Steven Saylor

Another great read by Saylor. While I agree with the reviewers who note the Pinarii family characters all seem like the same person, I still found this book a great read. That’s because the main character in this book is not any of the family members, but Rome itself. Saylor aptly traces the change from the zenith of the empire under Hadrian and the “5 good emperors”, through the crisis of the 3rd century and the emergence of Christian Rome. Saylor brings that change to life in a show more compelling fashion, and makes you understand all that was lost (and the very little that was gained) by this transition. The ending was a real kicker and I checked to see if the newspaper article was real - it is! He even has a setup for the next novel should he so choose. Would love to see his take on Julian. This is a good opportunity to recommend Gore Vidal’s historical novel about that emperor.

Three more comments:
1. All of Saylor’s books have some over the top camp, which makes them a lot of fun. This book was his most restrained in that area and maybe that’s why some readers felt it a bit too tame.
2. He had a real bone to pick with Constantine “the great” and perhaps he over did it (just a bit) in his portrayal of him as a ruthless asshole.
3. the historical coincidences in this book really strained the limits of the genre, but hey, not that much more than Saylor usually does, show less

Forty-odd years ago, the citizens of Boston bestowed (or inflicted) a classical education on me, which included reading Caesar, Cicero, Livy and Virgil in the original.
While Virgil mostly crops up in memory because the opening line of the Aeneid fits a Sousa tune and Caesar and Cicero creep into my writing style, that long ago reading of Livy applies here.
Titus Livius probably began his only surviving work soon after Octavian Caesar defeated Marc Anthony and Cleopatra at Actium and became show more emperor; he worked on it until he retired from Rome to Padua after Augustus' death. Ab Urbe Conditia Libri (Chapters on the Founding of the City) traces the history of Rome from before Romulus and Remus through Augustus. Because Livy is didactic, early chapters are long on legend and myth but later ones better fit modern ideas of historical truth.
Roma is Saylor's retelling of Livy.
Its earliest chapter – describing human incidents on which legends will be built – is the weakest; the characters are flat and Saylor's prose insipid. Perseverance is rewarded, however, as the story moves from the legendary to the historical; the characters gain substance, the prose becomes lively. Imagine, if you would indulge, that, rather than having his lens track the unifying device (an amulet) through the generations, Saylor has planted his tripod at the end of the road and allowed characters and action to move toward it; those furthest away would be haziest, those nearest crispest.
In his Roma Sub Rosa series of detective novels, Saylor puts flesh on the marble figures of Julius Caesar, Marcus Cicero, and Pompey the Great while his protagonist – Gordianus the Finder – solves murders among plebians and patricians as the Republic falls apart. (Knowing that Saylor splits his time between Berkeley and Austin, the political junkie can't help reading into the machinations of the Optimates and Populares parallels with modern Texas Republicans and Democrats). show less

In 46 BC, while Julius Caesar is preparing a number of triumphs in honor of his military victories, his wife Calpurnia summons Gordianus the Finder to investigate the possibility that Caesar is in mortal danger from persons unknown; her seer has said this is the case and the first investigator that she hired has been murdered, evidently proof of the danger. Gordianus, now aged 65, at first demurs as he is more or less retired, but when he discovers that the earlier investigator was none show more other than his friend Hieronymus the Scapegoat of Massilia, he feels duty-bound to find out who killed him. But danger lurks in more than one corner of the vast city of Rome, and Caesar is by no means the only target…. One thing that I love about Steven Saylor’s sub Rosa series, of which this is the tenth novel, is how the author manages to combine lively and occasionally raucous depictions of life in ancient Rome with meticulous scholarship, drawing on contemporary sources to incorporate specific real-life incidents into his story. He also provides us with an author’s note detailing his research, something that the historian in me appreciates. That said, the true joy of these books is the full humanity with which he imbues his characters (both real and fictional) and the way in which he brings that ancient time to vibrant life. It is probably best to read these books in order, just in terms of keeping historical events in perspective, but it isn’t absolutely necessary to do so; recommended! show less

Steven Saylor definitely took on a huge task when he chose to write a novelized history of Rome from the viewpoint of one of the oldest patrician families, but least-known in modern times --- the Pinarii, and their cousins the Potitii. The novel touches on the important turning-points of Rome's history, when members of the Pinarii or the Potitii are constantly being caught up in momentous events --- the sack of Rome by Gauls, the Carthaginian wars, the campaign of Scipio, the dictatorship of show more Sulla, and so on --- and actually living the events, with the uncertainty and awe of a person caught up in the middle of something with no idea how it will end. The Pinarius or Potitius central to each episode of the book is our main character but not history's main character, and as the family descends through time and is influenced by past character's actions, so are we as readers. This is half-story, half-history, in the Livian vein and a great homage to Livy's history of Rome. The facts are mostly solid, and if two "facts" were available, well we are writing a novel here, not a textbook, and we (the writer) are allowed to pick whichever one fits the story we want to tell the best. I feel compelled now to check a few of Saylor's facts, like was Julius Caesar's sister Julia really married to a Pinarius, or has Saylor made that up out of whole cloth; because if all these occurrences of Pinarii and Potitii were Saylor has them occurring are documentable fact, then Saylor's masterful filling-in-of-the-blanks is even more refined and elegant than I thought.

The source material Saylor lists in the book's Afterword is also excellent, including his use of T.P. Wiseman's [b:Remus A Roman Myth|1315802|Remus A Roman Myth|T.P. Wiseman|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182703905s/1315802.jpg|1305104] as source material on the pre-foundation history of Rome and the various foundation myths. I cannot praise enough this decision on Saylor's part. Saylor's Remus was not a carbon copy of Wiseman's Remus, but many of Wiseman's observations seem to have influenced Saylor's character creation, and his imagination of the earliest layout of the city. Whereas Wiseman deals academically with the Romulus & Remus story, Saylor says to himself "How can I make this plausible in the real world, not the world of myth?" and then he goes and does so. I can't say enough, even in the review of a different book, about the value of Wiseman's work on Remus to classical scholars; and if you are going to take on the task of tackling Saylor's Roma, then Wiseman's Remus: A Roman Myth will subsequently be no trouble at all and might help the reader flesh out the pre-historic Roman world as presented by Saylor. The one is so clearly, and well, informed by the other.

The omniscient narration of Roma does not have the same voice as the character-centric narration of Saylor's Gordianus the Finder mystery series, for which I am truly grateful. The writing style employed for mysteries would not suit a larger work such as Roma. Different genres require different approaches, and it is not every writer who can go from one to another easily and successfully. The tone and style of Roma is suitable to a long fiction work with many characters and a complex plot full of details. The book has been broken up into historical episodes, loosely based on a single generation of characters, but of course the common thread running through all the episodes is the family being focussed on (usually the Pinarii). You only need to worry about one Lucius Pinarius at a time, which is a relief, as Romans were not very creative namers and you tended to get two or three of every name in a single generation. When one Lucius Pinarius thinks back to the actions of another Lucius Pinarius, Saylor says something like "Lucius remembered that his great-great-grandfather, also named Lucius Pinarius, did such-and-such or knew so-and-so," and that is enough to jog the reader's memory: "Oh yeah, I remember that," or "Oh my gosh kid, you are so misinformed!" But as misinformation (or lies?) from a previous generation become enshrined in popular memory, they become historical fact, and it seems to me that in the book itself Saylor has found a way to comment on the veracity (or not) of the historical "facts" we're operating with today. Did it really happen the way we think it did? Or is there a historical truth there that will never come to light? And how does knowing that is a possibility change the way we view history itself?

In short: This may be a bit overwhelming for the Roman history novice, who isn't vaguely familiar with the people and places Saylor employs in his narrative. There's a lot in this book to soak up. If you aren't daunted by that, all the better for you. For the reader fairly familiar with Roman history, especially the the early books of Livy and the half-forgotten period of the Kings and the early Republic, my recommendation is "have at with abandon, you will love this." show less