The Last Assassin - Hardcover

Stothard, Peter

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1474613152 ISBN 13: 9781474613156

Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2020

Synopsis

'A political thriller, and a human story that astonishes' Hilary Mantel

Many men killed Julius Caesar. Only one man was determined to kill the killers. From the spring of 44 BC through one of the most dramatic and influential periods in history, Caesar's adopted son, Octavian, the future Emperor Augustus, exacted vengeance on the assassins of the Ides of March, not only on Brutus and Cassius, immortalised by Shakespeare, but all the others too, each with his own individual story.

The last assassin left alive was one of the lesser-known, Cassius Parmensis, a poet and sailor who chose every side in the dying republic's civil wars except the winning one, a playwright whose work was said to have been stolen and published by the man sent to kill him. Parmensis was in the back row of the plotters, many of them Caesar's friends, who killed for reasons of the highest political philosophy and lowest personal pique. For fourteen years he was the most successful at evading his hunters but has been barely a historical foot note - until now.

THE LAST ASSASSIN dazzlingly charts an epic turn of history through the eyes of an unheralded man. It is a history of a hunt that an emperor wanted to hide, of torture and terror, politics and poetry, of ideas and their consequences, a gripping story of fear, revenge and survival.

About this title

About the Author

Peter Stothard is an author, journalist and critic. He is a former editor of The Times and of The Times Literary Supplement. His books include ALEXANDRIA, THE LAST NIGHTS OF CLEOPATRA, ON THE SPARTACUS ROAD and THE LAST ASSASSIN. He lives in Cambridge.

Edition details

• Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
• Publication date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1474613152
• ISBN 13: 9781474613156
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 288