We finished last year with a very entertaining talk by Emma Stafford on Neo-Classical architecture in the North of England. One place that she made much of was Todmorden. If you keep watching here you will catch sight of it's very fine Neo-Classical Town Hall. Classical symbolism was alive and well in 19th century Yorkshire! On a totally different tack but also entertainingly instructional: why not start the new year off with this? The author definitely has academic credentials as also does his main character: Marcus Clodius Ballista (!). As regards the action, the publisher's blurb says it all:
The year is AD 255 – the Roman Imperium is stretched to breaking point, its authority and might challenged along every border. The greatest threat lies in Persia to the east, where the massing forces of the Sassanid Empire loom with fiery menace. There the isolated Roman citadel of Arete awaits inevitable invasion. One man is sent to marshal the defences and shore up crumbling walls. A man whose name itself means war: a man called Ballista. Alone, Ballista is called to muster the forces and the courage to stand first and to stand hard against the greatest enemy ever to confront the Imperium. This is part one of Warrior of Rome: an epic of empire, of heroes, of treachery, of courage, and most of all, a story of brutal bloody warfare' The present reviewer is in the process of devouring the sequence. The action sequences are absolutely splendid. Our hero is definitely 'on a journey around the later Roman Empire' There are lots of bits of Latin (translated) and even . . . footnotes! What a start to the new academic year! Peter Hulse
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Sheffield branch of the Classical Association, founded in 1920
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