Valerio Massimo Manfredi is the professor of classical archaeology at the Luigi Bocconi University in Milan. He has carried out a number of expeditions to and excavations in many sites throughout the Mediterranean, and has taught in Italian and international universityies. He has published numerous articles and acdemic books, mainly on military and trade routes and exploration in the ancient world.
He has published nine works of fiction, including the 'Alexander' trilogy, which has been translated into twenty-four languages in thirty-eight countries, and The Last Legion, soon to be a major motion picture.
He has written and hosted documentaries on the ancient world transmitted by the main television networks, and has written fiction for cinema and television as well.
He lives with his family in the countryside near Bologna, Italy.
Those who would take over the world and shape it to their will, cannot succeed. The world is sacred vessel, not to be tampered with. Those who tamper with it, spoil it. Those who seize it, lose it.
--Lao Tze, Tao Te Ching--
Many who read the name of Valerian emperor on a sepulchre believe that the Persians returned the body of that Valerian that they had captured...
--Trebellius Pollio, Historia Augusta,--