On The Spartacus Road

'On the Spartacus Road makes for a wonderfully rich and endlessly thought-provoking brew, part ancient history, part modern travelogue, part personal memoir, with a distinctly philosophical strain...Beautifully written, musing and far-sighted...here is Stothard not just as a fine and engaging historian, but a historian with an imagination that can vault with ease over two millennia...an outstanding success.' Christopher Hart, Literary Review

'Stothard puts his literary knowledge, journalistic skills and classical erudition to powerful use...an astonishing tale of men fighting against the odds for reasons they themselves hardly understand, and by using a mix of personal travel narrative and historical re-enactment, Stothard brings it to life triumphantly.' Giles Foden

'Haunting, erudite and beautifully written...it is proudly and defiantly, the very opposite of journalism: a fusion of memoir, history and travelogue that is unlike any other book ever written about Spartacus, and all the more precious for being quite so unexpected.' Tom Holland, Spectator

'An intriguing book that is impossible to categorize: ancient history, travelogue, memoir and biography all at once...compelling.' The Times

'The account of a survivor...a pilgrimage of atonement by a former Oxford classicist, who loved his texts but never gave them the attention they deserved, and who uses the landmarks of the Spartacus road as a literary-historical-philosophical meditation on life and death.' Boris Johnson, Mail on Sunday