Emma Southon

Emma Southon has a PhD in Ancient History from the University of Birmingham. A version of her thesis was published as Marriage, Sex and Death: The Family and the Fall of the Roman West (Amsterdam University Press, 2016). After a few years teaching Ancient and Medieval history, followed by some years teaching academic writing she quit academia and started writing for her own enjoyment.

Her critically praised Agrippina, a biography of the much-maligned mother of Nero, was published by Unbound in 2016.

Her acclaimed A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, an exploration of murder and homicide in the Roman world, was published by Abrams in the US and by Oneworld in the UK and has also been translated into Russian and Spanish.

Abrams published A Rome of One's Own - The Forgotten Women of the Roman Empire in North America in 2023, with Oneworld publishing in the UK as A History of the Roman Empire in 21 Women.