Peter Stothard

Writer and former editor of The Times Sir Peter Stothard tells the story of the richest man in the last years of the Roman republic who was killed after launching an unprovoked and unsuccessful war against a middle eastern power.

Stothard says Marcus Licinius Crassus was a modern man in an ancient world who disrupted finance and politics and became the richest man in the republic. He could have entered history as Rome’s first modern political problem-solver and an equal of Julius Caesar, whose legacy he helped to create. Instead, he led an army on a campaign against Parthia, a country about which he knew nothing, and his name ultimately became synonymous with selfish greed. Stothard says his story poses relevant questions about the intertwining of money, ambition and power.

‘This is a superb life of an ancient Roman whose experiences horrifically echo our own time.’ Andrew Roberts, author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny

Stothard is a former editor of both The Times and the Times Literary Supplement. He is the author of several books including The Last Assassin: The Hunt for the Killers of Julius Caesar.