Barbarians at the Gate ; Saturday Essay Politicians Love Threats to National Security. They Allow Them to Cloak Naked Ambition in Patriotism. Here a Historical Novelist Draws Chilling Parallels Between the Death of Democracy in Rome and Our Loss of Liberty

Daily Mail › September 09, 2006

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Summary

By Robert Harris

THE Roman war fleet, in the autumn of 68BC, lay peacefully at anchor in its harbour at Ostia, at the mouth of the River Tiber, about 15 miles south-west of Rome.

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Extract

Barbarians at the Gate ; Saturday Essay Politicians Love Threats to National Security. They Allow Them to Cloak Naked Ambition in Patriotism. Here a Historical Novelist Draws Chilling Parallels Between the Death of Democracy in Rome and Our Loss of Liberty

Two of the most senior members of the senate, Bellinus and Sextillius, were visiting the port on government business, attended by a score of clerks and a dozen bodyguards carrying the bundles of rods and axes which symbolised their authority as magistrates.

At some point - I imagine it was just before dawn, to achieve maximum surprise - the entrance to the harbour was suddenly filled with a mass of threatening low, grey shapes, moving quickly and quietly across the waves.

These were not big warships but the small, highly manoeuvrable open-decked sailing barques known as myopiarones, ...

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