Bath Literature Festival 2026 has unveiled its first headline event, confirming that Tom Holland – award-winning historian and star of the world’s most downloaded history podcast, The Rest is History – will appear at The Forum next May, with tickets available from 10am on Friday 12 December.
Holland will take audiences deep into the world of the Roman Empire as he marks the publication of his new Penguin Classics translation of Suetonius’s Lives of the Twelve Caesars. Written in AD 121, Suetonius’s vivid and often sensational accounts reveal the private lives, scandals and eccentricities of emperors including Caesar, Augustus, Caligula and Nero.
The new translation brings fresh energy to one of the most influential works of history ever written, transporting readers to an era that feels both strangely familiar and utterly alien. Holland’s trademark humour and insight – well known to fans of The Rest is History – promise to make this a fascinating evening for anyone with an interest in the ancient world.
Tom Holland appears at The Forum on Friday 22 May at 7pm.
Tickets are available now at bathboxoffice.org.uk/whats-on/tom-holland-8j3v, or by calling Bath Box Office on 01225 463362.
