By Mark Hamilton. So What Imprint, Dublin, 2021. The world before Christ was a savage place. Ancient civilisations were cruel and unforgiving. In this world, despite the benign and wise voices of people like Akhenaten, Zoroaster, Socrates, Cicero and others, Egypt, Persia, Greece and Rome placed very little value on human life. Tom Holland’s Dominion and Professor Mary Beard’s S.P.Q.R. – to name but two relatively recent depictions of that world – illustrate the great divide between the values of BC and AD. But if Rome was not built in a day, neither was Christendom. Peter Heather’s