Author of Masinissa: Ally of Carthage and Masinissa: Ally of Rome
Both e-books can be downloaded from Amazon and their respective paperback books are available from troubador.co.uk
Hello
Welcome to my website
Thanks for stopping by! I'm planning on adding other content which I hope will be entertaining, informative and engaging but, for now, I will focus on my first two books about the Numidian king Masinissa. I feel a little like someone on the edge of a diving board wondering how wise it is to jump into thin air!
Mostly Masinissa
I think in terms of introductions I ought to focus on my two books which will be published together this August, both as physical books and e-books. They are both novels which focus on a part of the story of the Numidian prince and later king Masinissa (often also spelt Massinissa). He is a much neglected and highly significant historical figure. He was born in 238BC and during his long reign he united the divided Numidian kingdom and turned it into the breadbasket of Rome. His legacy in some parts of the world remains strong and significant. He is revered across eight countries in North Africa and the Sahel region, as well as in the Canary Islands, as the founding father of the Amazigh people, the indigenous "free people" of North Africa.
The part of his story that I'm telling is the period of time he was involved in the Second Punic War between Rome and Carthage, roughly 213BC to 202BC. He entered the war as an ally of Carthage and finished it as a very important ally of Rome. Other historical figures who feature in the books are the polymath Archimedes, the famous Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca, the Roman consul Scipio Africanus and the Carthaginian noblewoman Sophonisba. She is also a figure from history who has dropped out of the limelight somewhat. However, between the 16th and 19th centuries she was extremely popular. There are many paintings and plays about her, even one written by the author of "Rule Britannia", James Thomson. On stage, there have been fifteen operas and two ballets about her life. She was also the central figure in the first ever epic movie, Cabiria, which played for a year in theatres in 1914.
Regarding the first three images on this page, the image of the fortification is the castle of Xativa, near Valencia in Spain. It had been Hannibal's home in Iberia and it was where he planned his famous assault with elephants over the alpine passes against the Romans. The final scene of the first book is set there. The image at the top is of the location of the former Temple of Melqart, the Punic god conflated with Hercules, in Andalucia. Both Hannibal and Julius Caesar made pilgrimages there seeking portents for their future conquests. It is also, according to legend, the final resting place of Hercules. I set an early scene of my second book there. The third image is a statue of Masinissa himself, located in the centre of Algiers in Algeria.
