by David Blixt
In this novel, none of the characters are fictional. Every single person I put on the page has existed in some history or other. Some, like Abigail, did not have names, but she is referenced during accounts of Saint Peter's travels. As is Perel. They may be apocryphal stories, but I did not invent them out of whole cloth. I merely incorporated them into the tale I was weaving.
Likewise, Tacitus gives us a paragraph of Mansuetus and his son, a brief mention of the son slaying the father on the battlefield. Like Shakespeare in writing his Julius Caesar, I am bedeviled by too much information that would be criminal to exclude. Though, unlike Shakespeare, I may go back and revisit those moments in the form of short stories… But not until the next two novels are complete.
There are, of course, small liberties. The coin Vitellius shows Domitian is a composite of one his father had minted during his time as censor, and one of the many Vitellius made during his brief reign. I like introducing old Lucius, Sextilla's husband, because of his link to Pontius Pilate. Just as the Chrestiani are threaded into Roman society, I wanted to remind everyone how interrelated the story of Christ is with the story of Rome.
I did invent Faustina, wife of Marcus Ostorius Scapula, winner of the Grass Crown. I did this to put a face and a name to Nero's depravities, make them more personal without adding more horror to the lives of my leads. But Marcus was exiled and ordered to fall on his sword, and this is an excellent reason.
I've also mentioned an absurd but appealing legend that Homer was the grandson of Odysseus. As my friend and fellow author Robin Levin noted to me, the Trojan war is believed to have taken place in the 13th century BC while Homer the epic poet is believed to have been born around 800 BC, some five hundred years later. But it's a pleasing tradition, one that would appeal to the Romans, and that I plan to use again later. So in that I'm embracing nonsense.
Another example of my liberty-taking is much larger, resting right at the heart of the novel. It has to do with the fate of Sabinus. There is a Titus Flavius Sabinus listed as consul in 82 AD whom some believe to be the character I call Sabinus. But, given that he would at that point be nearing 50, and his son, whom I call Tertius, would be around 30 years old, I give it to the younger man, whose cousin was by then the Emperor.
Other histories list my Sabinus as dying in 72 AD. Still others conflate him with his father, creating an amalgam figure who is both the brother of Vespasian and the father of Tertius and Clemens.
What we know for certain was that there a man called Titus Flavius Sabinus serving as consul in 47 AD, 69 AD, and 82 AD. Rather than combine them, I chose to make these three distinct men: Old Sabinus, Sabinus, and Tertius. We are certain about the final fate of Old Sabinus, and of Tertius. But not, so far as I have seen, about Sabinus. Not knowing, I am free to invent.
Which brings us to a few brief words about prophecies. The Pythia's words for Sabinus and Clemens are, clearly, my own. But her vitriolic words for Nero are historical, or at least have become so, thanks to Suetonius (who liked sensational stories). We don't have her exact words, so I've invented some for her. But the gist is correct.
In so doing, I have also made an indirect alteration. All the reports say the Pythia warned Nero of the number 73. But every historian also dates Galba's birth in 3 BC. Which means in 68 AD, Galba was 71 years old, not 73. Yet everyone also maintains that Galba was 73 when Nero fell, and that the prophecy clearly points to Galba. After going back and forth, I've chosen to fudge his actual birthdate and leave the prophecy alone. Drama wins over history once again.
* * *
A further note: in one specific regard, this was a very difficult book for me to write. I tend to avoid writing sex acts, save when they move a storyline forward. I am sadly uninterested in titillating, scurrilous, bodice-ripping yarns (I know, I know).
But sex is very much a part of the story – specifically, Nero's focus on sex. Just as I often write political or religious views that are not my own, I hope that no one views the scenes I've penned here to be an endorsement of Neronian sexual proclivities. The forced prostitution of Roman women is horrific. Yet in an age when women were property, it cannot be far behind that many men used them as property.
Nor do I think Nero was gay. Across both genders, his actions are much more about abuse than gratification. As is common for a victim of incest and molestation, he was unable to form proper sexual attachments. Instead he quested about, experimenting with roles and norms. Unfortunately, he was powerful enough to force everyone to experiment with him.
My wife likes to refer to Nero as the Andy Kaufman of Roman Emperors. He knew he was absurd, and kept daring the Senate and People of Rome to defy him, declare that the Imperator had no clothes. From his wedding ceremony with Spiros to the bizarre Greek faux-Triumph, he was poking fun at Rome's traditions. Yet like any good performance artist, he inhabited his role so thoroughly, it was impossible to guess if he was the ultimate artist, or simply mad. And to me there is a point at which there ceases to be a distinction.
* * *
Sources. Again, Will Durant's CAESAR AND CHRIST was an amazing place to start for an overview. Then there are the antique authors: Suetonius, Livy, Tacitus, Martial, Cassius Dio, and naturally the newly-named Titus Flavius Josephus himself.
Among the modern works, I start with NERO by Edward Champlin, a book that took me some time to truly enjoy, but I got there. Champlin writes in the style of the classical historians, meaning he groups his chapters by theme, not chronology. So you have to steep yourself in the text, but when you do, there's a wealth of information.
A book that will mean the world to me two novels down the road was also useful here, too – Mary Beard's THE ROMAN TRIUMPH. Her history of the Triumphal parade clearly demonstrates Nero's inversion of the ceremony.
69 AD: THE YEAR OF THE FOUR EMPERORS by Gwyn Morgan is a tremendous and exciting read, with loads of useful anecdotes and lists, detailing the history of the legions involved and their movements, as well as the personalities. Morgan is also wonderful in pointing out the strengths and weaknesses of the classical sources.
Likewise, THE YEAR OF THE FOUR EMPERORS by Kenneth Wellesley was also a huge help, with a different view of the same sources, and many more anecdotes. It's a joy to see the topic covered by two excellent yet completely different historians, if only to see which details they choose to focus upon.
NERO'S KILLING MACHINE by Stephen Dando-Collins mostly covers the history of the 14th Legion in Britannia, which had little to do with this novel. But the book is still a wealth of information on the period and people, most notably Suetonius Paulinus, who is not to be confused with Suetonius the historian who wrote THE TWELVE CAESARS.
If I owe STONE & STEEL to Lion Feuchtwanger's Josephus series, then I owe far more to Colleen McCullough for her Masters Of Rome series. The first historical fiction I ever encountered, it has colored my understanding of Rome ever since. Her research is superlative, her choices brilliant, and her characters so vibrant they bleed. If you have not yet read THE FIRST MAN IN ROME, do yourself a huge favor and pick it up now. Or find the audiobook read by David Ogden Stiers, which was how I first encountered it. I crib from her constantly, give nods in her direction at every turn, and where my research diverts from hers, I tend to trust her more.
* * *
This book would not have happened without Dan Conaway. As we discussed ideas for my next novel, he asked a simple question: name a place I wanted to write about. I quietly scoffed at the idea, but felt compelled nonetheless to answer him. So in the pack of four story concepts I sent him, I unenthusiastically dropped in a line about a church in Rome. He wrote back telling me to look at that one harder. Dutifully, I did, and just a little bit of scraping revealed this novel. Proving, I suppose, that so-called inspiration can come from skillful manipulation. Thank you, Dan.
I always say the best question to ask authors is, 'Who do you read?' I usually point to my friends MJ Rose, CW Gortner, and Michelle Moran, as well as Dorothy Dunnett, Bernar
d Cornwell, and Raphael Sabatini. They have all influenced me in a myriad of ways – as have more modern authors such as Tom Clancy, whose style of writing a battle I adopted early on.
Thanks to Nona Bennett and Sherry Murphy, who each have more religious knowledge than I could ever claim. And Stephanie Heller and Mike Nussbaum were other early, enthusiastic readers.
Huge thanks to Rick Sordelet. Not Epic enough yet? Just you wait, you bastard. I'll make this thing impossible to stage. Or film.
Dan Slater and Katy Ardans at Amazon have been a tremendous help, especially as I tweak the text of each novel I release through Kindle. Katy has been a bottomless well of patience. Thank you.
A thousand thanks to John Lobur. In 7th grade we took the same Latin 1 class. He got it, I didn't, and he's gone on to become a professor of Latin. He helped me with a couple of lines in THE MASTER OF VERONA and a huge section of FORTUNE'S FOOL, but with this series my need for his help has been much greater. Clearly he is the expert, I the layman, and any mistakes within these covers are mine, never his. Gratias, John!
While we're on mistakes, I desperately need to thank my fellow authors Constance Cedras and Robin Levin for cleaning up my text. They know too well that when writing we often can't see the trees, we're so busy with our forest. They pruned and trimmed my trees, catching dozens of typos, consistency errors, and the like. I cannot thank them enough, and any infelicities that persist are entirely my own.
Another friend in need of thanks is Tara Sullivan. The god-mother to our children, she has been the outside reader for six novels now, and continues to be a voice of enthusiasm. Also, she takes the kids out to play when Mommy is away and Daddy needs to jot something down. She told me my orgies are tame, and that Josephus is the Gaius Baltar of ancient Rome.
Thanks to my parents, Al & Jill. More than anything else I've written, this series has captured my mother, who also designed the maps for me. And I'd have no appreciation of Rome at all if not for a car-trip with my father when I was eighteen, with an audiobook to fill the time. If only we'd known it was that simple…
I embarked on this series just before the birth of my daughter, Evelyn. Again, babies bring good things. And there's Dash, who is kinder than any child I have written, and better than I could have imagined.
Which brings us to my wife. Jan stood with me in the place where this series was inspired, and she has continued to inspire it since. Thank you, meum mel, meum lux, meum vita. I love you.
The next novel is tentatively entitled COLOSSUS: WAIL OF THE FALLEN.
Ave,
DB
Appendix
ROME'S LEGIONS
For those interested in (or confused about) Roman legions, here are a few definitions, and a little about each legion active during the period of this story.
A Roman Legion was made up of about 5,500 men. The core unit of a legion is the century. Originally a century, as its name suggests, was made up of 100 men. But by the late Republic and early Empire it was actually 80 soldiers and their support staff.
Eighty men make a CENTURY. Six centuries make a COHORT. Ten cohorts make a LEGION, with the lead cohort being double-sized. That's 5,280 men. Add 120 cavalry men and around 100 noncombatants – engineers, cooks, etc. – and you reach 5,500.
Each legion had a golden eagle, the aquila, carried by the aquilifer. They also had a flag with their symbol on it. The flag was called a signum, or a vexillum, and was carried by the vexillifer. Sometimes a legion would detach a smaller unit. When this happened, the main legion would keep the eagle, while the detachment marched out under the vexillum. Thus the name for the detachment became a VEXILLATION.
Legionaries were supposed to be citizens, but by this time recruiting standards were winked at. Many locals were recruited with the promise that if they served Rome well for between sixteen and twenty-five years, they would retire as full Roman citizens.
Some common terms to do with legions:
LEGATE (legatus) – Either the legion's commander-in-chief, or else senior commanders under a specific general. For example, Titus is senior legate of the Fifteenth Legion, under the command of his father Vespasian, who oversees several legions. A legate was usually a senator or from a senatorial family, as leading a legion was often a large part of climbing the cursus honorum.
TRIBUNE OF THE SOLDIERS (tribunus militum) – Not to be confused with Tribune of the Plebs, whose veto power had by this point been absorbed by the Princeps. A military tribune was a staff officer, often in his twenties. The term originates from Rome's earliest days, when each of Rome's tribes would send a representative to be a junior officer in the army. Usually 6 tribunes to a legion, the most senior of whom was second in command to the legate.
CENTURION (centurio) – Professional, career officer, the backbone of the Roman army. He could be elected, appointed, or promoted from the ranks. Caesar promoted men of valour, and many historians record centurions as being the first over a wall. The most wounded, most decorated, most valuable element in a legion. A general would think nothing of losing all his tribunes, but weep outright if he lost a centurion. 60-66 centurions in any legion (depending on the breakdown of the extra men in the first cohort).
OPTIO - A centurion's right-hand, carrying out orders and enforcing discipline. Basically a centurion in training. 60-66 optios to a legion.
DECURIAN - Cavalry commanders. A legion's cavalry was divided into four units of 40 horsemen, so 4 decurians to every legion.
LIST OF LEGIONS
With a huge tip of the hat to author Gwyn Morgan, from whom this abbreviated list is culled. For the more complete list as well as an excellent and informative read, pick up his book 69 A.D. – THE YEAR OF THE FOUR EMPERORS.
It's interesting to me that no legion existing in this time can be traced back further than Caesar and Pompey. Before them, Rome had no standing armies. Every time a war broke out, a legion was recruited, equipped, trained, and sent out to fight, then disbanded the moment the war was over. Caesar, too, disbanded his legions after the Civil War, but they were all reformed by Octavius and/or Antony, and remained a permanent unit from there on.
The legion numbering system comes from the Triumviral period, when Augustus, Antony, and Lepidus divided Rome's territory into three parts. Which is how you end up with several legions bearing the same number. Thus they also are given names, like cognomen, to distinguish them.
Also, in 9 AD, an alliance of Germanic tribes ambushed and destroyed three Roman legions, the XVII, XVIII, and the XIX. It was such a disaster, those numbers were considered unlucky, even cursed, and were never used again.
(For ease of reading, I have omitted the title “Legio” from the front of each legion title. But to be correct, these should be Legio I Adiutrix, Legio II Augusta, etc.)
Here are the legions, their histories, and their locations:
I ADIUTRIX: Nero's Singing Legion, as I've called it, was formed early in 68 from marines in the Misene fleet, but was turned into a regular legion by Galba in October 68 – after he massacred them on the Milvian Bridge, but before he decimated them, killing one in every ten men. Perhaps unsurprising, then, that this legion joined the praetorians against Galba. After they fought for Otho at Ad Castores and Bedriacum, Vitellius sent them to Hispania to cool off. They were partly responsible for bringing Hispania over to Vespasian's side. Their name meaning 'Rescuer', their symbol was a Capricorn.
I ITALICA: Raised by Nero after the Parthian Wars of 58-63, it was still in Italy in early 68, when it was sent north to counter the threat from Vindex and Galba. Recruited by Valens to fight Otho, it remained loyal to Vitellius through the Battle of Cremona in October 69.
I GERMANICA: Created in 48 BC by Gaius Julius Caesar, by this time they had been in Lower Germany (Germania Inferior) for fifty years, stationed on the Rhine frontier. Fabius Valens was the legionary legate in 68/69, and he only took a vexillation on his march south. The vexillation fought at Bedriacum, was taken by Caecina to Hostilia, and was defeated at Crem
ona, while the bulk of the legion remained in Germania to fight another day.
I MACRIANA LIBERATRIX: A unit raised in Africa by Clodius Macer, the legionary legate of III Augusta who was the lover of Calvia Crispinilla. After Clodius Macer's execution, Galba disbanded the illegal legion, but it was reactivated in autumn 69 by Vitellius, only to be disbanded again by the victorious Vespasian. Their name comes from Macer, who evidently was calling himself the Liberator. Their symbol is unknown.
II ADIUTRIX: Technically, this legion wasn't officially formed until after the civil wars of 69, but it seems as though these men were part of a unit created by Antonius Primus from the defecting fleets after the Battle of Cremona, and therefore would have been a part of the fighting on the outskirts of Rome while Sabinus was holding the Mons Capitolinus. Like their cousin legion of the same name, their symbol was the Capricorn.
II AUGUSTA: Originally raised by Octavian (later Augustus) to fight Mark Antony in 43 BC (thanks to Shakespeare, most people forget that Antony and Octavian fought before they took on Brutus and Cassius, as well as after). In 25 BC it was moved to Hispania, but after the German disaster in 9 AD, they were moved to Germania Superior. They left for Claudius' invasion of Britain in 43 AD, and there they stayed until 69. They sent about half their force, around 2600 men, to fight for Vitellius at the Battle of Cremona. But Vespasian had commanded them during the British campaign, so after losing the battle they joined his side. Their symbols were the Capricorn, the Pegasus, and Mars.