Robert Bruton is a historical fiction novelist and former CIA officer who served in parts of the former Roman Empire. He studied Greek and Roman history at the University of Saint Thomas in Minnesota, philosophy and classical languages at the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium, and Sacred Scripture and theology at the Saint Paul School of Divinity. He also has a Master's degree in world history from Norwich University, where he wrote a seminal thesis on the role that climate change played in the decline of the Roman Empire. He is married and lives with his family near Washington, D.C.