Alex Gough

Alex Gough is an author of Roman historical adventure fiction whose work reflects a decades-long interest in the ancient world. His Carbo of Rome series—Watchmen of Rome, Bandits of Rome and Killer of Rome, together with the collection Carbo and the Thief—follows a former legionary through crime, political disorder and the lives of Rome’s poorer inhabitants. The books draw on Gough’s research into social groups often overshadowed by emperors, senators and generals, presenting the capital through soldiers, criminals, tradespeople and people struggling at the margins of imperial society.

Gough’s six-volume Imperial Assassin series follows Silus, an operative of the secretive Arcani, during the Severan dynasty and the increasingly unstable reign of Caracalla. Its settings extend from Roman Britain and Caledonia to Rome, Numidia and the empire’s eastern provinces, combining assassination plots, military campaigning and dynastic rivalry. His later novels Caesar’s Soldier, Caesar’s General and Caesar’s Avenger retell the collapse of the Roman Republic from the perspective of Mark Antony, tracing his relationship with Julius Caesar, the crossing of the Rubicon and the struggle for power following Caesar’s murder.