avg_rating: 3.64
name: Mark  Knowles
about: I've loved ancient history ever since I sat down with my folks when I was a little boy and watched my first Ray Harryhausen movie. I read degrees in Classics and Management Studies at Downing College, Cambridge, and emerged not really having a clue about what to do for a wage. After various jobs and a decade working as a frontline officer and supervisor within the Metropolitan Police Service, I changed careers to run a Classics Dept at a school in Harrogate. I am a big fan of experimental archaeology and rowed on the reconstructed Ancient Athenian trireme ‘Olympias’ during her last sea trials in Greece in 1994. I hope somebody builds something similar in the next few years before I'm too decrepit to pull an oar!The Night Watchmen (vigiles) I've loved ancient history ever since I sat down with my folks when I was a little boy and watched my first Ray Harryhausen movie. I read degrees in Classics and Management Studies at Downing College, Cambridge, and emerged not really having a clue about what to do for a wage. After various jobs and a decade working as a frontline officer and supervisor within the Metropolitan Police Service, I changed careers to run a Classics Dept at a school in Harrogate. I am a big fan of experimental archaeology and rowed on the reconstructed Ancient Athenian trireme ‘Olympias’ during her last sea trials in Greece in 1994. I hope somebody builds something similar in the next few years before I'm too decrepit to pull an oar!The Night Watchmen (vigiles) represent an under-researched element of ancient Roman society that really fascinates me. We know so little about them from archaeological and literary evidence, and yet they were such a common, perhaps even comforting, sight for citizens going about their daily (and nightly) business. I hope that 'The Consul's Daughter' gives readers a flavour of what life might have been like for the forgotten multitudes as well as providing an entertaining story...You can follow me on:Twitter: @mark77knowlesFacebook: @mark77knowlesWebsite: markknowles.info ...more