Dawn to dusk in the deadliest workplace in history — an alternative history of ancient Rome told through a single gladiator's day.
Forget the marble speeches and the emperors' biographies. Harry Sidebottom — Oxford ancient historian and bestselling novelist of the Warrior of Rome series — takes you into Rome as it was actually lived: through the eyes of a gladiator, from waking in the barracks to the roar of the arena, hour by hour.
Drawing on ancient sources with a storyteller's flair, he reconstructs the training and the diet, the oaths and the superstitions, the economics of the games, the fans and the graffiti, the medicine and the odds of survival — and what it all reveals about the civilisation that packed the stands. History with the dust and blood left in.
Praise
“Magnificent.” — Dominic Sandbrook, co-host of The Rest Is History
“Grippingly original.” — Tom Holland, author of Rubicon
“Wonderfully panoramic.” — Literary Review
Perfect for readers of
Mary Beard's SPQR, Tom Holland, The Rest Is History listeners — and anyone who walked out of Gladiator II wanting the real thing.
About the author
Harry Sidebottom teaches ancient history at the University of Oxford and is the bestselling author of the Warrior of Rome and Throne of the Caesars novels.
