Research | Alison Morton Author

Roman taxing times

As I sit down to fill in my tax return, I’m looking for any distraction. I wondered how the ancient Romans were taxed. Today we have income tax, company/corporation tax, sales taxes/VAT, excise duties (road fund licence (UK), alcohol, cigarettes), local taxation, inheritance tax, to name but a few. But how similar are our taxes […]

Roman doesn't mean one thing

Traditionally, ancient Rome was founded in 753 BC. It grew into one of the largest empires in the ancient world with roughly 20% of the world’s population and an area of 6.5 million square kilometres at its height.

Plagued by internal instability and attacked by various migrating peoples, the western part of the empire broke […]

Romans and steampunk?

Today, I don’t only have a guest, I’m actually swapping blogs with Daniel Ottalini, another ‘Roman nut’ but with a difference…

Daniel Ottalini is the author of The Steam Empire Series, a fantastical Roman and steampunk story brought to life in his debut novel, Brass Legionnaire. Daniel has been an avid reader all his […]

Call Jean Fullerton!

Born into a large East End family, Jean was brought up in the overcrowded streets clustered around the Tower of London. Her Victorian stories shining with authenticity have delighted both readers and critics. Jean’s fifth book, Call Nurse Millie, set in 1940s London, draws on her own experience as a district nurse in East London. […]

The Domain of Soissons - a Roman remnant

The Roman Empire didn’t ‘fall’ in a cataclysmic event as the movies and TV would have you believe – it localised and eventually dissolved like chain mail fragmenting into separate links, giving way to rump states, local city states and petty kingdoms. New, dynamic and often warring nations emerged – Goths, Franks, Alamans and Burgundians.

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