How do we take the evidence from the past and try to understand the lives and the world of the people living in Britain c. AD 100? In a novel the world of the story has to be convincing, whether the characters visit a Roman army base, a city, or a farmstead.
“That means that as a novelist I have to look at what we know and fill in the gaps. As a historian, I have to make clear when there is a gap and say what is guesswork and what is fact. This extends to the physical features - buildings, tools, weapons, clothes - and the attitudes, types of behaviour and all the other things that make us human.
Having written fiction and non fiction about the Roman world, there are lessons to draw from both. After all, the goal in each case is to try and work out what it was like.”
On Adrian Goldsworthy’s historical fiction novels:
'No one knows the Roman army better than Adrian Goldsworthy, and no one writes more convincing Roman fiction.' Harry Sidebottom