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 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.