(Querido, 2000, 214 pages)

According to the New Testament, St. Paul made four voyages, only the last of which is described at some length, in the last pages of The Acts of the Apostles. It was a hazardous journey beset by tempests, mishaps and shipwreck. But in the end, St. Paul arrived in Rome, his destination. The historian Fik Meijer has examined the Biblical account of St. Paul’s journey in some detail and placed it in the context of what we know today about navigation in antiquity and later. His conclusions are startling.

(Athenaeum-Polak & Van Gennep, 2003, 253 pages)

Ancient Rome may have had an impressive culture and architecture, but it was here that the cruellest – and immensely popular – spectacles were organised: gladiator fights. Many historians have condemned such excessive cruelty, but have been unable to explain it. Fik Meijer places the shows in their historical context, showing how man-to-man fighting persisted in Europe for centuries and how animal fights have retained their popularity into modern times.

(Athenaeum-Polak & Van Gennep, 2004, 233 pages)

At the beginning of the imperial age, the minimum annual income of a Roman citizen was between 100 and 125 sesterces. A common foot soldier earned around 1,000 sesterces a year; successful artisans twice that amount. In a single race at the Circus Maximus, however, a good chariot racer could win 50,000 sesterces. Calpurnianus, the Johan Cruyff of Roman chariot-driving, won a total of 1.2 million sesterces in first prizes alone, which constituted only a portion of his lifelong income. The professional contender Diocles actually raked in the astronomical sum of 36 million sesterces during his career.

(Athenaeum-Polak & Van Gennep, 2010, 447 pages)

‘I’m deeply ashamed.’ Those are the remarkable closing words of the latest book by Fik Meijer, respected academic and famous populariser of classical antiquity in the Low Countries. The Mediterranean Sea is subtitled A personal history, and the personal dimension is a particular strength of the book. While innovatively connecting together the civilizations of classical antiquity through the common theme of the sea, Meijer displays even greater originality in connecting the sea with his own life.

(Athenaeum-Polak & Van Gennep, 2012, 360 pages)

How should we imagine Paul? As a misogynist, the enemy of lust and a martyr for the faith, or as the shameless prophet who single-handed saved Christianity, as Nietzsche describes him in The Antichrist? Fik Meijer prefers to concentrate on presenting Paul as the naive, tough and clever evangelist of early Christianity, which, instead of dying out like so many other faiths in the Roman period, found unprecedented success.