The very last stages of the book

OK, I think that this is very last post about the book before it actually comes out. It is all written, and is very soon to go to the printers, and I don't want you to think that this is all an advert, or that I am thinking about nothing else. (Far from it, as you'll soon see.)

The truth is, of course, that I am still spending all my waking hours on the book even now. That is partly writing the captions for the pictures. There's a hundred or so and I want each caption to add to what is there in the main text, I want it to be value-added, to reward the reader for paying attention to the image. So that is a bit of time. But it is also reading and re-reading the proofs and checking the maps. Many readers of this blog were very keen on maps, and I took that so seriously,that there will now I think be five in all. But they have to be checked and double and treble checked. (Oh sh** there are two places called Teanum in Roman Italy ...).

A lot of this, to be honest, is hard going, necessary, unemotional (not like writing) and not much fun. Most of it reveals one's own failings, the same joke repeated twice (no I didn't notice), or silly errors that one somehow just didn't notice. It's always good to check every ancient reference again, dreary as the task is, because it reveals a worrying level not of crass errors, but of not quite truths (hope I have found the all).  But there are some bright spots. I especially like the design aspects.

We picked what I think is a rather elegant front cover, but it is slightly elegantly austere. So we thought that the endpapers needed to have a luscious richness , to reward the reader as they open it up. One idea (mine) was to have the 'Peutinger table' there. It would signal the big scale connectivity of the Roman empire, while hinting back to the real maps of the ancient world. But it still isn't quite luscious enough and it is actually medieval. So we decided to go for something really Roman and red preferably.

Not a difficult idea in principle as the Romans did have a nice line in deep red, but which image was it to be? That's trickier. Some images are too clich��d, some signal the wrong message (a flagellated woman for example....! err...). But after a few goes we found something just right I think.

Not going to tell you what it is just yet, but you''ll see!