Gervase Phinn is offered the post of County Inspector of Schools in North Yorkshire. As he reveals in this warm and wonderfully humorous account, his first year was quite an educational experience. He learns to appreciate the countryside and meets some larger than life characters, from lords, farmers, teachers, priests and caretakers to a host of endearing and disarming children who know exactly how to speak...
Rome, AD 34: Vespasian is serving as a military officer on the outskirts of the Empire. But political events in Rome - Tiberius's increasing debauchery, the escalating grain crisis - draw him back to the city. When Caligula becomes Emperor, Vespasian believes that things will improve. Instead, the young emperor deteriorates from Rome's shining star to a blood-crazed, incestuous, all-powerful madman.