Harry Sidebottom

Harry Sidebottom is a British author and historian, best known for his fiction series Warrior of Rome.^[1] He is currently working on a new series, Throne of the Caesars. The first volume, Iron and Rust, was published in 2014. He is Fellow and Tutor in Ancient History at St. Benet's Hall, Oxford, and lecturer at Lincoln College.^[2]

Early life

Sidebottom was born in Cambridge and brought up in Newmarket, Suffolk, where his father worked as a racehorse trainer. He attended Fairstead House School, Newmarket, and The King's School, Ely.^[3]

Sidebottom read Ancient History for his first degree, at Lancaster University (1977–1980). He was awarded an MPhil in 1982 from the University of Manchester and later a DPhil from the University of Oxford. He studied at Corpus Christi College, where he is a member of the senior common room. He has appeared as a presenter on the History Channel's Ancient Discoveries.^[4]

Books

Warrior of Rome

From the beginning Sidebottom intended the Warrior of Rome to be a series structured in trilogies.^[2] The first three volumes take place in the Middle East and subsequent arcs are set around the Black Sea, the Baltic, Sicily, North Africa, and Italy.^[4] Sidebottom stated he drew inspiration for the series from historical writer Tacitus and commented that he had based several of the series' elements on real people and events from history.^[4] The series has sold well, with Fire in the East selling over 100,000 copies and spending five weeks in the UK top 10 upon its release.^[5] Worldwide the series has sold over half a million copies.

The series centres on the Anglo-Roman soldier Marcus Clodius Ballista (a fictionalized version of Balista, a.k.a. Callistus, one of the Thirty Tyrants) as he must live through and survive the machinations of the Roman Empire and several of the crises of the second half of the third century AD.^[6]

Throne of the Caesars

Sidebottom is writing another series, Throne of the Caesars. The new trilogy is set 30 years before the first Warrior of Rome book in the reigns of Alexander Severus and Maximinus Thrax, (AD 235–38).

Bibliography

Fiction

Warrior of Rome

1. Fire in the East (Michael Joseph, 2008)^[7]
2. King of Kings (Penguin, 2009)^[8]
3. Lion of the Sun (Penguin, 2010)^[9][10]
4. The Caspian Gates (Penguin, 2011)^[11][12]
5. The Wolves of the North (Penguin, 2012)
6. The Amber Road (Penguin/Michael Joseph, 2013)

Throne of the Caesars

1. Iron & Rust (Harper Collins, 2014)
2. Blood & Steel (Harper Collins, 2015)
3. Fire & Sword (Harper Collins, 2016)

Nonfiction

• Ancient Warfare: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press (2004)^[13][14]
• International Relations, The Cambridge Companion of Greek and Roman Warfare (2007)
• Blackwell Encyclopedia of Ancient Battles (ed. with Michael Whitby) (2017)

References

External links

• Interview with Historvius.com
• Ancient Warfare interview