Tom Holland to speak at Classical Society Event

Acclaimed author and Classicist Tom Holland will be in conversation with the St John’s Classical Society at an event held in College this week.

Tom Holland, award-winning British author, presenter and documentary producer, will be interviewed about his most recent book, Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar, “the portrait of a family that transformed and stupefied Rome”, as well as other topics, at an event hosted by the College’s Classical Society on 21 February.

Tom, who received a double first in English and Latin from Queen’s College Cambridge, is the presenter of BBC4’s Making History, and he has produced documentaries on subjects ranging from religion to dinosaurs. He has written novels and non-fiction works, as well as a play. His novels, such as Attis, Deliver us from Evil and The Sleeper in the Sands, are set in the past and usually feature a supernatural or horror element. His non-fiction books including Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Empire, Persian Fire, Millennium, and In the Shadow of the Sword focus on the ancient world. Rubicon, which tells the story of the end of the Roman Republic and the consequent establishment of the Roman Empire, won the 2004 Hessell-Tiltman Prize, an award presented annually for a non-fiction book of specifically historical content and of high literary merit. Persian Fire, his history of the Graeco-Persian wars, won the Anglo-Hellenic League’s Runciman Award in 2006.

Tom has adapted Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides and Virgil for BBC Radio 4, and his translation of Herodotus was published in 2013 by Penguin Classics. In 2007, he won the Classical Association prize awarded to “the individual who has done most to promote the study of the language, literature and civilization of Ancient Greece and Rome”.

Members of the audience are invited to ask Tom a question for the event; submit questions beforehand by visiting the Classical Society’s Facebook page.

‘St John’s Classical Society in conversation with Tom Holland’ will take place at 6pm on Sunday 21 February in the Main Lecture Theatre of the Old Divinity School, St John’s College. The event is free and open to all; no booking is required.