WHEN IN ROME

Recently I've read two very good novels about ancient Rome. Well, one of them is about the place destined to become Rome, but that's close enough. Anyway, I've realized that I'm rather partial (at the moment) to good fiction, especially mysteries, set in ancient Rome; fortunately several very good authors are out there working hard to feed my habit. Several years ago I was introduced to the work of Steven Saylor, whose Roma Sub Rosa series kept me entertained for quite a while, till I'd read them all. In the first, Roman Blood, the reader meets Gordianus the Finder, whose fortunes improve dramatically when the great orator and senator Cicero comes to him for help.

Gordianus is smart, personable, and very, very human, with a personal life that is just as interesting as the cases he works to solve. (But isn't that the case with all appealing fictional detectives?) Through his association with Cicero, Gordianus (and the reader) becomes acquainted with all the great names of that period of Roman history, including but not limited to Julius Caesar, Crassus, Sulla, and a lot more I didn't know much about before reading these books. I also learned a good deal about Roman law, culture, family life, food - Saylor really does his homework, as all good historical novelists must.

I was very disappointed to come to the end of the series, but I've recently learned that in addition to two very BIG (as in massive) non-Gordianus novels of the period, Roma and Empire, Saylor has begun a new mystery series called the Seven Wonders. These stories - The Seven Wonders, Raiders of the Nile, and Wrath of the Furies - are prequels to the first series, recounting the adventures of the younger Gordianus.

If I had to pick a favorite Roman series, though, it would probably be the Medicus novels of Ruth Downie. These mysteries are set in Roman Britain, where the general dampness and gloomy weather parallel the mood of Gaius Petreius Ruso, a doctor with the Roman Legions. He's a reluctant sleuth who finds himself taking responsibility not only for his patients but also for an independent-minded British slave girl, Tilla, and of course solving murders. Downie's first six Ruso novels - Medicus, Terra Incognita, Persona Non Grata, Caveat Emptor, Semper Fidelis, and Tabula Ras - will be joined by a seventh, Vita Brevis, later this year.

 

Tilla and Ruso are very well-matched (it does take Ruso a while to recognize this) and they make a great team in the setting of cultural contact and conflict in which they find themselves. This series also offers fascinating insights into the history and culture of early Britain and how the Roman Empire operated as it expanded into very different territories far from Rome.

  The first of Lindsay Davis's many novels about Marcus Didius Falco, The Silver Pigs, sends him to Britain to uncover the truth about a conspiracy to steal silver ingots, the "pigs" of the title. Falco is a bit rougher around the edges than Ruso or Gordianus, and his neighborhood's definitely lower class, at least in this first book, but that's part of his charm, and it certainly broadens one's knowledge about life in ancient Rome.  I confess this is the only one of Davis's novels I've read so far, but I enjoyed it very much. My husband has read at least a dozen, and when I've whittled down my To Be Read pile some more, I plan to pay Falco another visit, or two, or . . . . 

Robert Harris's novels about Cicero are a more recent discovery. I picked up the first, Imperium, some months ago thinking Joe would like it (he did), and only lately got around to reading it myself. I wasn't sure I'd be interested, but decided to try a few pages . . . and I couldn't put it down. The narrator, Cicero's slave Tiro, was a real person who apparently did write a biography of his master which has been lost. Tiro also invented a form of shorthand, something that figures importantly in the story.

Imperium is sort of a hybrid of courtroom drama(s) and biographical fiction. Harris's Cicero does not contradict Saylor's portrayal of the great orator, but rather expands our picture of this brilliant and complex man as seen through the eyes of the individual who probably knew him best. Harris focuses sharply on politics and personalities, of which Tiro is an astute and gossipy observer, making Imperium both fascinating and highly entertaining. I found a used copy of the second book in the trilogy, Conspirata, last week and the final book, Dictator, was released a couple of months ago to rave reviews. One critic called it "Triumphant, compelling and deeply moving . . . the finest fictional treatment of Ancient Rome in the English language. . . . " I haven't read all those other "fictional treatments," of course, and maybe the critic hasn't either, but still, that's pretty high praise.

And now, at least in my opinion, I've saved the best for last. The final novel I want to talk about is neither a mystery nor is it technically set in Rome or outposts of Rome's empire. It is, rather, about the mythic events that preceded the founding of Rome. Lavinia by Ursula K. LeGuin tells the story of the Latin princess Aeneas marries when, years after the fall of Troy and his tragic affair with Queen Dido of Carthage, his ships arrive in ancient Italy.

Lavinia appears only briefly in Virgil's Aeneid and she does not speak at all there, but LeGuin gives her both a voice and a fully drawn, fleshed out character, bringing this mythical princess and her long-ago world vividly to life.  I have admired LeGuin and her writing for decades. She regularly transcends the categories of science fiction and fantasy to which some uninformed readers have tried to limit her, even while she continues to work within those genres.

Lavinia is an example of that transcendence of genre boundaries. More than fantasy, it is nevertheless not history, nor is it an epic like the Iliad, which is mentioned mostly in passing. It is a coming of age story and more; its heroine tells her own story of how she figures in an important cultural and historical change. There are moments of high drama, but mostly in terms of interpersonal, often family relationships; there are battles, but they are largely in the background. Among the most beautifully rendered scenes are Lavinia's conversations with the shade of the dying Virgil, who regrets the way he overlooked and shortchanged her in the Aeneid. Although Lavinia is so far in the past as Virgil would perceive it, or Virgil so impossibly far in her future, these scenes, in which time becomes slippery, blend smoothly with the more traditional chronological narrative of the rest of the story - the story that Virgil is only now coming to know - so that the reader may not even notice how extraordinary LeGuin's accomplishment is. Flanked by figures known for heroism (Aeneas) or artistic brilliance (Virgil), Lavinia, who before LeGuin was nothing but a name, creates herself for her poet, stakes her own quiet claim to our attention, and becomes the most real character of all.