The best historical novels of the ancient world

By Jesse Browner

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Who am I?

If you want to learn about historical societies and events, read history books. But if you want to understand your own world, and how it has emerged from and been shaped by the eternal, unchanging human psyche, intellect and fragility, read historical fiction. A great historical novel should always be first and foremost about the time in which it is written. That is what first drew me to the story of Petronius in The Uncertain Hour – if it doesn’t have a human heart, no amount of technical historical detail will kindle it in the reader’s imagination.

I wrote...

The Uncertain Hour: A Novel

By Jesse Browner

The Uncertain Hour: A Novel

What is my book about?

A.D. 66. Having been falsely implicated in a plot to assassinate the emperor Nero, Titus Petronius has a choice: await the executioner at dawn, or die a noble Roman death by his own hand. Deciding that his will be a suicide like no other the world has ever seen, he summons a small circle of intimate friends to his magnificent villa on the coast of southern Italy. As they feast on course after course of the most sumptuous and exotic fare the empire has to offer, his guests are expressly forbidden to dwell on the imminent tragedy; instead, they are enjoined to sing, eat, drink, and celebrate. But as his life dwindles to a few precious hours, Petronius himself cannot shake off the ghosts of his past or his regret over mistakes that can no longer be set right.

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The Books I Picked & Why

Eagle in the Snow

By Wallace Breem

Eagle in the Snow

Why this book?

A Roman general makes his last stand against invading barbarians on the Rhine frontier. A classic in every sense of the word, Eagle in the Snow is in some ways a model for much of the serious historical fiction that followed its publication in 1970: deeply researched yet light-of-touch with arcane detail, action-packed yet always allowing character and emotion to take the foreground and guide the action. Paulinus Gaius Maximus has more than just the Germans to battle against: a pagan in a time of ascendant Christianity, a man of duty in a time of cowardice and self-dealing, thoughtful and deliberate when all around him act mindlessly. The book also excels in its clear-eyed depiction of military tactics, the hardships of winter campaigning, and the loneliness of the soldier far from home.

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The Long Ships

By Frans G. Bengtsson, Michael Meyer

The Long Ships

Why this book?

Set among marauding Vikings in the 10th century, it’s a stretch to call The Long Ships a novel of the ancient world, but I love it so much that I don’t care. The book takes us from Scandinavia to England, Ireland, Muslim Spain, and Russia as the protagonists loot, kill, are enslaved, hunt for lost treasure, and ultimately return to their farms to live in peace as the Viking age dwindles to its end. All of this is great fun and educational, but the book’s great feat is to humanize these warriors in a way rarely seen – Vikings, it turns out, are not cold-blooded killers and scourges of civilization. They are warm-hearted killers who have their own, complicated souls.

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The Love-Artist

By Jane Alison

The Love-Artist

Why this book?

The Roman poet Ovid was one of the most popular writers of his day, but the defining tragedy of his life – his lifelong exile from Rome at the very height of his powers – remains as mysterious today as it was in his own time. In The Love-Artist, Jane Alison provides that tragedy with a back story, when Ovid, on holiday on the shores of the Black Sea, meets and is enchanted by the witch-like Xenia and persuades her to return with him to Rome, with dire consequences. But it’s the book’s dream-like atmosphere – the sense that we are seeing the world through the eyes of a great poet with one foot in the ambitious world of empire and the other in an unstable netherworld of imagination and mythology – that will remain with the reader.

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Quarantine

By Jim Crace

Quarantine

Why this book?

Again, many might not call this a historical novel, but doesn’t all literature ask us to test the limits of our imagination? In Quarantine, Jim Crace takes us to the deserts of Judea, where the young Galilean rabbi Jesus is testing his spiritual faith by spending 40 days fasting in a cliff-top cave. The Bible tells us that the Devil came to tempt Jesus in the wilderness, but in Quarantine the temptations come mostly from his inadvertent travelling companions, in particular the venal, brutal trader Musa. Still, the powers of prayer and meditation, and the potential for some sort of redemption, are never undersold or mocked in this difficult yet rewarding novel

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Memoirs of Hadrian

By Marguerite Yourcenar, Grace Frick

Memoirs of Hadrian

Why this book?

Written as a letter from the dying Roman emperor Hadrian to his grandson and successor, Marcus Aurelius, Memoirs of Hadrian is in some ways a grand tour of the Roman Empire in its grandest and most peaceful era. You will learn a great deal (especially if Roman history is unfamiliar to you), but mostly it is Hadrian’s thoughts on the nature of society, empire, love, and philosophy that will stay with you. Memoirs of Hadrian is also one of the rare classic historical novels to explore, wistfully and honestly, the complexities of homosexuality and gay love in the ancient world.