This is the first in a new series of blog interviews I’m going to be doing with authors, game designers, reenactors and modelers: influential people in this community. Suggestions for further interviews are very welcome.

For this first interview-blog, I’ve posed some questions to Oxford historian and novelist Harry Sidebottom. Having written A very short history of Ancient Warfare, his new book is a novel: Fire in the East. We published an enthusiastic review in Ancient Warfare II.4 and we don’t seem to be the only ones liking it. The book is storming the British bestseller lists. Time for a few questions to Harry Sidebottom.

(AW)There seems to be an increase in interest in warfare in the ancient world. What do you think has caused this?

(HS)I think that interest in ancient war is growing, both among the general public and among scholars. There are several possible reasons. After 9/11 and the subsequent `war on terror` war is in the forefront of people`s minds in the west in a way it has not been since the Second World War. Historians, archaeologists and anthropologists are generally more interested in war. As far as classical war goes maybe we should not underestimate the massive critical and commercial success of the film Gladiator.

(AW)What got you interested in Warfare in the Ancient World?

(HS)Since a child I have been interested in war. I was turned on to ancient war and classical history in general by reading Robin Lane Fox`s biography of Alexander the Great when I was at sixth form.

(AW)From the list of (planned) books and articles on your website and reading A very short history… an interest in the cultural side of warfare is easily distilled. Where does this interest come from?

(HS)I got into the cultural aspects of ancient war because I thought that while both the social side (e.g. things like the `Hoplite revolution` or the recruitment patterns in Roman legions) and the physical realities of fighting were well covered the cultural dimension was neglected by modern scholars – and war was pervasive in the thinking of the classical cultures.

(AW)One of the clearest hints to your interest in the cultural side of Ancient warfare is the announcement of Fields of Mars: A Cultural History of Greek and Roman Battle. When will that be published? Will that be mostly for the general public or will it be a full blown academic book?

(HS)I was working on Fields of Mars (a follow up to my Ancient Warfare: A Very Short Introduction Oxford 2004) when I got the deal to write the novels. I had written about 1/3rd of it. While it is on the backburner now, I intend to return to it in a few years. It attempts the difficult task of being a book primarily aimed at a general reader while at the same time engaging closely with the primary evidence and making original scholarly points. On the `straight history` side I am currently editing with Michael Whitby an Encyclopaedia of Ancient Battles for Blackwell. We have signed up a team of international scholars and hope that it will become the standard reference work.

(AW)I’m sure the readers of Ancient Warfare will look forward to that. Apparently you are somewhat of an exeption to the often heard lament that many academics write for other academics only, crossing the line to the larger populace instead. Do you think this is an important thing to do? Does Warrior of Rome play a role in this, as a book that perhaps gets readers interested in the real history behind the novel?

(HS)I have always been strongly opposed to the sort of academic elitism that considers only those able to read Greek and Latin should be allowed to read and think about the classical world. I very much hope that the Warrior of Rome series will encourage readers to find out more about the history behind the novels – that is why I insisted that each novel has a lengthy historical afterword giving an annotated reading list to help readers take their interest a stage further.

(AW)At the back of the book you tell an anecdote of when you first told a colleague about your book. He complimented you on picking an era of which so little is known (the mid 3rd century AD) that nobody could prove you wrong. That anecdote makes it sound like the period selection was a ‘trick’. Was it, or are there more reasons for choosing this period?

(HS)I chose to set the Warrior of Rome series in the mid third century AD partly because of the freedom it gave as the period is so badly documented. The surface story in Fire in the East is fiction, but the background (things like the clothes, food, and above all the army, war and mentalities) are as true as I can make them. Another reason is that it is a fascinating and controversial period – was it `crisis` or `continuity`? Finally it is an era in which I had already done a lot of research – especially on the Greek historian Herodian, a vital contemporary witness.
Another key reason I picked the mid third century AD was an interest in the Sassanid Persians and a desire to raise contemporary questions by having the western superpower Rome attacked by an eastern religiously motivated enemy.

(AW)Your last remark might be something that others would like to ask more about, but I’d like to finish up by asking you whether it is possible to give us a glimpse of future adventures of Ballista?

(HS)The second part of Warrior of Rome, King of Kings, comes out in July 2009. it starts and ends with war on the eastern frontier against the Sassanids. But the central section sees Ballista and his familia in a civilian context – sent to Ephesus to implement the emperor Valerian`s second edict of persecution against the Christians: to Roman eyes success in war depended on the gods and the existence of what they saw as atheist Christians posed a terrible danger to this.

(AW)I look forward to reading it.