The Lost Diary of Julius Caesar's Slave

Lost Diaries

by Steve Barlow, Steve Barlow

Commonus Muccus - Caesar's slave - kept a diary which reveals full and amazing details of life in Roman times. He is the most loyal servant anyone could wish to have, and to prove it he follows his master through the conquest of Gaul, on into Italy and Rome and even to uncivilized Britain.

Genres: Childrens

128 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1997

About the author

Steve Barlow (real name Steven Lowe) was born in Britain. He studied at Warwick University and Nottingham University, and worked at various times as a teacher, actor, stage manager and puppeteer. Then he went to teach in Botswana. On his return to the UK he met Steve Skidmore, collectively known as The Two Steves—are British collaborative writers who mostly work in the field of children's literature. They have written over 70 books together.

Reviews

[A.R. Collins · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book a little better than others in the series by the two Steves - and they did write the best ones, making this the best of the best, unless there is another out there worthy of five stars! It still isn't perfect, for instance, there are times when the historical facts and the jokes get a little blurred and I'm not sure how much I've really learnt, for example the blend of facts and jokes in the list of Roman gods and goddesses with accompanying illustrations was confusing to me. Overall however, the humour is on the beat, the history is very interesting and the writing style is engaging.

I'm not sure whether to believe this or Horrible Histories about Caesar's reasons for ignoring the warnings about the Ides of March. They give very different interpretations. Of course, no one can really know for sure, so either one of them could be correct. Having said that, Terry Deary's explanation of Caesar's belief in being unable to cheat fate seems more like something one would discover, rather than make up, whereas the Steves' combination of cynicism and peer pressure might occur to anyone and would probably not be historically documented. Still, who knows?

[Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved these books when I was a kid.

[Jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book as a child. Maybe this is why I like the odd little quirky historical facts (although I know that this book is fabricated.)