by marthamarks | Language, WRITING CHALLENGES
Interesting. Enlightening. Gratifying. Perplexing. All describe readers’ online reviews… from an author’s point of view.
Sometimes, readers post gratifying comments, the kind you want to feature on your website.
Other times, readers post perplexing comments, as in the case of one reviewer of Rubies of the Viper who wrote: “Roman slaves did not use ‘ain’t’ or double negatives. That is new world slang and its use is really jarring in a novel set in ancient Rome.”
Another wrote: “Having someone in Rome say ‘ain’t’ and ‘he don’t’ puzzled me at first, then made me laugh. There HAVE to be better ways of showing class structure in Rome–where they spoke Latin–than using ungrammatical English.”
Hmmm.
Those comments raise a number of linguistic issues that I’d like to begin addressing here. Other posts on the subject of language will come later (see Avoiding Jabberwocky). I would love to hear your comments on this topic.
Let’s start with three basic assumptions:
- First-century Romans spoke Latin, not 21st-century English.
- First-century Latin would have sounded just as contemporary (perhaps even slangy) to 1st-century Roman ears as 21st-century English sounds to 21st-century British, Canadian, Australian, or American ears.
- Illiterate 1st-century slaves and freedmen would not have spoken Latin in the same way as their well-educated patrician masters.
To those assumptions, let’s add three equally basic corollaries:
- A 21st-century novelist writing about 1st-century Rome will write in a contemporary language (English, Chinese, Italian, Russian, etc). He or she will not write in Latin.
- That novelist will have important linguistic choices to make.
- Most readers will understand and accept those choices; unfortunately, some will not.
It’s worth considering how authors in previous centuries dealt with these same language issues.
Reading 19th-century novels about 1st-century Rome—great works such as The Last Days of Pompeii (1834), Ben Hur (1880), and Quo Vadis (1896)—you find characters of all classes employing Biblical- or Shakespearean-sounding constructions such as “Dost thou think ’tis time to leave?” and “Hast not thy father returned?” All three novels were hugely popular, so the linguistic choices their authors made must have sounded right to readers of the era.
Nowadays, an author who employed archaic words such as dost, hast, canst, thou, and thy would be laughed out of the bookstore. English has moved on, and so has the manner in which contemporary novelists portray the speech of ancient characters.
The question of the moment boils down to this:
How should a 21st-century author, writing a novel in modern English about 1st-century Rome, convey the speech patterns of educated patricians and illiterate slaves and freedmen?
I see a range of alternatives, each with its own downside(s).
- One could write all the dialogue in correct English and assume readers will figure out that some characters surely are speaking correct Latin and others surely are not. One might even drive home the point early in the book that “So-and-so spoke poor Latin” and say no more about it. That would be the safest approach, but to me the subsequent dialogue would lack both sparkle and verisimilitude.
- One could write all the dialogue in correct English and consistently tag each line spoken by a slave as “Stefan said in uneducated Latin” or “Lucilla asked in slangy Latin” or “Alexander remarked in proper-but-accented Latin.” In a book with several major slave characters—such as Stefan, Lucilla, and Alexander in Rubies of the Viper—tag lines of that sort would get old very fast.
- One could attempt to create a “Br’er Rabbit” or “Uncle Remus” type of slave brogue in an effort to convey the sound of illiterate Latin. A hundred years ago, that technique was acceptable, but today it would backfire in unimaginable ways. Besides, it would be nearly impossible to read… and tiring!
- One could use a few patterns of ungrammatical (but still common and comprehensible) English—“I ain’t” or “He don’t” or “Nobody said nothing”—to suggest the kind of ungrammatical (but still common and comprehensible) Latin that uneducated 1st-century slaves and freedmen must have spoken. To me, that sounded like the most reasonable approach, and it’s what I chose to do in Rubies of the Viper. The downside, of course, it that some readers will be turned off because “Roman slaves did not use ‘ain’t’ or double negatives.”
Well.
It’s true that uneducated 1st-century slaves did not literally say “I ain’t” or “He don’t,” because they were speaking Latin badly, not speaking English badly. But how else can an author who does not know Latin convey the essence of bad Latin grammar to a reader who also does not know Latin? And even if an author does know Latin, would dropping in bad Latinisms really be the best way to convey the flavor of illiterate speakers of Latin to a broad, English-speaking, modern audience?
To extend that thought… educated 1st-century Romans like Theodosia, Vespasian, Flavia, and Titus—and even educated slaves like Alexander—did not use English contractions or slang either. I guess I’m lucky that, so far, nobody has objected to contraction-filled, slangy (“Father’s so tight!”), dropped-subjects, bubbly-daughter, and generally casual-but-educated dialogue like this snip from pages 18-19 of the paperback edition of Rubies of the Viper:
“Oooooh, what wonderful goblets!” Flavia turned hers around and inspected it closely. “This is the biggest ruby I’ve ever seen, and… what an amazing design!”
“Looks like a serpent eating an apple,” Titus said.
“Is that your family crest?” Flavia asked.
“I’ve never seen it before.” Theodosia turned toward Alexander. “Are these family pieces?”
“No, mistress. My lord Gaius brought them from Rome last year.”
“Oooooh, they’re exquisite!” Flavia ran her finger around the edge of her goblet and down the raised silver face of the ruby-eating snake. “Look at this… even little rubies in the eyes. You’re lucky to have such beautiful things, Theodosia.” She made a show of pouting. “Father’s just so tight. Won’t spend money on anything. Everything we use is as dull and practical as what our slaves use.”
“Soon, my girl,” her father said, “you can squander Lucius Sergius’ money. Let’s hope he’s rich enough to buy you all the things you want.”
As I said above… I welcome your comments on this subject. Please do let me know what you think!
—text copyright © Martha Marks—
photograph copyright © Generale Lee (own work)
by marthamarks | Flavia Domitilla, HISTORICAL CHARACTERS, The Flavians, Women (Roman)
Well, no, Flavia Domitilla isn’t missing completely. She comes to life in the pages of Rubies of the Viper. It’s only in history that she goes missing.
And that was the fate of the vast majority of women throughout history, including first-century Roman women. It wasn’t that they didn’t live good, satisfying lives. We have to hope they did. But they left no record that endured beyond their deaths… which unfortunately came very early to most of them. (See What Theodosia Never Learned for more on the lives of upper-class Roman women.)
The best proof is the illustration on this page. Do a Google search on any of the three emperors in the famous Flavian dynasty—Vespasian, Titus, Domitian—and you’ll turn up plenty of contemporary sculptures showing their strong, masculine faces. But search for Vespasian’s daughter/Titus and Domitian’s sister and you get what you see here: a single coin. That’s it. And we only have that because, after her death, Emperor Domitian declared her a goddess and punched out a series of coins with her image. Luckily, at least one of those coins survived.
I find the profile portrait on this coin fascinating. With her classic Roman nose and jutting chin, Flavia Domitilla looks exactly as I picture the entire clan, based on those busts of the three Flavian emperors.
Even Flavia Domitilla’s name betrays the anonymity of her life. This particular woman’s mother was named Flavia Domitilla, and her daughter was named Flavia Domitilla. Typical for the time. Women took feminine versions of their fathers’ and husbands’ names. If there was more than one daughter in the family, they were all named the same… set apart from each another only as prima (first), secunda (second), tertia (third), and so on. Emperor Vespasian’s wife and daughter were distinguished from one another as Flavia Domitilla Major (elder) and Flavia Domitilla Minor (younger).
Flavia Domitilla Minor was born around A.D. 45 and died around A.D. 66. Specific dates aren’t known. Both mother and daughter died before Vespasian became emperor in A.D. 69. The younger Flavia’s husband was a military man; her daughter, Flavia Domitilla, is revered as a saint in the Greek Orthodox Church. That’s just about all we know about Vespasian’s daughter.
So… I had a true tabula rasa to play with in portraying Flavia Domitilla (the middle one) in Rubies of the Viper.
As revealed in the Historical Note at the end of my novel, for story purposes I made her a few years older than she was in real life in A.D. 53-56 and invented a non-military husband for her. In the book, she’s a girl in her early teens, with an impish, vibrant personality. Here are two snippets of dialogue from Chapter Three that I believe capture the essence of such a girl and her relationship with her father, brother and new friend, Theodosia:
A year or so younger than her brother and pretty in an immature way, Flavia exuded warmth and self-assurance.
“I’ve been dying to meet you, Theodosia. Actually, everyone’s been curious, even Father.”
“But we really didn’t come just to gawk,” Vespasian said, “despite what Flavia says. So… just ignore her.”
“That’s all he ever does,” Flavia said. “Ignore me.”
“We came to invite you to dinner—”
“See? Ignoring me!”
“To meet the neighboring landowners. Important folk, all of them. Interested?”
Theodosia laughed at this example of resolute ignoring.
“Yes, but… only if you’ll stay and have lunch with me today. Eating alone is going to get old fast. I can see that already.”
* * *
Titus sat down next to Theodosia and laid his hand on her arm.
“How is it that you’re not married yet?”
“Never found anyone I wanted to marry who wanted to marry me. And at this point, I’m probably too old.”
“Not a chance!” said Vespasian.
Flavia had pulled a roll apart and was stuffing it with cheese. Now she stared into Theodosia’s face.
“That’s unbelievable. Someone as beautiful as you had no suitors?”
“Nobody I’d consider. A couple of greasy freedmen. What Roman nobleman wants an orphaned, half-Greek girl with no dowry?”
Flavia shook her head in mock sympathy, her eyes agleam.
“Oooooh, well… I guess that’s one thing you needn’t worry about any more!”
Theodosia felt a blush creep into her cheeks. Titus’ hand on her arm suddenly felt very warm; she slipped out from under it on the pretense of reaching for a roll.
—text copyright © Martha Marks—
by marthamarks | A Rare Breed, HISTORICAL CHARACTERS, The Flavians, Titus
Titus Flavius Sabinus Vespasianus the Younger (A.D. 39-81)—known simply as Titus—was the elder son of the general who in A.D. 69 emerged victorious after a year-long civil war and became Emperor Vespasian. A decade later, following Vespasian’s death in A.D. 79, Titus assumed the throne… establishing the first family dynasty other than the Julio-Claudian.
Vespasian and Titus were men of generally good character who stand out to this day for their leadership and the stability they brought to the empire.
They also happen to play important supporting roles in Rubies of the Viper and The Viper Amulet.
Researching the historical Titus for my novel was an enjoyable experience. While Vespasian and others fretted over his immature foolishness—including numerous sexual escapades—history also remembers him as a handsome young man with an engaging personality and a drive to achieve military greatness that fully matched his father’s. I worked hard to capture the essence of his character and feel confident that I succeeded.
The first major challenge of Titus’ life came in A.D. 70, when he was thirty. His father—a former general now in his first year as emperor—was dealing at once with the after effects of civil war and with an uprising in Judea that had preoccupied him as a professional soldier since A.D. 67. Titus had been at his father’s side in Judea throughout that time, commanding one of his legions. Once Vespasian returned to Rome to claim the throne that his loyal legions had won for him, Titus assumed full responsibility for suppressing the Jewish revolt.
And suppress it he did. Under Titus, the Roman legions not only defeated the rebellions Jews, they crushed them and destroyed their city (Jerusalem) and temple. Reprisals were brutal. Clearly, Titus and his emperor-father wanted to make an example that would deter other would-be rebels. Vespasian was so pleased with the results and proud of his son that he erected the Arch of Titus—which still stands in Rome—to commemorate his great victory.
During his father’s reign, Titus occupied several major positions in the imperial government… becoming virtually co-emperor. Vespasian groomed his son to be his successor, and when the emperor died in June 79, Titus was prepared.
Good thing, too, because the second great challenge of his life came quickly… just two months later in August 79. When the eruption of Mount Vesuvius destroyed the coastal towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum and the villages of Stabiae and Oplontis, Titus was just getting a handle on his new job. Still, his efforts on multiple fronts—ranging from appointing skilled leaders to direct the recovery to giving large amounts of his personal funds to aid the survivors—won him widespread praise. First-century historian Suetonius dubbed him “Mankind’s Darling.”
Titus is also remembered for his aggressive building program. His most lasting legacy was the completion of the Flavian Amphitheater (aka Colosseum), which his father had begun a decade earlier.
It’s interesting to contemplate how great Titus might have become had he enjoyed as long a time as emperor as his father did. But he died suddenly in 81, a mere two years into his reign… possibly by poison administered by his brother. His cryptic last words— “I have made but one mistake.” —were widely taken to mean that he should have executed Domitian when he had the chance.
Domitian subsequently ruled the empire for fifteen years until he too was murdered.
—text copyright © Martha Marks—
by marthamarks | A Rare Breed, HISTORICAL CHARACTERS, The Flavians, Vespasian
In ancient Rome, the father of a family was the all-powerful paterfamilias. He owned the family property and ruled the roost in every way. And the lord of this domestic castle didn’t just command his wife, slaves, and underage children. Even his grown male children were legally under the control of their father to a great extent until his death.
Of all the characters in Rubies of the Viper, General (and later Emperor) Vespasian is the only paterfamilias who plays an important role. He played an important role in first-century Roman history too, not just in my novel.
Titus Flavius Sabinus Vespasianus the Elder (as Vespasian was known in the first century) was born in A.D. 9 into a family of ambiguous social position. His father was a plebeian tax collector; his mother was the sister of a patrician senator. Their son rose in society through his military accomplishments and came to be revered as the conqueror of Britain by commanding the victorious Second Augustan Legion during the invasion in A.D. 43.
In A.D. 53, when Rubies of the Viper begins, General Vespasian is lying low, hoping not to call attention to himself. In a world ruled by paranoid emperors like Claudius and Nero, a too-visible military hero might well find himself murdered… simply for raising his head high enough to look like a potential rival. So Vespasian is hanging out in Caere—a tiny town most noted for its proximity to a thousand-year-old Etruscan necropolis—happily enjoying a quiet life with his children, Titus, Flavia Domitilla, and Domitian, when he first gets to know Theodosia Varro.
But still, in his real life, the Flavian paterfamilias harbored an ambition for power, and in A.D. 69 he made his move. In that “Year of Four Emperors” —following the murder of Emperor Galba and the suicide of Galba’s murderous successor, Emperor Otho—troops loyal to Vespasian defeated the third short-termer, Emperor Vitellius. Vespasian emerged as an emperor with the smarts and popular support to survive.
His proudest accomplishment as emperor—from a Roman perspective, not a Jewish one—came in A.D. 70, when, under the leadership of his eldest son, General Titus Flavius Sabinus Vespasianus the Younger (aka simply “Titus”), Roman forces crushed the rebellious Jews, sacked Jerusalem, and destroyed their Temple.
Despite the terrible destruction that his policies wrought on those peoples (Britains, Jews, and others) who resisted the might of Rome, Vespasian’s character was almost exactly as it’s portrayed in Rubies of the Viper. He was widely respected as a frugal, honest, earthy man with a sense of humor and a great love of the Sabine land of his ancestors.
After the terrors of Nero and a Civil War, Vespasian’s reign gave the empire a decade of welcome relief. He ruled the Roman Empire with unaccustomed wisdom and frugality until his death in 79, when Titus succeeded him on the throne… becoming the first father-son dynasty in Rome’s history.
—text copyright © Martha Marks—
by marthamarks | A Rare Breed, Flavia Domitilla, HISTORICAL CHARACTERS, The Flavians, Titus, Vespasian
First-century Roman emperors have a bad reputation. Cruel. Demented. Lascivious. Spendthrift. That stereotype holds true for some (Caligula, Nero, Domitian), but it’s not fair to them all. A few first-century emperors used their power quite well.
Two who most definitely did not fit the stereotype were Emperor Vespasian and his son, Emperor Titus… dubbed “mankind’s darling” by his contemporaries.
Some time back, the members of Amazon’s Ancient Rome discussion forum conducted an in-house poll on this question: Who were the best Roman emperors? Opinions differed, but two men showed up at the top of all the lists: “The Flavians” Vespasian and Titus.
That was no surprise to me. Years ago, when I started work on Rubies of the Viper, my story really began taking shape after I discovered the Flavians. They were just what I was looking for: a true-life family of down-to-earth, first-century Romans living quietly in the country north of Rome, where much of my story would take place. They were the right people in the right time and place who added tremendous historical texture to the story I was building around my fictional co-protagonists, Theodosia and Alexander. As an extra bonus, three members of the family went on to become emperors, which gives them more than passing interest for history buffs. (They also offered great potential for a sequel should I ever decide to write one, as I now am.) I spent a great deal of time researching the Flavian family, was impressed with what I learned, and went to great lengths to portray them accurately.
The Flavians weren’t old-guard, moneyed aristocrats. Vespasian’s father was a tax collector… not high-status work. His wife, Flavia Domitilla, died young (as the majority of women did), leaving Vespasian to raise his children alone. He did have a freedwoman mistress to whom he was devoted for many years and whom he tried—bucking fierce social opposition—to move into the palace as his consort when he became emperor.
In addition to Titus, Vespasian had a second son, Domitian (Emperor Domitian), and a daughter named, like her mother, Flavia Domitilla. (And that daughter would go on to have her own daughter named—guess what?—Flavia Domitilla. Such was the fate of Roman women… virtually no personal identification.)
The Flavian men’s actual Latin names are confusing, too, though not quite so much as their women’s. Vespasian, the father, was Titus Flavius Sabinus Vespasianus the Elder; his first son (the future Emperor Titus) was Titus Flavius Sabinus Vespasianus the Younger; and his second son (the future Emperor Domitian) was Titus Flavius Domitianius. Got that straight, gentle reader?
Of the male members of this family’s two generations who became emperors, Vespasian and Titus went down in history as great leaders. Ultimately, Domitian would tarnish the family name, but neither his father, nor his brother, nor his sister lived to see it. And even his vile actions—Domitian was a big-time persecutor of early Christians, earning himself the moniker of “Second Nero” —could not destroy their own fine reputations.
Since all four Flavians—Vespasian, Titus, Domitian, and Flavia Domitilla—play roles in Rubies of the Viper, I’ll add separate posts about each of them, exploring who they were and why they earned the historical reputations that they have.
—text copyright © Martha Marks—
by marthamarks | Rome
Among the many intriguing first-century locations where Rubies of the Viper takes place—Nero’s sumptuous palace, Theodosia’s Villa Varroniana, an Etruscan necropolis, and others—none fascinated me more as I was writing than the infamous slum known as Subura.
The area known as Subura, a notorious part of the ancient city of Rome, was originally a swamp lying between the Viminal Hill and the Esquiline Hill. Sometime around 600 B.C., the Cloaca Maxima (“Greatest Sewer”) was built through the area to serve the twin purposes of carrying human waste to the Tiber River and draining the swamp for development. As one might expect, given the technology of 600 B.C., the drainage wasn’t perfect, so Subura remained an unsanitary, mosquito-infested, disease-ridden place to live.
At first, it was the home of respectable citizens, including the family of Gaius Julius Caesar. Single-family houses were the norm, as were prosperous shops. It was also the site of an early Jewish synagogue.
Over time, as hordes of foreigners, landless former farmers (see Gigantic Estates), and impoverished ex-slaves poured into the city looking for work, Subura turned into a noisy, dirty, and wet dumping ground for the dregs of society. There was no law enforcement. No social order. No sanitation. No safety net. Prostitutes, pimps, and pickpockets flourished. Tiny shops built into the walls of houses offered fish, eggs, cabbages, bread, and other cheap provisions. Barbers, cobblers, and peddlers of tinware and fabrics cluttered the narrow streets.
In a first-century version of “white flight,” prosperous Romans literally headed for the hills, two of which—the Caelian and the Palatine—would forever after be enclaves of wealth and nobility.
Here’s how a Rubies of the Viper reader experiences Subura on Theodosia’s first visit back there after spending months in her luxurious coastal villa:
Overhead loomed the wooden firetraps where thousands of Rome’s poorest, mostly foreigners and former slaves, found crude shelter but little else. So tall and tightly packed were the buildings that the sun made its way to the streets for only a few hours a day. An open window on the top storey of one building belched the sounds of a ferocious argument. Balcony-hung laundry—flapping and snapping in the breeze—formed a counterpoint to the slaps and curses and breaking pottery.
Nor was life any more pleasant on the ground. A pack of feral dogs—nosing through the offal and creating more—snarled if anyone came too close. Four naked toddlers played unattended in the dirt. A trio of drunks quarreled in a corner bar. The streets stank of urine, sewage, and rotting garbage.
Theodosia’s house stood in a slightly better neighborhood in the heart of Subura, where people owned their single-storey homes and attached street-side shops. Buildings were lower, so there was more sunlight. At one time, the entire area had been like this, but the surrounding blocks had been razed over the years to pack in more cheap housing.
She stopped in front of the shop where Dinos—the elderly sandal maker who was her tenant—and his slave eked out a living and slept on the floor. Dinos’ meager payments had been Theodosia’s main income for years, but she had charged him no rent since Gaius died.
Dinos was sitting on a shaded stool just inside the doorway, a bright-eyed spider alert for prey in the web of sandals spread out along the edge of the street. Now he hopped down… eyes agog at the sight of Theodosia.
—text copyright © Martha Marks—
by marthamarks | Theodosia Varro, Women (Roman)
Recently, I was intrigued by the opinion of a young reviewer of Rubies of the Viper who complained that Theodosia “made bad decisions” and “acted like an idiot.” Since a different reviewer on Amazon had a similar “stupid heroine” gripe, this reaction to my protagonist was worth thinking about.
It was time, I decided, for a discussion of DRAMATIC IRONY.
After thanking the young woman for her review, I gently suggested that she do a Google search on the term dramatic irony, because it might help her better understand what’s going on in my novel and hundreds of others that she’ll read in her lifetime. She did look it up and later changed her review to reflect her increased knowledge of how an author uses literary devices (such as dramatic irony, point of view, and others) to build tension and play with a reader’s emotions.
Complaints about my “stupid” protagonist seem to be based on who Theodosia is at the start of the novel: a naive, inexperienced young woman thrust without preparation into a complex and dangerous situation. (See What Theodosia Never Learned and Not Your Garden-Variety Roman Lady.)
The reader first sees what’s happening from inside Theodosia’s head (her point of view, or POV), which provides one interpretation of events. Soon after, the reader goes inside Alexander’s head (his POV), which provides a very different interpretation of events. The POV alternates from Theodosia to Alexander throughout the novel, offering readers a shifting perspective on the fictional “reality” of the novel. Along the way, there is also omniscient narration (a third POV), which provides yet another interpretation of events.
In other words… the reader benefits from seeing the “reality” of the novel from a variety of perspectives, while the protagonist can only see that “reality” through her own POV, which is often incomplete.
Theodosia doesn’t know everything the reader knows, or even everything Alexander knows. The result is dramatic irony, a major source of tension in Rubies of the Viper and scads of other works.
Without spoiling the plot for those who have not yet read my novel, I can offer the following example:
At the beginning—the very morning after her brother’s murder—Marcus Salvio Otho begins setting Theodosia up to see him as a good guy… her brother’s best friend and a trustworthy advisor/confidant to her. As a naive, innocent, unprepared young woman who has never spoken with Otho before, she has no reason to question what he’s saying and doing. But Alexander, who has years of experience dealing with Otho, isn’t fooled. By being inside Alexander’s mind (his POV) when the reader first meets Otho in person, we get a clear picture of who and what Otho is. Theodosia has no experience dealing with rich, patrician suitors, so it’s easy for Otho to sweep her off her feet. Later, of course, she comes to see him just as Alexander—and the reader—saw him all along.
Is Theodosia stupid not to see Otho as he really is from the beginning? Read on, and we’ll address that question below.
There are actually many layers of dramatic irony in Rubies of the Viper, and they all have different effects on Theodosia… and on the reader’s emotions.
At one point, Theodosia finds out that Stefan has been sleeping with her maid, Lucilla. It’s a shock to her, but not to the reader or to Alexander. Is Theodosia stupid not to see this earlier?
And later, when Theodosia is incarcerated, she doesn’t know if Alexander, Stefan, and Lycos got away or not. The reader learns what happened to them long before she does. Is Theodosia stupid not to know this earlier?
And later, Theodosia reacts badly when led to believe that Flavia has betrayed her, but the reader knows that’s not true. Is Theodosia stupid not to realize this earlier?
Etc, etc, etc. I could go on and on, but I don’t want to give away the whole plot!
This kind of dramatic irony is a major source of tension in lots of books, not just mine. When we readers know more than the characters do, we often find ourselves cringing or saying “No, don’t do it!!!” We see disaster ahead and want to warn the characters, but we have no power to stop them from making dumb/innocent mistakes.
Now that I’ve shown a few examples of how dramatic irony plays out in Rubies of the Viper, let me offer info from other sources:
A good basic definition from Wikipedia: “Dramatic irony is the device of giving the spectator an item of information that at least one of the characters in the narrative is unaware of (at least consciously), thus placing the spectator a step ahead of at least one of the characters.”
Here’s perceptive snip (and there’s plenty more!) from TVtropes.org:
Dramatic irony lets the audience “see the whole picture when the protagonist, or even the entire cast, is kept largely in the dark.
“Fat lot of good it does us though. When dramatic irony crops up, it’s usually not to let us feel smugly superior. It’s to toy with our fragile little emotions. If we’re lucky, the emotion being manipulated will be amusement. If we’re not, dramatic irony will be present to make us cringe or bite our fingernails down to the knuckles.
“To really fit the definition though, one of the characters must make a statement, or perform an action, to fully illustrate that they are unaware of the situation. To the character, what they’re saying or doing is perfectly sensible based on the knowledge they have. To the audience though, the statement or action is ludicrous or dangerously uninformed.” (emphasis mine)
And with that, I think the question I posed above has an obvious answer.
No, Theodosia is not stupid. As the story progresses, she sorts through all the red herrings, pieces together the real clues, and ultimately uncovers the deepest secrets of **both** of the men who killed her brother. She just doesn’t always know everything the reader knows… and therein lies much of the suspense.
—except as noted, text copyright © Martha Marks—
by marthamarks | Nizzo, Otho
Of all the characters in Rubies of the Viper, I probably had the most fun with Otho and Nizzo. Neither one of them is a nice man. Could it be that’s the reason they were such rollicking pleasures to create and, I hope, read about?
Hmmm…
Marcus Salvius Otho was a real man who played an interesting role in first-century history, so in my novel I had to make him as true-to-life as possible. And I think I did… as regards his overbearing personality, his foppish physical traits, his driving ambition, and his willingness to claw and crawl all over anybody who got in his way.
History has not been kind to Otho. He’s generally remembered as a bully who—with the unique exception of his time as governor of Lusitania (now Portugal)—squandered most of the golden opportunities that fate put into his hands. Equally loaded with ambition and personality flaws, he rose to become emperor of the Roman Empire only to commit suicide three months later.
A nasty man for sure, with very little nice about him.
Aulus Terentius Nizzo , on the other hand, is purely a figment of my imagination… a complete tabla rasa for my creative juices. Even his name was fun to concoct. His slave name (Nizzo)—carried over as his cognomen—is what most people in the novel call him. His praenomen (Aulus) and nomen (Terentius) came from his master, Aulus Terentius Varro (Theodosia’s father), the man who liberated him and with his name gave him a legal identity.
Nizzo first appears in Chapter 9 of Rubies of the Viper as a former farm slave—now a freedman—who runs the vast agricultural estate that Theodosia Varro has inherited from Gaius, her morally corrupt and recently murdered half-brother. And his role grows increasingly important as the story builds toward its conclusion.
From a physical point of view, Nizzo is exactly what one might expect of a former slave now in charge of an immense plantation: dirty, brutish, and foul-mouthed. He doesn’t hesitate to exercise the power he has over powerless people who don’t belong to him but are completely under his control.
He’s definitely not the kind of guy a young lady like Theodosia Varro would care to hang out with.
But his deep-down personal qualities are less easy to characterize. Before Theodosia meets Nizzo, Alexander assures her that the farm manager is worthy of respect:
“There’s a reason why your father lifted that one man above a thousand others who started exactly where he did and placed him in charge of them, even while he was still a slave. Nizzo isn’t polished, but he’s smart and tough and honest and ambitious.”
Those sterling traits aren’t easy for Theodosia to recognize, however. It takes three years and a lot of suffering on her part before she finally comes to see Nizzo for what he really is. And that’s as much as I’m going to say on that subject, because to delve further into it would spoil the story.
Suffice it to say that, while “nice” isn’t a word that anybody would credibly pin on Nizzo, “nasty” isn’t exactly the right word for him either.
—text copyright © Martha Marks—
by marthamarks | Agriculture
In Rubies of the Viper , the Varro family’s closest-to-home source of wealth is their large agricultural estate, or plantation (latifundium; pl: latifundia). This was a relatively recent development in the first century A.D. and an important one. It’s worth understanding how the latifundia developed and how they changed Roman society forever.
The traditional Italian lifestyle was based on the family farm.
For hundreds of years—from the original tribal settlements (starting about 1,000-900 B.C.) through the Roman kings (752 B.C.-509 B.C.) and the first centuries of the Roman Republic (509 B.C.-27 B.C.)—family-owned and -operated farms were the backbone of the economy. Small-scale, privately owned parcels could be worked productively by a free man and his wife, sons, and daughters, plus a handful of born-on-the-farm slaves (collectively called the familia rustica).
The great latifundia came about as the result of war and other interrelated social changes.
1. During the Punic Wars (against Carthage, 3rd to 2nd century B.C.), many Italian farmers were compelled to serve in the Roman army and sometimes spent years at a time away from home. In their absence, wives and children—hard pressed to maintain the agricultural activities that had sustained their families—often were forced to sell their land and slaves to wealthier individuals, simply to survive.
2. In the second century B.C., the ager publicus—large tracts of publicly owned lands in newly conquered parts of Italy and beyond—began to be leased to generals, to heroes of military campaigns, and to wealthy individuals. At first, these estates were modeled on the traditional single-family farm, each with its villa (similar to Theodosia’s Villa Varroniana), near-by pastures, and crop land.
3. As time went on, slaves from conquered lands began to be imported into Italy. Most had done agricultural work at home, so it made sense to put them to work on Italian estates. As the conquests mounted, so did the number of slaves brought in.
4. It didn’t take long before this vast pool of cheap labor began to put the family farmers out of business. Few small, family-owned and -worked farms could compete with the gigantic, slave-worked latifundia. One after another, farmers sold their land and slaves to wealthier people, many of them absentee landlords, who gradually solidified their control over the agricultural landscape. (Obviously, this situation was much like that of modern corporate agribusinesses, which outcompete and often buy up the small family farms in a given area.)
5. Former land owners were forced to seek other ways of making a living. Most either became tenant farmers on land they had previously owned, or joined the army, or migrated to Rome, where they added to the burgeoning population of urban poor living in a vast slum called Subura.
In one Rubies of the Viper scene, set in A.D. 53, the fast-fading, traditional farming lifestyle is reflected in the following exchange between Theodosia Varro and two legionaries:
“Do you build bonfires, Vespillo, when you’re home for Saturnalia?”
“Sure. We’ve only got three slaves to work the fields with my father, but tonight they’ll be the kings of the harvest. Father and my sisters should be serving ‘em dinner about now.” He sighed. “I ain’t been home for Saturnalia in years.”
“Where’s home?”
“Arretium. Just this side of the Apennines.”
“So… you’re an Umbrian! And you, sir?”
“From Tarentum, in the south,” Silvanus said. “Too poor to have land or slaves. Me and my oldest son are both in the army. My wife and younger children live off our wages. Ain’t much of a life.”
And this description accurately captures the history of the land that now belongs to Theodosia:
Rolling pinewoods stretched for miles on both sides of the Via Aurelia, broken only by occasional patches of once-cultivated land. A century earlier—before the rise of rich landowners like the Varros—those had been small farms. Now they fed no one. Few farm families could compete with the big, slave-worked plantations.
Theodosia felt a quick flash of guilt. Still, there was no denying that those overgrown fields were beautiful. Gray-green leaves of gnarled olive trees rustled in the breeze. Strips of wildflowers carpeted the spaces between them and spread out along the roadway, mixed with wild fennel and rosemary. The scent was incomparable.
She led the way across a stone bridge toward a hill that promised a fine view of the sea. Guiding the filly off the paving stones, she threaded her way up the slope through pines and plane trees. At the top, she reined in again to savor the panorama of her property. To the north and east lay forests and hills. Somewhere inland was the farm. To the southwest, beside the sea, sat her villa… its red-tile roof seemingly afire in the afternoon sun.
—text copyright © Martha Marks—
by marthamarks | Italy, Rural Places
An Etruscan necropolis outside the ancient Italian town of Caere (modern-day Cerveteri) serves as a “sleeper” location in Rubies of the Viper. I say “sleeper” because at first the necropolis seems merely to provide local color, but it turns out to play a critical role in the story.
I had already written Rubies of the Viper, including those scenes in the necropolis, before I actually set foot in that real-life city of the dead… at which point I was delighted to discover how spot-on my descriptions (based on extensive research) were—both on the outside and within a specific tomb. Walking those ancient, rutted streets gave me goose bumps… not only because of the Etruscan presence on that spot thousands of years earlier, but also because several very-real-to-me characters had also “been there.” I kept saying to my husband: “Alexander did such-and-such right here!” and “That’s where Theodosia met so-and-so!”
The necropolis near Caere/Cerveteri was almost a millennium old by the first century A.D. It had been established circa 900-800 B.C. by the Etruscans, a local tribe that ultimately colonized a large area that included all of modern Tuscany. The etymological root of “Tuscany” is, of course, “Etruscan.” (Similarly, the body of water to the west of the Italian peninsula was called the Etruscan Sea in Roman times; it’s still known as the Tyrrhenian Sea… “Tyrrhenian” being another word for “Etruscan.”)
The Etruscan culture is fascinating for many reasons. Unlike most other ancient civilizations (and many modern ones), they enjoyed equality of the sexes. They were the first tribe in Italy to develop writing, using an alphabet they created based on the Greek one. Their language was spoken for well over a thousand years… continuing in use for several hundred years A.D. Rivals to the Greeks, they developed impressive agricultural and shipping enterprises as well as finely crafted works of art.
By the time Theodosia, Alexander, and Stefan paid their first visit there in A.D. 53, the necropolis at Caere had already been plundered for treasures (coins, jewels, pottery, funeral urns, etc)… the best of which ended up in homes of the uber-wealthy… such as Theodosia’s Villa Varroniana.
From the outside, the necropolis at Caere/Cerveteri is a mass of grass-covered, beehive-shaped mounds, plus a few rectangular structures, all connected by a series of unpaved streets with deep ruts carved over the centuries by wagons bearing bodies to the tombs. This web page offers two exterior photos, a map, and additional information.
On the inside, the tombs were set up like the Etruscans’ homes: with benches, rooms, doors, colorful frescoes on the walls, etc. They were mostly subterranean, so they had stairs—in some cases quite long ones—leading down from the street.
For somebody else’s photos of the tombs, click here and be sure to click “next” to see many more great images.
The image above is from the Italian website, Comune di Cerveteri.
—text copyright © Martha Marks—
