Tacitus roman historian biography of rory

Hadrian’s Wall begins a little bewilderingly, buried under the settlements east of Newcastle, but stretches into some of the loveliest, loneliest country in Britain. Segedunum, the fort at the eastern end of the wall, has been excavated from under tight terraces of Victorian housing beside the former shipyards at Wallsend. At one end is a reconstructed bathhouse, neatly plastered in blue and white. The Roman writer Tacitus claimed the British had embraced bathing with enthusiasm. But the fashion didn’t last: this bathhouse was abandoned along with perhaps a thousand others, almost exactly as the Roman legions left, 1,600 years ago. Today, restored to working order, it still seems a little alien, advanced and luxurious.

From here, the Hadrian’s Wall Path runs along an abandoned rail track, in the shadow of half-abandoned administrative buildings, above the dockyard gates. My plan was to follow it west to Willowford, on the Cumbrian border: a walk of just over 40 miles, do-able in a weekend, although three days would be more comfortable.

I emerged, after a couple of hours, on to the Newcastle quays. A Pyrenean mountain dog, the size of a small pony, stood, newly blow-dried, in the centre of the street. It was being admired by three Persian-Bahraini women in giant sunglasses. One petted it, another jumped in terror whenever it looked up, and a third posed for photographs. I stopped for an espresso from a van parked on the quayside.

On the outskirts of Newcastle, my boots sounded heavy on the new pavement. I hurried through mini-roundabouts, stared at porcelain decorations on windowsills, and large empty armchairs in front rooms. Women in new black trouser-suits, smoking outside a hair salon, watched me pass, and I felt a little embarrassed to be seen in a city in my stained blue trousers, and with a large backpack.

Then I was beyond the suburbs, into flat farmland, where high hedges blocked the view, until gradually the hills

Late in the Seventies, Rory Stewart was taken by his godfather, the journalist John Tusa, to the Royal Albert Hall. On show that day was a Chinese acrobatic troupe. They performed scarcely credible physical stunts, balancing acts, dances. The six-year-old Stewart turned to Tusa and said: “I can do that.”

In the 44 years since, Stewart, a politician, traveller and writer, has done just about everything – short of becoming a Chinese acrobat, or the prime minister. His life is more compellingly patterned, more theatrically retold, and perhaps more consciously shaped than any other in our public life.

Stewart has a new book out – a political memoir – but he has been working on the record of his life for years. A Wikipedia account, Chezza88 – named after a bulldog his mother owned – was set up in 2016 to write an entry for his father, Brian, a soldier, colonial officer and, between 1974 and 1979, the second-most powerful man in MI6.

In September 2020, almost a year to the day that he lost the whip along with 20 other Conservative MPs, Chezza88 turned to his own entry, which was updated for the next two years. Details were clarified. The history and seniority of Rory Stewart’s government roles became more pronounced. A section on his podcast, The Rest is Politics, appeared. 

When I emailed Stewart about the account, after spending a significant time with him in September for this profile, he replied: “That account has sometimes been used by me – I wrote my father’s entry – and inserted recent stuff about Rest Is Politics – it was however also heavily used by parliamentary office, leadership and London Campaign teams (and also at one point by mother!).”

Stewart quit the Conservative Party on 3 October 2019. He announced his candidacy for the London mayoralty the next day. That campaign ended on 6 May 2020, when Stewart withdrew due to the constraints imposed on him by the Covid-19 pandemic. The editing of his Wikipedia page began four months later.

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