About Brian
Writer and Editor
Brian Thornton is the author or editor of a dozen books, including The Book of Bastards: 101 Scoundrels and Scandals from the World of Politics and Power, Honest Abe: 101 Little-Known Truths About Abraham Lincoln, and his latest, Suicide Blonde.
About Brian
Writer and Editor
Brian Thornton is the author or editor of a dozen books, including The Book of Bastards: 101 Scoundrels and Scandals from the World of Politics and Power, Honest Abe: 101 Little-Known Truths About Abraham Lincoln, and his latest, Suicide Blonde.
King Solomon: All Those Women, All Those Gods, Just Asking for Trouble (ca. 1011-931 B.C.)
Wherefore the Lord said unto Solomon, Forasmuch as this is done of thee, and thou hast not kept my covenant and my statutes, which I have commanded thee, I will surely rend the kingdom from thee, and will give it to thy servant. – 1 Kings, 11:11 Solomon, the famously...
This Week’s Bastard: Sennacherib, King of Assyria: If You Can’t Conquer Jerusalem, at Least Brag about All the Little Towns You Destroyed (reigned 704-681 B.C.)
Who was there among all the gods of those nations that my fathers utterly destroyed, that could deliver his people out of mine hand, that your God should be able to deliver you out of mine hand? Now therefore let not Hezekiah [King of Judah] deceive you, nor persuade...
This Week’s Bastard: Ramses II: Or How to Make It Impossible for Your Own People to Forget You After You’re Gone (reigned 1279-1213 B.C.)
"His majesty slaughtered the armed forces of the Hittites in their entirety, their great rulers and all their brothers . . . their infantry and chariot troops fell prostrate, one on top of the other. His majesty killed them . . . and they lay stretched out in front of...
This Week’s Bastard: Akhenaten: Or How to Get Your Own People to Destroy Every Trace of You After You’re Gone (reigned ca. 1351-1334 B.C.)
Akhenaten: the criminal of Amarna. –Ancient Egyptian Saying Akhenaten, the unexpected heir to the Egyptian throne, unsettled his people by glorifying one god instead of a pantheon. In return, they tried to pretend he never...
This Week’s Bastard: Hammurabi: Sometimes You Really Don’t Want to Lick the Spoon (reigned 1792-1750 B.C.)
If a man destroys the eye of another man, they shall destroy his eye. – Hammurabi’s Code Hammurabi: a semi-mythical king of Babylon (a city-state in present-day Iraq) who handed down the...
This Week’s Bastard: Sargon of Akkad—Just Like Moses, Only Bloodier (reigned 2334-2279 B.C.)
But because of the evil which [Sargon] had committed, the great lord Marduk [personal god of the city of Babylon] was angry, andhe destroyed his people by famine. From the rising of the sun unto the setting of the sun they opposed him and gave him no rest. ...
The Roman Emperor Elagabalus and His Big Stone God
I will not describe the barbaric chants which [Elagabalus], together with his mother and grandmother, chanted to [Elagabal], or the secret sacrifices that he offered to him, slaying boys and using charms, in fact actually shutting up alive in the god’s temple a lion,...
This Week’s Bastard: Pope Benedict IX – The Man Who Sold the Papacy
“That wretch, from the beginning of his pontificate to the end of his life, feasted on immorality.” — St. Peter Damian, Liber Gomorrhianus Pope Benedict IX This week’s...
This Week’s Bastard: Ptolemy the Thunderbolt
A contemporary bust of Alexander the Great This week’s bastard comes from the Hellenistic Age, that period in the historical narrative of the ancient Mediterranean that began with the death of Alexander the Great in Babylon (323 BC) and ended with the suicide of the...
This Week’s Bastard: Pope Stephen VII and the Cadaver Synod
Read, — how there was a ghastly Trial once Of a dead man by a live man, and both, Popes — Robert Burns, The Ring and the Book Our initial foray into historical...
Not only do I write mysteries and thrillers, historical fiction and non-fiction, and edit, I’m also a veteran educator with years of experience speaking and leading workshops.
