Showing results by author "Adrian Goldsworthy" in All Categories

Athens and Sparta were the two big players in Ancient Greece. United, they helped lead the Greeks in defeating the great Persian invasion. Divided, they spread conflict and destruction throughout the eastern Mediterranean. They were not simply rivals for power, but polar opposites in culture and ideology: Athens was the outward looking, radical democracy with a maritime empire whilst Sparta was militaristic, rigidly disciplined and brutal. Both were experiments in how to run a state, epitomising the extremes of the Greek longing to excel.

The story of one of the most brilliant, flamboyant and historically important men who ever lived. From the very beginning, Caesar's story makes dazzling reading. In his late teens he narrowly avoided execution for opposing the military dictator Sulla. He was decorated for valour in battle...

The Roman empire shaped the culture of the Western world against which all other great powers are compared. Stretching from the north of Britain to the Sahara, and from the Atlantic coast to the Euphrates, it imposed peace and prosperity on an unprecedented scale. However, the exception lay in the east, where the Parthian and then Persian empires ruled over great cities and the trade routes to mysterious lands beyond. This was the place Alexander the Great had swept through, creating a dream of glory and conquest which tantalized Greeks and Romans alike. 

The Pax Romana is famous for having provided a remarkable period of peace and stability, rarely seen before or since. Yet the Romans were first and foremost conquerors, imperialists who took by force a vast empire stretching from the Euphrates in the east to the Atlantic coast in the west. Their...

Flavius Ferox is the hard-bitten centurion charged with keeping the peace on Britannia's frontier with the barbarian tribes of the north. Now he's been summoned to Londinium by the governor, but before he sets out an imperial freedman is found murdered in a latrine at Vindolanda fort. Ferox must find the killer. As he follows the trail, the murder leads him to plots against the empire and Rome itself. Bandits, soldiers and gladiators alike are trying to kill him, old friends turn traitor, and Ferox is lured reluctantly to the sinister haunts of the old druids on the isle of Mona.

In the depths of the desert on the empire's Eastern Frontier, the Roman army lays siege to the city of Nicopolis. Estranged from his beloved Enica to keep her safe, centurion Flavius Ferox has secured his freedom after being framed once again. His next quest: to uncover traitors within the Roman ranks. As the siege builds, widespread corruption seethes and soldiers are murdered in cold blood. Meanwhile, Ferox's investigation brings him closer and closer to the imperial court, and uncovers connections to Hadrian himself...

The complete and definitive history of how Roman generals carved out the greatest and longest-lasting empire the world has ever seen. The Roman army was one of the most effective fighting forces in history. The legions and their commanders carved out an empire which eventually included the...

The Dacian kingdom and Rome are at peace, but no one thinks that it will last. Sent to command an isolated fort beyond the Danube, centurion Flavius Ferox can sense that war is coming but also knows that enemies may be closer to home. Many of the Brigantes under his command are former rebels and convicts, as likely to kill him as obey an order. And then there is Hadrian, the emperor's cousin, and a man with plans of his own.

Flavius Ferox, Briton turned Roman centurion, is charged with keeping Rome's empire safe. But from his base at the northern frontier of Britannia, he feels enemies closing in from all sides. And now more sinister threats are reaching Ferox's ears. Ambitious leaders await the chance to carve out empires of their own. While men nearer at hand speak in whispers of war and the destruction of Rome. Stories about the sea-dwelling men of the night, who have cursed the land and only come ashore to feast on men's flesh.

'Masterly' Robert Harris, author of Imperium Caesar Augustus schemed and fought his way to absolute power. He became Rome's first emperor and ruled for forty-four years before dying peacefully in his bed. The system he created would endure for centuries. Yet, despite his exceptional success, he...

A joint biography that investigates how, during their lifetimes, Philip and Alexander transformed Macedon from a weak kingdom into a globe-spanning empire. During his short life Alexander the Great carved out an empire stretching from the Balkans to Central India, re-drawing the map of the ancient world. Yet Alexander represents only half of the story, for his success was not just the product of his own genius, restless energy and ambition, but was built on decades of effort by his father. 

D-Day. June 6th, 1944. The trajectory of the Second World War – and with it the course of modern history – is changed forever. For three young former schoolmates from South Wales, their war is only just beginning. These young men, and thousands of others, will soon be a part of one of the bloodiest and most brutal parts of the Normandy campaign: the battle for Hill 112. The horror, the fear, the filth; the savage fighting; the sheer exhilaration and moments of farce and laughter: those who come through the carnage will never be the same again.

The struggle between Rome and Carthage in the Punic Wars was arguably the greatest and most desperate conflict of antiquity. The forces involved and the casualties suffered by both sides were far greater than in any wars fought before the modern era, while the eventual outcome had far-reaching...

The bustling army base at Vindolanda lies on the northern frontier of Britannia and the entire Roman world. In just over twenty years time, the Emperor Hadrian will build his famous wall. But for now defences are weak as tribes rebel against Rome, and local druids preach the fiery destruction of the invaders. It falls to Flavius Ferox, Briton and Roman centurion, to keep the peace. But it will take more than just a soldier's courage to survive life in Roman Britain.

Britannia, AD 117: Roman centurion Flavius Ferox is trying to live a quiet life of dignified leisure, overseeing his wife's estate and doing his best to resist the urge to murder an annoying neighbor—until someone else does it for him. Dragged back into a life of violence, Ferox finds himself chasing raiders, fighting chieftains and negotiating with kings, journeying far into the north just as war breaks out. With the new emperor, Hadrian, sending agents from Rome, the whole world seems to be changing.

Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great were two of the greatest generals Rome had ever produced. Together they had brought vast stretches of territory under Roman dominion. In 49 BC they turned against each other and plunged Rome into civil war. In this audiobook, Adrian Goldsworthy relates the gripping story of this desperate power struggle. Drawing on original accounts of the war, he examines how legion was pitched against legion in a vicious battle for political domination of the vast Roman world.

'[A] Jane Austen-meets-Bernard Cornwell novel' Daily Mail Raw recruits march under the summer sun. But on distant shores a terrible event is about to sing its siren's song to the true soldier gentlemen of Britain. For it is 1808, and the Peninsular War is about to erupt . . . Meet the men of the...

The second novel in a brilliant new Napoleonic series from acclaimed historian Adrian Goldsworthy. Second in the series begun by TRUE SOLDIER GENTLEMEN, the story takes our heroes through the winter snows as Sir John Moore is forced to retreat to Corunna. Faced with appalling weather, and...

The third novel in this brilliant Napoleonic series from acclaimed historian, Adrian Goldsworthy. The third novel in the series sees new challenges for the men of the 106th Foot, as the British army attempts to recover from the disaster of Corunna and establish a foothold in the Peninsula...