Emperor: The Gates Of Rome by Conn Iggulden

IN the darkened auditorium, author Conn Iggulden cringed in his seat as the opening scene of Gladiator began. And he winced his way through the rest of this most garlanded film. "Gladiator worried me a great deal," he says, toying with a tall Mochachino in the Starbucks on top of York's Borders store. "I was sitting in the cinema, absolutely terrified."

While other moviegoers were enthralled by Ridley Scott's vision of ancient Rome, Conn was sure the film was about to destroy the hundreds of hours of research he had invested in his own Roman epic.

There was no need to panic. While Gladiator focused on the fictional story of Maximus Decimus Meridius, as portrayed by Russell Crowe, Conn was writing a dramatised account of the life of the most famous Roman emperor of them all, Julius Caesar.

He left the cinema that day convinced that Gladiator was a terrible film. "I saw it again in a far more relaxed state about a year later and enjoyed it."

By that time, he had realised that Gladiator, far from being a disaster, was a godsend which could only boost his book, Emperor: The Gates Of Rome.

"The Romans have become very popular at the moment," he said. "I was doing this three and a half years ago.

"It makes you realise how lucky the whole thing was. If I had written the book a year before or a year after, it probably wouldn't have been published."

But in fiction writing, as in life, you earn your luck. Conn is now lauded as a publishing sensation, after his rollicking Roman read became the subject of a fierce bidding war. However, his "debut novel" is anything but.

His long apprenticeship began when, aged 13, he penned his first novel, Dragon Crystal. "It was just terrible," he says, grimacing.

"I forgot one of the major characters. I reached the end of it and had missed him completely. I had to go back to the beginning and put him back in."

As he got older, the books got better, but the response was always the same. "I would send out about 20 or 30 copies of these things. I would get them back every day. There would be a doorstep on my doorstep each time I came home."

By the time he had completed his manuscript of Emperor, he hadn't the money to post it out to all and sundry. So he sent it to one agent, who was immediately bowled over.

For the first time, instead of taking delivery of a fat parcel containing his rejected manuscript, Conn received an acceptance letter.

It got better. The agent offered the book to publishers as one of a series following the course of Caesar's life. This sparked a battle for the rights, and a £300,000 advance.

Suddenly Conn could leave his work as an English teacher and become a professional writer.

He views his escape from an inner London comprehensive with more regret than you might expect. Conn loves teaching, and the school was a good one: so good, in fact, that it inspired him on the road to Roman riches.

One day he was covering a history lesson for an absent teacher. As the children worked, "I had absolutely nothing to do. I used to pick up text books. In this history lesson I happened upon a book about ancient Rome."

The biography of Caesar had him spellbound. He began to do some detailed research into the emperor's life, including a visit to Pompeii, and realised he had chanced on a cracking story.

Conn has subsequently thanked the absent teacher profusely.

Readers should thank her, too. The result, Emperor: The Gates Of Rome, is genuinely exciting. It has the grandeur of a true epic, a thrilling, if flawed hero, momentous political struggles, bravery, love and death. And this is all underpinned by a credible historical atmosphere.

Although Conn is retelling Caesar's story over four large volumes, the first rattles along, taking him from boyhood trials and training through to being on the wrong side of civil war. And the last page contains a revelation which will leave readers breathless for the next instalment.

The book draws out the fascinating paradox at the heart of the Roman empire: it is a civilisation in many ways close to our own, yet underpinned by barbarism.

"It was an extremely savage period," said Conn. "Caesar was typical of his age and standing. He could be extremely cruel: he did have people crucified."

The author admits he has taken a liberty or two with accepted fact to ease the storytelling, and explains as much in an historical note at the end. He is also braced for readers spotting inaccuracies.

"Bernard Cornwell - and he's the only name I'm going to drop in this interview - Bernard was telling me, regardless of my best efforts in this direction, I would be getting letters from people."

In Cornwell's seventh-century Arthurian novel, he mentioned rabbits, only to be admonished by a reader - rabbits arrived much later in England.

But Conn welcomes this dialogue with his audience. "There's got to be a trust there that you are not misleading them."

When not on the road, this genial man is busy at work on the remainder of the series at the Hertfordshire home he shares with his heavily pregnant wife and their toddler, Cameron.

And there is no doubt that Conn (short for Cornelius, which means "the horned one") Iggulden (a Kentish name meaning pasture of the wolf "or of the hedgehog, not such a totemic animal," Conn admits) is a name to look out for.

Hollywood has shown an interest in the film rights to the Emperor series. "I'd love it to be made into a film," says Conn. "With Ralph Fiennes as Caesar."

Now that would be a movie this writer could sit back and enjoy.

Emperor: The Gates Of Rome by Conn Iggulden is published by HarperCollins, price £10

Updated: 11:24 Wednesday, January 22, 2003