Those Who Are About To Die

Resumen del libro

Dressed in armour and clutching a bloody sword, the Roman gladiator is the most iconic figure of the ancient world. Both fascinating and repulsive to us now, he was in his own time a deeply controversial character, by turns hated and idealized and always at the heart of Roman culture.

But what did he really mean to the Romans? What did they see in the gladiator and the spectacle of the games? And what does he reveal to us today about the Roman way of life?

Brilliantly written and meticulously researched, this book tells the stories of the gladiators and those who observed them from grand emperors to lowly slaves illuminating and analysing the all-consuming passion of the Roman Empire for the spectacle of mortal combat. In doing so, it reveals Roman ideas about everything from freedom and servitude to sex and desire, from courage and cowardice to death and the afterlife.

Taking readers on an unforgettable twenty-four-hour adventure beginning the night before the games and ending the evening after Those Who Are About To Die gives a blow-by-blow account of what life was really like in the brutally unforgiving arena of the ancient world.

Biografía del autor

Harry Sidebottom es doctor en Historia y profesor de Historia Clásica en la Universidad de Oxford. Experto en historia militar, arte clásico e historia cultural del Imperio Romano, sus series de novela histórica, como su trilogía El trono del césar, publicado también por Editorial Espasa, se han publicado en más de quince países, convirtiéndose en auténticos fenómenos internacionales. Su última novela es El regreso del centurión (Espasa, 2021).