Wednesday 31 October 2012

October competition

We have five copies of Rome's Executioner by our guest Robert Fabbri to give away to the authors of the best answers to this question:

"Vespasian aside, which Roman Emperor interests you the most and why?"

Closing date 7th November.
STOP PRESS - extended till 14th November! Get in and comment!

We are sorry but all our competitions are open only to readers from the UK

5 comments:

Sam said...

This is a tough one but for me it has to be Nero. Why? Because quite simply he was a nasty piece of work. I mean, he had the head of his wife cut off to prove to his new lover that he was serious about her and then had the lover kicked to death. Nice. It was also so interesting to wander around the ruins by the Colloseum and read about all the building works that he did in Rome. Walking a long the Via Nova was amazing. Nero also organised a huge relief effort after the Great Fire f Rome in AD64, so wasn't all bad. But then when an angry population blamed Nero, he in turn blamed the christians. Oh dear oh dear. Probably best known for his severe cruelty to christians, but still a hugely fascinating man.

Anonymous said...

I'm not from the UK and I do not want to be in the contest BUT I still just want to share my opinion.
The Roman emperor that interests me the most is the one and only Caligula. Talk about a crazy person! From trying to make his horse consul to going to war with the sea. It fascinates that such a person existed!

Eve Edwards said...

For me it would be Constantine the Great as he was one of those fascinating compromised individuals who made choices for reasons of his own that went on to change the course of history, his decisions still rippling down to our modern age.

Mark Burgess said...

My vote would be for Hadrian. Anybody who would build a wall like that across the north of Britannia has to be worth a second look. That and the beard, which he immediately made de rigeur for emperors ever after. He seems to have been a cultured chap and something of a humanist. I'd certainly like to know more about him.

Anonymous said...

Don't miss the entry by Hunter posted in the comments for Harriet Castor's blog post:
http://the-history-girls.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/the-hole-in-wall-by-hm-castor.html