how shattering experiences in the war to save Rome’s republic shaped the loyal servant and revolutionary artist he became. With astute scholarship and sympathy, Stothard follows Horace’s rise from humble beginnings to the social and political heights of the autocracy he had fought to prevent.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56419558752629,"sku":"9780300256581","price":18.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780300256581.jpg?v=1791212743"},{"product_id":"crassus-the-first-tycoon","title":"Crassus – The First Tycoon","description":"The story of Rome’s richest man, who died a humiliating desert death in search of military glory  “A perfectly paced biography.”—Tom Holland, Times Literary Supplement   Marcus Licinius Crassus (115–53 BCE) was a modern man in an ancient world, a pioneer disrupter of finance and politics, and the richest man of the last years of the Roman republic. Without his catastrophic ambition, this trailblazing tycoon might have quietly entered history as Rome’s first modern political financier. Instead, Crassus and his son led an army on an unprovoked campaign against Parthia into what are now the borderlands of Turkey, Syria, and Iraq, losing a battle at Carrhae which scarred Roman minds for generations.      After Crassus was killed, historians told many stories of his demise. Some said that his open mouth, shriveled by desert air, had been filled with molten gold as testament to his lifetime of greed. His story, skillfully told by Peter Stothard, poses both immediate and lasting questions about the intertwining of money, ambition, and power.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57466508476789,"sku":"9780300274172","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780300274172.jpg?v=1785654566"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-peter-stothard.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}