Book Review: Pompeii by Robert Harris

Title: Pompeii 

Author: Robert Harris 

Genre: Fiction - Historical

I'm still working toward my goal of reading as many books taking place in Ancient Rome as humanly possible in my lifetime. That was what influenced me to pick up Robert Harris's Pompeii. Well that and I have read another novel of his, Imperium, and really loved it. In Pompeii, we enter the Imperial Age, August 79 AD. This is a post-Augustus Roman world, ya'll, so the Roman Empire is expanding with ever increasing passion, and the troubled times of the economic crisis and subsequent invasions is a problem still far in the future by a century and then some. Rome is a powerful, proud, and glimmering empire ruled by the Flavian emperor Titus. Rather than take us through a historical drama about the eruption of Pompeii, Harris prefers to use the eruption as context for another sort of story. His tale centers around a young aquarius named Marcus Attilius who has been sent to care for the Aqua Augusta, one of the many aqueducts that flowed through the Roman world. The Aqua Augusta carried water from Terminio-Tuoro toward the Bay of Naples, supplying water to cities like Pompeii, Misenum, and Nola. The aquarius soon begins to notice strange things taking place. First, the former aquarius is missing. Then there is the strange smell of sulfur in the water. Then the aqueduct begins to stop supplying water. Finally the aquarius takes his team toward Vesuvius to find where the break has occurred and fix it. Of course he manages to anger some very important men in Pompeii, most notably a rich former slave who has made a ton of money in retail following the earthquake of 62 AD, which we now know was a foreshock of the impending eruption. What caused the stopping of the water was a massive underground shift of earth, which is just another thing to foreshadow the impending disaster. The aquarius doesn't realize what is going on until it is too late. Then we are taken through the dramatic moments of eruption, confusion, panic, death, and finally end. The cast of Pompeii also includes some notables. Pliny the Elder makes an appearance, and it is only fitting that he does since he and his nephew Pliny the Younger are the pair that supplied us with the most information about the eruption of Vesuvius, through the Elder unfortunately lost his life due to his insatiable curiosity for the natural world. 

Harris isn't, at least to my knowledge, a historian. He does seem to have a great interest in Rome since he has written at least three books that I know of about the subject. Part of the reason I chose to read Pompeii is because I felt Imperium was not only well written, but paid great attention to historical accuracy without coming across as pompous or loaded with historical detail to compensate for an author's lack of historical training. Harris pays very great attention to historical accuracy, juggling his facts with his prose so that his story isn't inundated with too much detail such that it reads like a textbook. The story is interesting, while at the same time you find yourself unintentionally learning things about Ancient Rome: things about their political system, their various classes, social mobility, architecture, resources, knowledge, etc. It presents itself as a intense and informative story, a snapshot if you will, of what happened just before one of the worst natural disasters of Roman history. It connects us more with the past as not something only isolated to facts, details, and carbonized relics, but we get to see the people and life involved.

Book Review: Soldier of Rome- The Legionary Artorian Chronicles, #1) by James Mace

Title: Soldier of Rome: The Legionary

Series: Artorian Chronicles

Book Number: 1

Author: James Mace 

Genre: Fiction - Historical 

Finished: July 19, 2011

Varus, give me back my legions! Anyone who knows anything about Roman history has heard those words. Just the same, anyone who knows anything about Roman history can pick out the important names and places on the back cover alone: the ill-fated Publius Quinctilius Varus; the Emperor Tiberius, successor to Augustus; and Germanicus, glorious military man and the father of the infamously corrupt Emperor Caligula. James Mace’s Soldier of Rome: The Legionary is about what takes place after the defeat at the Teutoburger Wald forest when Rome sets itself up for a retaliatory measure against the Germanic people, led by the heavily applauded Germanicus. James Mace is not a Roman historian, or an historian by training at all. Rather, he is a military man with an avid passion for Roman history. While historians know to be cautious around the world of enthusiasts who usually do not understand issues such as historiography and source creditability, I have always tried to be more fair minded than that. I liked that in the front of the book is a glossary of Roman military ranks, which is a godsend to any and all who know nothing more about the Roman military than the centurion helmet. I cannot wait to start pulling out all of my books about Rome and checking against them. It’s like a great big fun scavenger hunt of historical detail. My favorite kind. I will admit that I too know little about the Roman military in the age of Empire. My experience is with the military structure of the Republic via historians such as Livy and Plutarch, and of Late Antiquity thanks the volumes of respected historians who study the endlessly to either prove or disprove that the Roman military was a dysfunctional machine by the end of the 200s. The complicated structure of the Roman military during its height makes my head spin. Republican that I am, I wonder where the Consuls are and then remember this is a couple centuries after the Punic Wars. So you see, simply having a glossary of ranks and jobs really assisted me in what I read. You know what else impressed me? That when I flipped back to the end of the book I saw a bibliography. Very few writers who dive into historical fiction bother to give proper credit to sources or reveal where they received their historian information. Perhaps they feel as fiction writers they do not have to disclose their sources or give credit where credit is due, but I am a stuffy nonfictionists who feels that things should be credited. Mace lets his readers know that he got some of his information from good ol’ Tacitus who was writing around the turn of the second century CE. I only wish he had elaborated on it and revealed more of the histories he read to recreate his Roman world, and not only cited Tacitus. 

The story begins with the disastrous battle of the Teutoburger Wald, which Rome mourns as military men plan and seek revenge. Loss is not something the Roman military takes lightly, after all. And enemies must be punished or annihilated. The rest of the story takes us through the early stages of retribution and then battle. A young Roman named Artorius has a personal vendetta since his brother was killed in the forest. Led by the young Germanicus, the Romans reenter battle against the Germans who pretended to be allies only to betray them. It becomes an epic battle between the forces of Germanicus, fighting for Rome, and Arminius, who is fighting to preserve his own land and his own people. The book was very exciting. “War” stories are not my thing, but the truth is that I will read anything about Romans. I just dig them. But this book was more than the overtly masculine posturing of male valor, and went beyond the tedious technicalities that bog down a lot of historical writing of the military nature where military maneuvers are described in long and diagram-free detail. I did wish that there was more... Roman context in it. Hidden beneath the surface are important Roman values, norms of respect and rank, and military training. I was also a bit confused about the naming of the characters in the book. But again, this could just be me, as a Republican, understanding Republican conventions of prenomen, nomen, cognomen, etc, as well as what the difference between Claudius and Clodius is. I wanted to be fully involved in not only what it meant to be a soldier, but what it meant to be a ROMAN soldier. One of the most fascinating things about the Romans is how they were. I wish there was more about this, which would place the reader more securely in the Roman world and therefore create a more realistic story. Also, unfortunately, the book needs a good editor. There were many words misspelled and even a mistake on the back cover book description. That alone could cause a lot of people to disregard the book and never give it a chance. It is clear, though, that Mace truly does love the Roman military and has put more research into them than your average person or even hobby historical enthusiast. It was a good and worthwhile read, I think, and puts me one book closer to my ultimate goal of reading every fiction book I can find set the era of the Romans.

Guest Post: Michelle Moran (Cleopatra's Daughter, The Heretic Queen, & Nefertiti)

It is my distinct pleasure to bring to you today a guest post by Michelle Moran, author of Nefertiti, The Heretic Queen, and Cleopatra's Daughter. I have no shame for my obvious envy of Michelle Moran-- she has seen things that I can at this point only dream of... The Mamertine, The House of Augustus, the original floor of the Senate... it's just too much to think about. For this reason, I am absolutely delighted to welcome Michelle Moran to Morbid Romantic to discuss her love of history since I also share a deep love for Ancient Rome and Egypt.

Guest Blog

For every novel I have written, I can look back and say that there has been a very specific moment of inspiration - usually in some exotic locale or inside a museum - where I’ve said, “Aha! That’s going to be the subject of my next novel.” I never began my writing career with the intention to write books about three different princesses in Egypt. In fact, I had no intention of writing about ancient Egypt at all until I participated in my first archaeological dig. During my sophomore year in college, I found myself sitting in Anthropology 101, and when the professor mentioned that she was looking for volunteers who would like to join a dig in Israel, I was one of the first students to sign up. When I got to Israel, however, all of my archaeological dreams were dashed (probably because they centered around Indiana Jones). There were no fedora wearing men, no cities carved into rock, and certainly no Ark of the Covenant. I was very disappointed. Not only would a fedora have seemed out of place, but I couldn’t even use the tiny brushes I had packed. Apparently, archaeology is more about digging big ditches with pickaxes rather than dusting off artifacts. And it had never occurred to me until then that in order to get to those artifacts, one had to dig deep into the earth. Volunteering on an archaeological dig was hot, it was sweaty, it was incredibly dirty, and when I look back on the experience through the rose-tinged glasses of time, I think, Wow, was it fantastic! Especially when our team discovered an Egyptian scarab that proved the ancient Israelites had once traded with the Egyptians. Looking at that scarab in the dirt, I began to wonder who had owned it, and what had possessed them to undertake the long journey from their homeland to the fledgling country of Israel. On my flight back to America I stopped in Berlin, and with a newfound appreciation for Egyptology, I visited the museum where Nefertiti’s limestone bust was being housed. The graceful curve of Nefertiti’s neck, her arched brows, and the faintest hint of a smile were captivating to me. Who was this woman with her self-possessed gaze and stunning features? I wanted to know more about Nefertiti’s story, but when I began the research into her life, it proved incredibly difficult. She’d been a woman who’d inspired powerful emotions when she lived over three thousand years ago, and those who had despised her had attempted to erase her name from history. Yet even in the face of such ancient vengeance, some clues remained.

As a young girl Nefertiti had married a Pharaoh who was determined to erase the gods of Egypt and replace them with a sun-god he called Aten. It seemed that Nefertiti’s family allowed her to marry this impetuous king in the hopes that she would tame his wild ambitions. What happened instead, however, was that Nefertiti joined him in building his own capital of Amarna where they ruled together as god and goddess. But the alluring Nefertiti had a sister who seemed to keep her grounded, and in an image of her found in Amarna, the sister is standing off to one side, her arms down while everyone else is enthusiastically praising the royal couple. From this image, and a wealth of other evidence, I tried to recreate the epic life of an Egyptian queen whose husband was to become known as the Heretic King.

Each novel I’ve written has had a similar moment of inspiration for me. In many ways, my second book, The Heretic Queen is a natural progression from Nefertiti. The narrator is orphaned Nefertari, who suffers terribly because of her relationship to the reviled "Heretic Queen". Despite the Heretic Queen's death a generation prior, Nefertari is still tainted by her relationship to Nefertiti, and when young Ramesses falls in love and wishes to marry her, it is a struggle not just against an angry court, but against the wishes of a rebellious people. But perhaps I would never have chosen to write on Nefertari at all if I hadn't seen her magnificent tomb. At one time, visiting her tomb was practically free, but today, a trip underground to see one of the most magnificent places on earth can cost upwards of five thousand dollars (yes, you read that right). If you want to share the cost and go with a group, the cost lowers to the bargain-basement price of about three thousand. As a guide told us of the phenomenal price, I looked at my husband, and he looked at me. We had flown more than seven thousand miles, suffered the indignities of having to wear the same clothes for three days because of lost luggage... and really, what were the possibilities of our ever returning to Egypt again? There was only one choice. We paid the outrageous price, and I have never forgotten the experience. While breathing in some of the most expensive air in the world, I saw a tomb that wasn't just fit for a queen, but a goddess. In fact, Nefertari was only one of two (possibly three) queens ever deified in her lifetime, and as I gazed at the vibrant images on her tomb - jackals and bulls, cobras and gods - I knew that this wasn't just any woman, but a woman who had been loved fiercely when she was alive. Because I am a sucker for romances, particularly if those romances actually happened, I immediately wanted to know more about Nefertari and Ramesses the Great. So my next stop was the Hall of Mummies at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. There, resting beneath a heavy arc of glass, was the great Pharaoh himself. For a ninety-something year old man, he didn't look too bad. His short red hair was combed back neatly and his face seemed strangely peaceful in its three thousand year repose. I tried to imagine him as he'd been when he was young - strong, athletic, frighteningly rash and incredibly romantic. Buildings and poetry remain today as testaments to Ramesses's softer side, and in one of Ramesses's more famous poems he calls Nefertari "the one for whom the sun shines." His poetry to her can be found from Luxor to Abu Simbel, and it was my

It’s the moments like this that an historical fiction author lives for. And it probably wouldn’t surprise you to learn that my decision to write Cleopatra’s Daughter came on an underwater dive to see the submerged city of ancient Alexandria. Traveling has been enormously important in my career. My adventures end up inspiring not only what I’m currently writing, but what I’m going to write about in the future. For more information about Michelle Moran: Website Blog

Book Review: The House of the Vestals (Roma Sub Rosa, #6) by Steven Saylor

Title: The House of the Vestals

Series: Roma Suba Rosa

Book Number: 6

Author: Steven Saylor

Genre: Fiction - Historical

Finished: July 8, 2009

In The House of the Vestals, Rome's best finder Gordianus is back in a series of short stories full of political intrigue, murder, theft, and mystery. Set in between the novels Roman Blood and Arms of Nemesis, The House of the Vestals update readers on what Gordianus has been up to in the years that pass between the two books. In Death Wears a Mask, Gordianus tracks a murderer who targeted an actor in between play scenes. Bethesda tells the story of a King's missing treasure in The Tale of the Treasure House. Rich Patrician Lucius Claudius, who soon becomes a close friend of Gordianus, first comes to him with a mystery about a will, a supposed dead young man, and a sighting of the supposedly dead man in A Will is a Way. The Lemures is about two separate households plagued with spirits of the dead, which Gordianus must figure out even as he has his own wits scared out of him. Gordianus' life is once again put in danger when he is sent to ransom a kidnapped young boy from pirates in Little Caesar and the Pirates. The Disappearance of the Saturnalia Silver once again involves Lucius Claudius and his missing Saturnalia gifts-- this one is solved by Bethesda. In an attempt to get away from the chaos of the city, Lucius Claudius and Gordianus escape to the country in King Bee and Honey, but death and mystery follow. To entertain Lucius Claudius, Gordianus tells him the story of The Alexandrian Cat and how he saved the life of a fellow Roman in Egypt after the murder of a sacred cat. Finally, in the namesake story, The House of the Vestals, Gordianus must help Cicero by solving a murder that happened in one of the most sacred buildings of Rome. I was very eager to read this book because Roman Blood is such a good book and now one of my favorites.

When I got The House of the Vestals, I didn't know it was a novel of short stories until I opened it up. Each story is short enough that it is to the point with no tangents or intertwining plotlines to stray from the one major plot focus, the mystery. Novels can get complex because they require a lot of build up and climax, as well as a lot of details, but short stories need very little of any of that and can get to the point quickly. I like short stories because they are like instant gratification, plus you can sit down and read one in between other things. Sometimes my attention span needs a break. There are also some good character developments within the short stories. First, there is the introduction of Lucius Claudius, a new character. Second, we get to see how Gordianus and Eco are progressing in their relationship, which is almost father and son. Third, the story Little Caesar and the Pirates tells of how Gordianus got his bodyguard Belbo. And fourth, Bethesda once again shows herself to be more than a mere slave-- indeed, she is quickly showing herself to be the equal of Gordianus and very perceptive. All in all, I just really like Gordianus-- he is realistic, witty, imperfect, and practical. Like Roman Blood, the history is rich and subtle, not shoving facts in your face so much as using them for setting but teaching you about the time nonetheless. If you like short stories and Roman mystery, there is no way that you won't like The House of the Vestals.

Book Review: Roman Blood (Roma Sub Rosa, #1) By Steven Saylor

Title: Roman Blood

Series: Roma Sub Rosa

Book Number: 1

Author: Steven Saylor

Genre: Fiction - Historical, Fiction - Mystery

Finished: March 20, 2009

Roman Blood (book one of the Roma Sub Rosa series) by Steven Saylor centers around the real life patricide trial of a country farmer by the name of Sextus Roscius. The advocate of Sextus Roscius, the well known Marcus Tullius Cicero, employs the help of a man named Gordianus to dig up information about the murder in order to prove his client innocent. Gordianus is known as "the finder," a man well experienced in finding facts no matter how well hidden or obscure. Of course, such facts don't come easy. There is much lying, much danger, and tons of characters only out for their own benefit that all together paint a picture of a corrupt Roman aristocracy. It is a very perilous time in Rome, after all, which has only just caught its breath from the proscription of Sulla and his restoration of the aristocracy over the common people. In order to prove Sextus Roscius innocent, Cicero and Gordianus must attack those very aristocrats that now hold Rome in a powerful grip.

I avoided reading this book for a while because I didn't want it to disappoint me. And it didn't. Saylor is clearly a historian. If it's not obvious in his reader's notes, it's apparent in his clear delivery of accurate and compelling historical detail. You can almost see the dark dilapidation of the Roman Subura that is as hazardous as it is teeming with life, or see the immaculate scene of Carthage on the Rostra, or imagine the men in togas sitting around the Senate. What Saylor does is bring Rome to life, but not without insult and credit where credit is due. He doesn't present a Rome that is glorious and magnificent as some are prone to do, but neither does it portray it as a place irredeemably corrupt as others would have it. Saylor gives his readers Rome in all her shameless glory without falling into some one of the most common traps of those who attempt to write historical fiction. A tendency of most historical writers is to accentuate what is "abnormal" by today's standards because they imagine it will help people understand the time period more, or respect it for how different it is, but this often backfires. I like how Saylor did not give excuses for Rome, but also did not gloss over its many faults. Details are presented in an easy and matter of fact way, which I found helped me get into the time period more simply because it was all given so casually.

Roman Blood is not a "great men of Rome" sort of book, though it does feature many of the people we know: Cicero and Sulla to name a few. They all play their roles, as great men do, but without stealing the spotlight. Gordianus is a great character because he is likable, realistic and humble. And very Roman. I also quite like the portrayal of Cicero in Roman Blood because I think it captured his peculiarities perfectly while still redeeming him at the end when it was shown to Gordianus the Doubter that Cicero is more than just a picky nag and really is one of the greatest statesmen Rome will ever have.

Roman Blood is as much mystery as it is historical fiction. It's full of murder, perversion, ruthlessness, and doubt. There are enough twists and turns to make the plot interesting while not so many that you lose the sense of the thing. In the end, you come to understand that everyone is guilty of something in some way and even an "innocent" man has committed plenty of crimes of his own.

Book Review: Imperium (Cicero Series, #1) by Robert Harris

Title: Imperium

Series: Cicero Series

Book Number: 1
Author: Robert Harris

Genre: Fiction - History

Finished: March 9, 2009

You know Cicero? Yes, Cicero, the Roman statesman who is known by us today as the guy who talked and talked and did a lot of stuff with law. And oh yeah, talked. You probably had to read something by him in high school or college, so you likely have pretty bad and boring memories related to the name Marcus Tullius Cicero. So when I read that Imperium by Robert Harris was about Cicero, I gave an internal groan. A premature assumption of boredom that turned out to be totally wrong. Imperium is a great book. It's that simple. The story is told through the narrative of Cicero's ex-slave Tiro. Tiro takes us through Cicero's life up to the events leading into his Consulship. What Harris writes is based on truth and has some evidence to support the basics. The events Cicero finds himself a part of are quite full of power plays, intrigue, and political corruption. But to set the background, we first meet Cicero as a student of philosophy with a humble farmer background and a sharp mind and wit that has the unfortunate result of offending many of the wrong men. After his study of philosophy, we move with Cicero into his political career, where he climbs up the ladder of the state, gaining office as he becomes a champion of the people.

The first half of the book involves Cicero taking on the case of Verres, a corrupt Sicilian governor who has friends in all the right places. Cicero's way with words and luck with evidence, attributed to his cleverness, leads to a resounding victory against all odds and popularity beyond words. But not all is good with Cicero at this pointâ-- prosecuting Verres puts Cicero at odds with the aristocratic foundation of the Republic. After Verres comes the grand general Pompey (the guy Caesar chased out of Rome when he crossed the Rubicon much later) and his rivalry with Crassus. Cicero gives his support to Pompey and makes a powerful enemy of Crassus, who soon engages in vote buying at a high scale to pack the government in his favor. The plan is to arrange the government so that Crassus and Caesar will have an open door to increasing their own power. Pretty clever Crassus. Naturally, Cicero finds out about the plot and exposes them before the Senate, winning a victory for Consul at the youngest age allowed.

You have a lot of big names: Pompey, Julius Caesar, Marc Antony, Piso, Metelleus. Since Imperium is about Cicero and his dealings, these characters are supportive in nature only and come and go as the story requires. This is just as well because there are volumes written about Caesar by everyone and their grandmother. It was quite amusing to see Caesar portrayed as a horny, shady, power hungry youngster and nothing more. Oh, I respect Caesar and am quite enamored with him as most are, but the turn of character was great. Usually, Cicero is the annoying old man who won’t shut up and Caesar is the charming hero. In Imperium Cicero was the hero and a quite charming one at that. What about the politics and history? Was it dry and full of historical detail? Historical yes, but dry it was definitely not. I don't think that this is a book for your Roman novice, though. For anyone not familiar with the various political offices, names, social classes, and Republican standards, the book may be difficult to grasp. I feel that my background in Roman history helped me a lot in reading through the book as a fluid novel rather than a pause and continue that requires a bit of Google searching to understand completely.

Book Review: Medicus (Medicus, #1) by Ruth Downie

Title: Medicus

Series: Medicus

Book  Number: 1

Author: Ruth Downie

Genre: Fiction - Historical

Finished: January 28, 2009

Medicus: A Novel of the Roman Empire by Ruth Downie is about a divorced and female-wary Roman doctor named Gaius Petreius Ruso who quite simply has terrible luck. First, he finds himself the owner of a very expensive and wounded female slave named Tilla who can't cook or obey any orders. Second, a dead prostitute from a local bar that sells rancid oysters is found floating in a river and Ruso somehow finds himself in the middle of the investigation. And third- yes, there is also a third- Ruso's family in Gaul is in serious debt with creditors breathing down the back of their necks. Ruso can't seem to save let alone keep any money, is behind on the concise guide to medical care that he has been attempting to write for years, and the hospital administration in his miserable military outpost in Britannia is constantly on his back. There's no hope of riches or promotion in his future. Or of having a decent hot meal.

To put it simply, I loved this book. From the moment I picked it up, I didn't want to put it down. Though the mystery wasn't so much a mystery by the middle of the novel (I guessed the culprit, though perhaps Downie intended for us to get hints along the way and work this out), I still found how it unfolded very riveting. Also, Downie inserts a lot of humor into the novel and you end up feeling both sorry and amused by Ruso both in the same breath. Ruso is a very likable character because he is neither too unfortunate nor too impressive, but still charming. In the end, Ruso comes out as an average man. Because Ruso is such an interesting and likable character, he sustained the story well enough for me when the plot waned.

What about historical accuracy? In the end notes, Downie herself admits that information about Roman Britain is hard to come by and scant. She also confesses that some of her information is made up or exaggerated to move the plot along. The few books that Downie listed as sources are secondary sources, which are always to be used critically since their information may not be correct or unbiased. A few primary sources would have made her history more credible, certainly. A lot of the speech and infrastructure in Medicus was inspired by modern practices-- characters used words like "lad" and "bloody". Still, I was relieved that this book did not read like a textbook and that it did not focus on big names and big people. Yes, Julius Caesar marching on Rome was an amazing thing, but we should only have so many fiction books about it. It is nice to read about an average Roman. It was refreshing that Downie allowed me to use my own knowledge of Rome to fill in the gaps and set the scene rather than laying it all out for me in a tedious, fact rich way. Like I said, Medicus did not read like a book of facts. In a way, it was taken for granted that the reader should know a little something about the Roman way of life. I may be better off than your average reader since I do know a lot about Rome to fill in blanks with. Yet, a non-scholar can still pick out a lot about Roman life such as that slaves were property and frequently abused, Romans wrote on wax covered pages with a stylus, Romans diluted their wine with water, etc. You won't finish this book without some idea of how Romans lived.