The Course of Honour, by Lindsey Davis. Book review

Arrow, 1998. ISBN 978-0-099-22742-7. 341 pages.

Set mainly in Rome in AD 31-69, The Course of Honour tells the remarkable story of the lifelong love affair between Titus Flavius Vespasian (later Emperor Vespasian) and the slave and later freedwoman Antonia Caenis. Both main characters are historical figures, and their relationship is (briefly) documented in historical sources.

Caenis is a slave owned by Antonia, an important Roman noblewoman (daughter of Mark Antony and niece of Emperor Augustus). Trained in the imperial school, Caenis is a scribe and routine copyist, until Antonia needs someone to write a highly confidential and dangerous letter in a hurry and Caenis is the only scribe available. This incident sets Caenis on her path to becoming Antonia’s trusted secretary, and later a career in the Imperial administration. Titus Flavius Vespasianus is the younger son of an undistinguished noble family from a rural backwater, without much in the way of money or political influence. Both will have to make their own lives as best they can within the constraints of Roman society, Vespasian by following the cursus honorum (the ‘course of honour’) of successive military and political offices, Caenis in the Imperial bureaucracy. As their love for each other grows, both know that marriage is impossible – Roman law forbids anyone of senatorial rank from marrying a slave or ex-slave – and both know that Vespasian will have to make a suitable political marriage to someone else. Through separation and heartbreak, not to mention the perils of life under a succession of mad Emperors, the love between Caenis and Vespasian holds true – until chaos and civil war bring Vespasian within reach of the ultimate prize...

The lifelong love between Vespasian and Caenis is real, and is briefly mentioned in Roman chronicles (e.g. Suetonius) but, as usual, details are scarce. In The Course of Honour, Lindsey Davis has imagined the character of Caenis and the relationship between Caenis and Vespasian over the course of their lives. Caenis’ position in the Imperial service places her close to the heart of the political turmoil of the early Empire, and readers of I, Claudius by Robert Graves will recognise many of the events. Details of life in classical Rome are vividly portrayed, from the Imperial palace staff to renting a shabby apartment in a jerry-built tenement.

Most of the story is told from Caenis’ perspective. She is a wonderful central character, excellent company for the book’s 341 pages. Fiercely intelligent, cynical (although not quite as cynical as her racy friend Veronica), honest and realistic, the experience of life as a slave has taught her that life is unreliable and good fortune liable to be fleeting. When Vespasian has to marry for political reasons, Caenis ends their relationship and builds her own life without him, surviving the erratic Emperor Caligula and then using her contacts with the freedman Narcissus to get herself an appointment to the administration under Emperor Claudius – not forgetting to persuade Narcissus of the merits of appointing Vespasian to a senior military command for the invasion of Britain. Caenis is resolved as far as possible to rely on no-one but herself, and determined not to be dependent on anybody, not even Vespasian. Throughout the ups and downs of her life she sticks to her principles. Despite the disparity in their social status, the relationship between Caenis and Vespasian is one of equals, with respect and (sometimes painful) honesty on both sides, as well as love.

Caenis’ life story is particularly appealing because, in a society where women were expected to be invisible and valued only for political alliances and as producers of children, Caenis is a single woman without children, making her way as best she can. It’s interesting to see the familiar politics of the early Empire from the perspective of someone close to but not directly involved in events. Caenis and her friend Veronica take a wry view of the unedifying antics of the Imperial family, sometimes cynically amusing, as when Caenis remarks of Claudius’ treacherous empress Messalina that Roman men are always divorcing their wives and at least Messalina had returned the compliment, and sometimes heartbreaking, as when Caenis reflects of Claudius’ children that in their family tradition they will either have to become monsters or life will deal monstrously with them.

The writing style has the same fluency and immediacy as Lindsey Davis’ Falco novels (e.g. The Silver Pigs, reviewed here earlier) but with a more serious tone and less modern slang. I think The Course of Honour is my favourite of Lindsey Davis’ Roman novels.

A brief Author’s Note at the back outlines some of the underlying history, and a detailed map at the front shows the layout of first-century Rome and is useful for getting one’s bearings.

Remarkable story of the lifelong love between Emperor Vespasian and the freedwoman Antonia Caenis, against the background of the chaotic politics of the first-century Roman Empire.

Alexandria, by Lindsey Davis. Book review

Arrow, 2010. ISBN 978-0-099-51562-3. 355 pages.

Set in Alexandria in Egypt in 77 AD, Alexandria is the nineteenth Marcus Didius Falco historical mystery. Heron of Alexandria, inventor of ingenious machines, is a historical figure with a cameo role. All the main characters are fictional.

Marcus Didius Falco, Roman informer and investigator, is on holiday in Alexandria with his wife Helena Justina, their two small children and adopted teenage daughter, intending to see two of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Pyramids at Giza and the Pharos (lighthouse) at Alexandria. When the head of the Great Library is found dead in a room locked from the outside, the day after being a dinner guest of Falco’s family, Falco is called on to investigate. Soon Falco finds himself dealing with academic rivalries, fraud, arson and a man-eating crocodile – not quite the relaxing holiday he had in mind.

I’m a long-standing fan of the Falco series (for a review of the first Falco novel, The Silver Pigs, see earlier post). Alexandria seemed to me to fall somewhat short of the standard set by the earlier books. Historical background comes in chunks like excerpts from a travel guide or historical textbook inserted into the text. In a way this is appropriate, since Falco and his family really are tourists in Alexandria and might be expected to read bits out of a tourist guide to the city, and sometimes it has a comic effect, as with Helena’s impromptu lecture on the hydraulic fire pump. However, I mostly found it clumsy. The central mystery is resolved, but I found the solution an anticlimax.

On the plus side, it’s an enjoyable romp through the Great Library and Museion of Alexandria, one of the great centres of learning of the world, in the company of Falco’s eccentric family and a cast of colourful misfits. Falco himself still has the world-weary, cynical humour that was such a feature of the earlier novels, and seeing him as a family man with Helena and their two small daughters shows up his soft side. Helena is a cool, steadying presence, though she has relatively little to do here. She and Falco are plainly as much in love as ever, which is saying something after 19 books’ worth of adventures. Falco’s disreputable father turns up on his usual quest for a dodgy deal, this time in collusion with an equally disreputable uncle, the uncle’s live-in boyfriend and Thalia, the tough snake-charming exotic dancer and businesswoman who first appeared in Venus in Copper.

The secondary characters are at least as much fun. Among the academic staff of the Museion we meet the handsome Zoo Keeper, convinced of his irresistible attractiveness to women, the over-promoted Director who makes the lives of his staff a misery, the taciturn astronomer, the blustering law professor and the soapy Head of Philosophy intent on smarming his way up the greasy pole. All of them are after the now-vacant Librarian’s job, and to complicate matters further, two of them are also after the same woman.

The historical mathematician and inventor Heron of Alexandria, inventor of an early steam engine and the first known vending machine, has a charming cameo role, and a reclusive scholar at the Library turns out to be compiling a book that looks remarkably like a forerunner of the medieval bestiaries. Some splendid set-piece action sequences make full use of the setting, including a man-eating crocodile at the Zoo and a chase up the tower of the Pharos. (In a mystery/adventure novel set in a city with the highest lighthouse in the known world, it would be surprising if the characters didn’t get to the top of it in some dramatic fashion...)

A street plan at the front of the book – conjectural, since earthquakes and coastline change have obliterated most of first-century Alexandria – is helpful for following the action through the streets. A character list at the front, with the trademark irreverent asides, may help readers keep track of the cast. There is no author’s note, which I thought rather a shame as I would have liked to know if there were other historical cameos besides Heron and his experimental steam engine.

Entertaining historical mystery featuring the cynical Roman detective Marcus Didius Falco, set against the exotic backdrop of first-century Alexandria. An enjoyable and amusing read, if not quite up to the earlier Falco novels.

The Legate’s Daughter, by Wallace Breem. Book review

First published 1974. Edition reviewed: Phoenix, 2005, ISBN 0-75381-895-7. 310 pages.

The Legate’s Daughter is set in Rome and Mauretania (North Africa) in 24 BC, against the background of a fictional political intrigue in the reign of Emperor Augustus. Several secondary characters are historical figures, including Augustus’ wife Livia and daughter Julia, King Juba of Mauretania and his wife Cleopatra Selene (daughter of Cleopatra of Egypt and Mark Antony), and various important Roman senators including Marcus Agrippa. All the main characters are fictional.

Augustus is ill and has no heir, and the senators of Rome are plotting in factions to gain the succession. When a senior Roman legate in distant Spain is killed and his daughter kidnapped, it is a serious embarrassment to Augustus’ government. Curtius Rufus, a failed centurion with a taste for gambling, drink, women and trouble, is despatched by Marcus Agrippa to find and rescue the girl. Together with his friend, a Greek secretary and aspiring poet called Criton, and a reluctant detachment of Praetorian Guards, he arrives at the court of King Juba and Queen Cleopatra Selene in Mauretania. Curtius soon discovers that all is not what it seems, as he uncovers a complex web of intrigue and deceit whose threads reach not only to the highest levels of the Mauretanian court but all the way to Rome itself.

The Legate’s Daughter is a political thriller, and doesn’t have the military setting or the action of Wallace Breem’s famous The Eagle in the Snow. The plot is driven by the slow disentangling of layer upon layer of lies and half-truths, and Curtius Rufus is frequently in the dark and having to guess at what is really going on. People speak in veiled allusions and cryptic references, which may (or may not) become clear in time. As a result, the reader needs to be alert to every detail and nuance to have any chance of following the story. I read the book twice before I pieced some of the plot together, and I suspect there are still intricacies that I missed. This is a book that needs concentration; think John le Carre rather than Simon Scarrow.

The street scenes are superb, both in Rome and North Africa. Sharply drawn vignettes bring the bustle and variety of a big city to vivid life, such as the beggar boys waiting like starlings for the baker to overload his cart so they can grab the spilled bread without being accused of stealing. The political shenanigans in Rome and in North Africa are well, if slowly, brought out (provided you pay attention), and an atmosphere of threat and menace builds gradually to the tense climax.

Despite the title, the legate’s daughter herself is hardly mentioned for the first third of the book, and appears only in a brief and rather pathetic glimpse towards the end. The focus of the story is Curtius Rufus, and although the narrative is in third person it’s mainly his viewpoint that the reader sees. Curtius is intriguing and contradictory, always wanting the opposite of what he presently has. When he has a steady job he is bored and resents its restrictions; when he loses the job he doesn’t know what to do with himself. When on his mission in North Africa he longs for his irresponsible life in Rome; when living on his wits in Rome he yearns for the stability of a respected role. Clearly very able when he chooses, as shown when he has to carry out emergency repairs to an aqueduct in imminent danger of collapse, he has nevertheless managed to fail at every career he has tried. He treats women badly, but somehow remains irresistibly attractive to them. The ending, like the rest of the book, is ambiguous, with more questions than answers: will Curtius make a new start, with a respectable job and the love of a good woman, or will he drift back to his precarious life in the slums?

Tense political thriller set in Ancient Rome, with layer upon layer of deceit, intrigue, plot and counter-plot.

The Silver Pigs, by Lindsey Davis. Book review

Edition reviewed: Arrow, 2000. ISBN: 0099414732, 315 pages.

Set in Rome and Britain in 70 AD, immediately after the political turmoil of the Year of Four Emperors, this historical mystery launched the immensely (and deservedly) popular Falco series. Emperor Vespasian and his sons Titus and Domitian are secondary characters. All the main characters are fictional.

Hard-bitten and not very successful private informer Marcus Didius Falco is short of funds, as ever. When he has the opportunity to rescue a pretty aristocratic girl from the thugs who are chasing her through the Forum, he naturally hopes for a reward from her wealthy family. Instead, he finds himself commissioned to investigate a murky financial scam, which soon turns out to have even murkier political overtones. When the trail turns murderous, Falco finds himself travelling to the godforsaken wilds of Britain, where he encounters two perils - working as a slave in the silver mines, and the beautiful, classy senator’s daughter Helena Justina.

I’ve read The Silver Pigs many times since it first appeared, and listened to the BBC radio adaptation starring Anton Lesser at least twice, and it’s just as fresh on an umpteenth encounter as on the first. The plot races along even faster than Helena Justina’s carriage driving, with plenty of unlikely twists and turns. I always lose track of who is double-crossing who among all the nefarious dealings – involving stolen silver, smuggling, attempts to bribe the Praetorian Guard, and a conspiracy against the Emperor – but for me that never matters. I read The Silver Pigs not for the whodunnit (although the murder is ingeniously resolved), but for the fun and energy of Falco’s world, the strong cast of characters and the sharpness of the writing.

Rome in The Silver Pigs is a city teeming with people from all walks of life, all of them busy making a living, raising their families, trying to get rich quick, arguing, gossiping, fighting, joking and trying to put one over on each other. Its richness and vitality remind me in some ways of Dickens’ London, or Terry Pratchett’s Ankh-Morpork. Never mind the Great Men and the marble monuments, Falco’s Rome is a city of jerry-built apartment buildings, dodgy fast-food joints, street markets, brothels, unsavoury taverns, labourers, craftsmen, debt collectors and muggers. There is a wealth of historical detail, but it’s there to create a world and never simply slathered on for exotic background.

Falco is a marvellous character, streetwise gumshoe and hopeless romantic by turns. An ex-legionary who served in Britain during the trauma of the Boudican revolt, he is as tough as an old Army boot and a casual womaniser (or he would like you to believe he is – I’m never sure how many of the Tripolitanian acrobat girls are wishful thinking), but his little niece shows him up to be a big softy at heart and he writes sentimental love poetry that nobody reads. His cynical, witty narrative, in a slangy style reminiscent of Marlowe, is nothing less than a delight. Helena Justina, cool, intelligent and self-possessed, makes a worthy match for him as their relationship develops (in this and subsequent books).

The secondary characters are no less colourful. Falco’s gimcrack apartment building is owned by a retired gladiator called Smaractus who employs a team of heavies to collect unpaid rent, and the ground floor is occupied by a laundry run by the kindly but no less formidable Lenia, who has her eye on marrying Smaractus at a profit. Falco’s old friend and ex-Army colleague Petronius is a world-weary watchman, ever ready to drown his sorrows in a flagon of cheap wine, usually only to find that they can swim. Falco’s domineering mother and tribe of sisters have very little truck with the idea that Falco is supposed to be the head of the family. Emperor Vespasian, the tough provincial army general who came from nowhere and made himself Emperor, has a splendid cameo role (in the radio adaptation Michael Tudor Barnes plays him as a bluff Yorkshireman, and now it’s his voice I always hear for Vespasian when reading the books).

But the great strength of the Falco novels, for me, is the racy, humorous writing style. Some examples:

• A Praetorian guard officer on investigating smugglers: “…. tracking the weevils back to their biscuit….”


• On Britain: “If you simply cannot avoid it, you will find the province of Britain out beyond civilisation in the realms of the North Wind. If your mapskin has grown ragged at the edges you will have lost it, in which case so much the better is all I can say.”


• On Bath: “Hot springs gushed out of the rock at a shrine where puzzled Celts still came to dedicate coinage to Sul, gazing tolerantly at the brisk new plaque which announced that Roman Minerva had assumed management. […] I could not believe that anything could ever be made of this place.”


• On a shady dealer in metals: “…..a loud British wideboy, all twisty electrum necklets and narrow, pointed shoes …..”.


• On a brawl in a brothel: “The table toppled over, pulling down a curtain to reveal some citizen’s white backside rising like the Moon Goddess as he did his anxious duty by a maiden of the house; the poor rabbit froze in mid-thrust, then went into eclipse.”


• On Helena Justina, when Falco first meets her as an enemy: “…burnt caramel eyes in a bitter almond face….”, and later, when he realises she is far from an enemy, “….warm caramel eyes in a creamy almond face….”

Warm, humane, funny and unsentimental, The Silver Pigs is lighthearted but not lightweight, ranging from the tragic to the absurd with a cast of colourful characters and a vivid recreation of ancient Rome in all its grubby glory.

Claudius, by Douglas Jackson. Book review

Transworld, 2009. ISBN 978-0-593-06062-9. 328 pages

Set during the Roman invasion of Britain under Emperor Claudius in 43 AD, Claudius features a number of historical figures in important roles, including Claudius himself, his strategist and political fixer Narcissus, the Roman generals Aulus Plautius and Vespasian, and various British tribal rulers including Caratacus, Togodumnus, Cogidubnus, Boudicca and Cartimandua. The main characters, Rufus and his elephant, are fictional.

A Roman invasion force of four crack legions and their associate auxiliaries is marching to conquer Britain. With them is Rufus, a young slave and the keeper of the Emperor’s elephant, the majestic Bersheba. Against them stands Caratacus, king of the Catuvellauni and leader of the British tribes, a man of great courage and ability but hampered by his erratically aggressive brother Togodumnus and uncertain which of his allies he can trust. The stage is set for a brutal showdown between the legions and the British warriors – one in which Rufus and his elephant will play a vital, and possibly fatal, part.

The title is something of a misnomer. Although there are a few passages told from Claudius’ viewpoint, for the most part the central character of the novel is Rufus, the slave, elephant handler and fighter trained by an ex-gladiator introduced in the first novel in the series, Caligula (review forthcoming in due course). Occasionally the narrative looks back to the events of the first book, but you don’t need to have read Caligula to read Claudius. Both books can be read as stand-alones. The story is told in third person from a variety of viewpoints, cutting back and forth between the Roman side and the British side, so the reader gets to see the build-up to battle from both sides of the conflict. It also allows the reader to get to know other characters besides Rufus, of whom the most compelling for me were Caratacus and a (fictional) scout and warrior of the Iceni tribe called Ballan.

A newspaper quote on the back cover describes the novel as “visceral”, and if that means “lots of blood and guts” it’s a pretty accurate description. With the Romans murdering little children and torturing old people, and the Britons conducting appalling human sacrifices, the novel is even-handed in its brutality. The violence is described in the same graphic detail that characterised Caligula, with very little left to the imagination. I think it’s fair to say that this is not a book for the squeamish, and those who like to read at mealtimes should consider themselves warned. As with the previous novel, I found the shock value wore off surprisingly fast, and began to wonder if this was going to be a catalogue of gruesome atrocities of the sort that leaves me thinking that both sides deserve each other and can I vote the elephant for Emperor?

Plough on to halfway, though, and the novel steps up a gear as the violence becomes focussed to a definite purpose, the battle for the crossing of the River Thames. This decisive battle occupies most of the second half of the book, and is in my view the best bit. The use of multiple viewpoints is extremely effective, both in the build-up to the battle and in the battle itself. It allows the reader to see the complexity of stratagem and counter-stratagem as both sides lay cunning traps for each other, and it shows both the individual dramas of the key players and their part in the greater whole. Suspense is built and maintained by cutting back and forth between the players at critical moments in classic cinematic style. The Batavian auxiliaries (here going by the delightful name of “river rats”), the Second Augusta’s legionaries, the British defenders and the Romans’ British allies all get their share of the action, and there’s even an ingenious role for Bersheba the elephant.

In the absence of a historical note, the reader is left on their own to work out the historical basis of events and where any alterations have been made. I’m not an expert on the Roman invasion and can’t comment on the historical accuracy or otherwise. I can say I was surprised to see the Iceni taking part in the battle at the Thames, since Tacitus explicitly says, “We had not defeated this powerful tribe, they had voluntarily become our allies”, and I thought Verica would be older than he is portrayed if he was issuing coins in the reign of Tiberius. I’d have liked to see the author’s take on these items and any others, and was mildly disappointed by the lack of a historical note.

It looks to me as if the novel is leaving scope for a sequel to make a trilogy (any takers for the third one being called Nero?). A pair of talismanic brooches that end up in the hands of two charismatic queens, both of whom have dramatic if contrasting parts to play in the further history of the establishment of Roman Britain, the appearance of Nero as a distinct if minor character and a questioning note to the Epilogue could all be lead-ins to a further adventure for Rufus and Bersheba.

Battlefield action during the Roman invasion of Britain, with lots of violent battle scenes, some shady palace plots, and an elephant.

Gladiatrix, by Russell Whitfield. Book review.

Myrmidon Books, ISBN 978-1-905802-09-8. Edition reviewed: uncorrected advance review copy.

Set in Roman Asia Minor towards the end of the first century AD, Gladiatrix tells the story of Lysandra, a Spartan priestess of Athene who finds herself captured and enslaved as a gladiatrix (female gladiator) in the Roman arena.

Two characters are based on the two gladiatrices commemorated on a memorial stone discovered in Halicarnassus (in modern south-west Turkey, map here) in the nineteenth century. Nothing is known of the two women depicted on the stone except their stage names – Amazona and Achillia – and the fact that they both survived and retired from the games. Gladiatrix imagines what their lives might have been like, and what extraordinary events might have led to their being honoured with this unique monument. You could say these two are archaeological characters, rather like the character ‘Julia’ in the novel of the same name who was based on a Roman burial discovered in London. All the other main characters are fictional. Two historical figures, the Roman governor of Asia, Julius Sextus Frontinus, and an up-and-coming senator called Trajanus (better known to history as Emperor Trajan) play secondary roles.

As the sole survivor or a shipwreck, Lysandra is captured by the servants of Lucius Balbus, owner of a ludus (school) for gladiatrices. Roman law means that Lysandra is now his property, like any other item salvaged from a shipwreck. Trained from childhood in the Spartan agoge, Lysandra is already expert with weapons and military tactics, and Balbus cannot believe his luck when she despatches her first arena opponent with consummate ease. But Lysandra’s Spartan pride not only attracts powerful enemies in the ludus, it also threatens to destroy her ability to adapt to her new circumstances. The love she finds in her new life will bring her joy – but it will also force her to face her greatest challenge.

Right from the first scene, when we meet Lysandra fighting for her life in the arena without knowing who she is or how she came to be there, Gladiatrix is packed with action. The numerous blow-by-blow fight sequences are detailed, graphic and cinematic, transporting the reader to the hot sands of the Roman arena in all its drama and brutality. Readers who like Bernard Cornwell and Simon Scarrow will find much to enjoy in Gladiatrix. Nor is the action confined to the arena – the tensions that develop between the characters add plenty of conflict to keep the plot barrelling along.

The closed world of the ludus is beautifully realised. Not only does the novel recreate the life and routine of a gladiator training school in loving detail, it also shows how the claustrophobic environment and the ever-present risk of death generate powerful emotional undercurrents. Professional rivalries, nationalistic hatreds, personal attractions and enmities are all writ large. For all her Spartan coolness, Lysandra finds herself inexorably drawn into a passionate whirlwind of love, jealousy, tragedy and revenge.

Lysandra is an intriguing central character. She frequently reflects on the superiority of her own intelligence, education and upbringing, and makes no secret of the fact that she considers everyone else her inferior. Several of the characters comment that the harsh upbringing of the Spartan agoge makes people hard, cold and lacking in imagination. Yet Lysandra is kind to a downtrodden slave girl, and her assumption of superiority is so sincere that it rather grows on you. It becomes endearing in a way, especially when the cannier characters such as Balbus and the priest Telemachus neatly outmanoeuvre her even as she is congratulating herself on her astuteness. Her physical prowess is extraordinary. When we first meet her, she is capable of decapitating an opponent with a single blow, and she very quickly becomes the leader of a group of gladiatrices on the strength of her martial ability. Not her interpersonal skills! Lysandra’s skill and courage earn her respect, but her weakness is her complete inability to see other people’s point of view, and that, combined with her startling tactlessness and her aloof pride bordering on arrogance, earns her some implacable enemies. Given that she manages to antagonise even the kindly trainer Catuvolcos, it isn’t hard to understand why the sadistic Nastasen and the proud senior gladiatrix Sorina take such a bitter dislike to her.

The secondary characters are drawn as distinct individuals with their own hopes and fears. Shrewd Lucius Balbus has to strike a careful balance between pleasing his rich political patrons and turning a profit. The sympathetic Catuvolcos dreams of buying his freedom and settling down with his girl. The barbarian chieftain Sorina burns to gain her freedom in the arena and take vengeance on the Romans who captured her in battle, and the worldly priest Telemachus is all too aware of the need for donations to maintain his impoverished temple. Lysandra’s fellow trainees are distinct individuals from a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds and all walks of life. The no-nonsense German warrior Hildreth, the raunchy Greek island girl-who-never-says-no Penelope (an inspired choice of name if ever there was one) and the gentle Athenian housewife Danae are drawn together by the training and the risk of death they all share.

The book is written in straightforward modern English. Unfamiliar classical terms such as ludus, lanista and the numerous arena fighting styles are explained at first use, and can usually be worked out from context. Occasional modern expletives, explicit sex scenes and a brutal rape scene mean that Gladiatrix isn’t a novel for the easily offended, but the subject matter and the opening chapter should make this obvious in any case.

A useful author’s note sets out the inspiration for the story and the boundaries between fact and fiction, and more information can be found on the author’s website and the various sites linked from it. The intriguing Epilogue hints at a connection with Rome’s troubles in Dacia, leaving the way open for a potential sequel – which I will be looking forward to.

Action-packed adventure full of love, hate and the thrills and spills of the arena.

The White Mare, by Jules Watson. Book review

Edition reviewed: Orion, 2005, ISBN 0-75286-537-4

The White Mare is set in what is now Scotland in AD 79-81. All the main characters are fictional. The historical figures of Agricola, the Roman governor of Britannia at the time, and Calgacus, leader of a confederation of tribes in Caledonia*, are important secondary characters, and there is a walk-on part for the Roman historian Tacitus, who was Agricola’s son-in-law and whose history is the only documentary record of the events.

Rhiann is a princess and priestess of the Epidii tribe in what is now Argyll in the Western Highlands of Scotland. Her tribe, in common with the others in Alba* (the name used for Scotland throughout the novel), reckons royal descent through the female line instead of the male line, and Rhiann is the only woman of childbearing age in the Epidii royal family. She therefore has an inescapable duty to marry and bear a son who will be the next king of the Epidii – if she does not, some other clan of the Epidii, or perhaps even another tribe, will take over the Epidii by force. When Eremon, an exiled Irish prince, arrives in Epidii territory with his warband of loyal followers, the Epidii druid and chieftains demand that Rhiann marry Eremon as a political alliance. Recognising her duty, Rhiann agrees, but a traumatic experience has left her emotionally crippled and terrified of marriage. Meanwhile, in the south of Alba, the Roman governor Agricola is leading a military invasion that will threaten not only the Epidii but all the tribes of Alba. Rhiann and Eremon have to protect their own tribal territory against the Roman threat, persuade the other tribes to unite into a wider alliance, overcome a variety of enemies nearer to home, and somehow come to understand each other well enough to forge a lasting relationship out of their marriage of convenience.

I first heard of The White Mare when Marg of Reading Adventures reviewed it. I’m delighted to see this under-utilised period of history being explored in historical fiction. The only historical account is the biography of Agricola written by the Roman historian Tacitus (full-text translation available here). Tacitus was writing only a few years after the events, and as he was married to Agricola’s daughter he may well have had access to first-hand information from Agricola himself. This closeness to the events being described lends veracity to Tacitus’ account, though it should be remembered that he (like all historians) will have selected from the material available to him and presented that which he thought most relevant to his narrative. There are no sources telling the Caledonian side of the story. As a result, there are enormous gaps in our knowledge of the social structure, values, culture, religion, language and history of first-century tribal Scotland, leaving tremendous scope for the novelist’s imagination. The author will have had to make up most of Rhiann and Eremon’s world and the people in it, and a helpful Historical Note sets out the skeleton of historical facts and the reasoning behind some of the extrapolations (part of the Historical Note is posted on the author’s web site under ‘History’). I am not an expert on Iron Age Scotland by any means, but I found the novel plausible. The female royal line is controversial (in this period, most things are). Bede, writing in Northumbria in AD 731, says that the Picts* reckoned royal descent through the mother in his day, though he tells the story in the context of an origin myth and modern scholars have suggested that it may be a contemporary tradition rather than a fact. I know of no incontrovertible evidence either way, so you can take your choice. The religion of Iron Age Scotland is unknown, and the author has postulated two competing religions, a male-dominated religion with druids similar to those recorded in Gaul and further south in Britain, and a female-dominated religion based on worship of an earth-mother Goddess and rituals centred around stone circles. It has previously occurred to me to wonder whether there might be a connection between the tradition of female royal descent and worship of a powerful female deity, so I have no problem with seeing both in the novel. Again, there is no definite evidence either way.

The White Mare recreates the lost world of Iron Age Scotland in rich detail, with attention paid to politics, religion, legal and social structures, a working economy, and details of domestic life including food, drink, clothing, jewellery and medicine. It recognises that there were different points of view regarding the coming of the Romans, as the Votadini tribe of south-east Scotland are presented as co-operating with Agricola, which is entirely consistent with the role documented for the tribe in later Roman Britain. I have my doubts about the credibility of a Roman-style palace being built in the middle of the hill-fort at Traprain Law in AD 80 as described in the novel (the remains of its foundations and tiled roof would surely have been visible in archaeological excavations, and there is no mention of such remains in a reasonably recent article), but I don’t suppose the entire area of the fort has been meticulously excavated, so who’s to say? The central characters, Rhiann and Eremon, are firmly anti-Roman and so the novel gives more emphasis and sympathy to this point of view, but the Roman side of the story is presented as well and the Roman characters are not demonised. Agricola is a character in his own right, with his own desires and motivations, and a rather timid Roman engineer is occasionally used to observe and comment on Caledonian society.

The main characters are well rounded, with a mix of good and bad qualities. Both Rhiann and Eremon are complex and intelligent with a strong sense of duty, and both have previous painful experiences to overcome. Caitlin and Conaire are in some senses sunnier versions of the two leads, with less responsibility on their shoulders and consequently more opportunity to be fun and outgoing. The main plot driver is the relationship between Rhiann and Eremon, and the overall tone is one of epic drama, sometimes veering into melodrama. Occasional verbal sparring between Rhiann and Eremon, Caitlin’s artless chatter and laddish humour among the warriors provide a few glimpses of humour to lighten the tone.

The secondary characters, such as Gelert the crafty druid, cruel king Maelchon, scheming Samana and noble Calgacus, are vividly drawn, though their clearly defined roles in the plot limit the aspects that can be portrayed and they may appear somewhat one-dimensional. Rhiann is a strong character without being a warrior princess, and although the Goddess cult is feminist the society as a whole isn’t presented as a feminist utopia.

The novel is very long (605 pages) and rather slow, in part because the detailed world-building takes up a lot of room, and in part because Rhiann’s emotional trauma seems to be repeated rather more than I thought was necessary. It starts to pick up around page 250 or so, but I still found it a slow read and would have preferred a faster pace and fewer reminders of Rhiann’s personal problems. This may be because I found it hard to credit that Rhiann’s aunt, a fellow priestess in the Goddess cult, didn’t recognise the reason for Rhiann’s aversion to marriage until well over halfway through the novel, whereas it seemed obvious to me within a few pages.

Most of the plot elements are not resolved at the end of the novel. You have to read the sequel, The Dawn Stag (even longer), to find out what happens in the end, so be prepared to embark on a 1200+ page odyssey.

There is a strong spiritual and religious theme in The White Mare, particularly for the Goddess cult (the rival druid religion gets less emphasis). Occasionally this spiritual theme spills over into events that appear to be overtly magical. For example, Samana casts a spell on Eremon, and Rhiann uses some sort of magic to bewitch a Roman sentry and gain access to a Roman fort. As I’ve said elsewhere, I am not a great fan of fantasy elements in historical fiction, and for me this tended to weaken the story.

I found it odd that none of the characters ever compared their situation and the choices facing them with the recent experiences of the tribes further south in Britain. The White Mare is set only a generation or so later than Boudica’s revolt against Rome in AD 61 (review of a novel telling Boudica's story here), and Cartimandua’s reign as a pro-Roman client queen. Yet no-one in the novel ever tries to draw lessons from the decisions made by Boudica and Cartimandua and the other tribal leaders further south. Geographical isolation isn’t the explanation, as there is reference to a marriage alliance with a prince of the Trinovantes, one of the tribes that joined Boudica’s revolt, so clearly the tribes in the novel have contact with their contemporaries in the south of Britain. Cartimandua’s territory is likely to have bordered Votadinian territory so she and Samana might even have been neighbours. Maybe the tribes of Caledonia don’t consider the other British tribes worthy of attention (though they are evidently considered worthy of marriage alliances with royal females). Maybe the events were so traumatic they were wiped from popular memory. However, it also extends to the Roman side, as Agricola fought military campaigns in Britain shortly after Boudica's defeat, yet he never refers to her revolt and its aftermath as a dire warning of the consequences of resisting Rome. I find this apparent disconnect from recent history rather puzzling.

A richly detailed recreation of Iron Age Scotland at the time of the first-century Roman invasion.

*The nomenclature of the inhabitants of what is now modern Scotland is confusing in the extreme. Tacitus refers to Scotland north of the Forth and Clyde as Caledonia. In later centuries, Latin writers from the late Roman Empire (fourth century AD or so), and Bede, also writing in Latin, refer to the inhabitants of north-east Scotland (roughly, north of the Forth and east of the main spine of the Highland mountains) as Picts. Irish writers writing in Irish at the same sort of time as Bede refer to the same area as Alba and its inhabitants as Albans. No source preserves the name that the inhabitants of the area used for themselves in their own language, whatever it was. It is entirely possible that these different names refer to different tribes who displaced each other; for what it’s worth, I’m more inclined to think that the simplest explanation is that they are all different names for the same people, with ‘Picts’ and ‘Pictland’ replacing ‘Caledonia’ in later Latin sources (possibly by a similar process to that which replaced the names of medieval duchies with the names of the larger kingdoms that absorbed them, e.g. the areas that were Gascony and Aquitaine in the 13th century are now referred to as parts of France), and ‘Albans’ and ‘Alba’ being the equivalent terms in Irish Gaelic.