Author Steven Saylor is perhaps best known for his highly successful series of mystery novels, ROMA SUB ROSA, set in the Rome of Caesar and Cicero. The series hit the bookshelves in 1991 when St. Martin’s Press published Roman Blood, the tale of an aspiring young lawyer named Cicero who takes on his first big murder case, attracts the wrath of the all-powerful Roman general Sulla, and turns for help to a toga-wearing sleuth named Gordianus the Finder. In order to aid Cicero, Gordianus must navigate through the complex political intrigue that characterized Rome in the first century BC, while simultaneously meeting the challenges presented by daily life in a crowded and strife-torn city.
In Roman Blood, Gordinaus cleverly solves Cicero’s problems, allowing the advocate to win his case, and provoking Saylor to craft ten more books in which the investigator proves himself to be ancient Rome’s premier private eye (another Gordianus tale, The Triumph of Caesar, will be released in May 2008). In the course of the series, the fictional detective comes face-to-face with some of Rome’s most powerful movers and shakers, investigating cases for such high ranking regents as Pompey and Caesar, and not uncommonly finding himself a witness to the extraordinary political and military events that gave shape to the Roman Empire.
The highly successful ROMA SUB ROSA books in which Gordianus is the protagonist have won Steven Saylor great acclaim for his talent in weaving a spellbinding tale, for his ability to capture the ancient world, and for skill in inventing tales that are grounded in the real history of ancient Rome. Now Saylor has used those same skills to write Roma, an epic saga of Rome that spans a thousand years and follows the shifting fortunes of two families through the ages.
The Times Literary Supplement says that with Roma “Saylor puts his finger on the very essence of Roman history” for the book draws on history, legend, and new archaeological discoveries to bring the first thousand years of Rome’s history to life. Beginning with the ill-fated twins Romulus and Remus and stretching through Rome’s astonishing ascent to become the capital of the world’s most powerful empire, Roma allows readers to witness some of history’s most important events as they look through the eyes of two early Roman families, the Potitius and the Pinarius clans. Readers follow the families from generation to generation, witnessing the founding and rise of Rome as a member of one family serves as confidant of Romulus, while another is born a slave and tempts a Vestal Virgin to break her vows. One family member becomes a mass murderer while another becomes the heir of Julius Caesar, and through the years each generation is linked to those before it by a mysterious talisman as ancient as the city itself.
We at EternallyCool love Gordianus the Finder and we’re having difficulty putting Roma down. So we were thrilled with Steven Saylor agreed to let us interview him about both his books and his interest in Rome, past and present.
How and when did your interest in the ancient past develop?
I have to credit the movies of my boyhood. When I was growing up, back in the 1960s, the cinema was obsessed with the spectacle of the ancient world. After Ben Hur won 11 Oscars in 1959, there was a huge spate of movies set in Greece and Rome — Spartacus, Cleopatra, Jason and the Argonauts, all the Hercules movies and other peplum films made in Italy, and on and on. My little Texas town was more like something out of the movie Last Picture Show, so those movies provided a very exotic and exciting escape. My imaginary journeys to the ancient past began at a drive-in theater set amid cattle pastures.
When did you take your first trip to Rome? What impressed you the most when you arrived in the Eternal City for the first time?
After all my boyhood dreams of Rome, and my history studies at the University of Texas at Austin, I didn’t actually visit Rome until my late twenties. That was my first contact with ancient ruins, and the experience was electrifying. I’ll never forget my first day in Rome, wandering about in a jet-lagged stupor, not really knowing where I was, and suddenly arriving at the Forum Romanum. My imagination was set afire. When I returned to San Francisco, I almost immediately set about writing Roman Blood, as a way to remain in Rome through my imagination.
The books in your ROMA SUB ROSA mystery series detail the adventures of an ancient detective called Goridanus the Finder, who always manages to be in the middle of the political intrigue that characterized the first century BC. How did you come up with the idea of telling Rome’s story through the eyes of such a character?
I originally intended to make Cicero the hero of Roman Blood, and to use his secretary, Tiro, as the narrator — a sort of Watson to Cicero’s Sherlock Holmes. But the more I studied Cicero, the more problematic he became; I couldn’t really see him as a hero figure. So I invented an investigator to act on Cicero’s behalf, a man allied to no particular faction and skilled at digging up the dirt. That was Gordianus. Because of his innate honesty and his craving for truth, and his ability to move among the various social classes, he turned out to be an ideal narrator for the series.
Were there really private investigators in ancient Rome?
We don’ have any actual evidence of such men, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t exist. Indeed, if they did their jobs well, they would leave no trace in the historical record — the invisible men of history. Especially in the era of Gordianus, it makes sense that the powerful families of Rome would resort to spies and investigators, because they are all dragging each other through the courts, on real or trumped-up charges.
You’ve written so much about ancient Rome. Do you ever feel as if some part of you lives in antiquity or as if you’ve got one foot in the past and one in the present?
I do feel very grounded in the final century of the Roman Republic. The politics of that era are as real to me as the politics of today, and just as complex and frustrating; Caesar is as real to me as George Bush, but also as distant and inscrutable. I’m powerless to affect the actions of either man, but at least Gordianus gets to meet Caesar face and face.
If you could assume the identity of one ancient Roman (besides, of course, Goridanus the Finder) in order to really get a feel for their life and for the context in which they lived, who would would it be and why?
I think it would be fascinating to see the world though the eyes of the emperor Hadrian. He lived at the height of the empire, exercised astonishing power and wealth, traveled widely, and possessed enormous intellect and artistic sensibilities. Of course, he’s also a rather melancholy figure, with his obsession for Antinous, his young lover who died an untimely death. But I would like to know what made Hadrian tick, and I would love to see his villa outside Rome as it was in Hadrian’s lifetime. He’s a figure I haven’t yet attempted to portray in fiction.
Why do you think ancient Rome has such appeal? What inherent connections between past and present keep us so intrigued with an empire that fell 1500 years ago?
Part of the fascination springs from the fact that we have so much material to inspire us — all those surviving texts which have been translated and studied and which give us such a wide understanding of ancient Rome, from political speeches and trial orations to manuals on farming and cookbooks to erotic poetry. The literature allows us to enter ancient Rome through so many different portals. The remaining ruins and artifacts also ignite our imaginations. But ultimately I think it’s the glamour of certain historical figures, like Caesar and Cleopatra, that continually fascinates readers and audiences, beginning with Shakespeare and continuing without a break up to today.
The past year has seen a large number of articles and books comparing the United States to Rome. Do you think the comparison is an appropriate one?
I will be taking part in a panel on this very subject at the Texas Book Festival in Austin this fall, along with the authors of some of those books; hopefully we will have a lively discussion. In general, I don’t think such comparisons are valid; history is a river, and you can never enter the same spot twice. But a knowledge of the past is always useful for understanding human nature, and anything that increases our awareness of ancient Rome may lead to some insight into the present.There is certainly one great difference between the two empires, and in part it springs from the difference in their religions. The gods of the pagan Romans were delighted when their worshippers destroyed their enemies, and the hard-headed Romans had no qualms whatsoever about raping, pillaging and enslaving others; they openly boasted of it. The current Christianity of America doesn’t allow such unabashed delight in suffering and destruction, yet America’s imperial agenda entrails a lot of the same unpleasantness requisite to all imperial agendas throughout history. We have dealt with this by creating a new myth, that we are not really an empire at all. Seriously, the vast majority of Americans don’t even realize that they live in an empire. The shared fantasy is that we are naive innocents minding our own business who are repeatedly and regrettably compelled to react to external threats. This leads to a maddening disconnection from reality. Of course, the rulers at the top know exactly what they are doing, but the average American lives in a complete dream world. There was a bit of this kind of rationalization in ancient Rome — it was Carthage’s own fault that she had to be annihilated, the Gauls were just asking to be enslaved, and so on — but I suspect that the ancient Roman man in the street had a much firmer grasp of his country’s motives and aspirations than does the average American.
How much time do you spend in Rome now?
Far too little! It has been several years since my last trip. But I think I will make it back in 2008, especially since my work is finally being translated Into Italian. (Roman Blood, as Sangue su Roma, came out this year).
Can you give us a list of your favorite things to see and do when you’re in Rome?
I always head for St. Peter’s, to be awed by the magnificence of that interior space; I have seen nothing to rival it anywhere else on earth. All the ruins fascinate me, with an almost magical kind of power; many visitors never see Ostia, not realizing how easy it is to get to. And I have a rule never to pass a church without going inside, because you never know what completely unexpected treasure, beautiful or bizarre, may be inside.
