by marthamarks | HISTORICAL CHARACTERS, WRITING CHALLENGES
Historical fiction is exciting to write because it offers opportunities to explore a different world from the one we live in. Inventing characters to fit into distant places and times is mostly fun, but mixing fictional characters with people who actually lived in another era ups the ante, not only with creative challenges but with a responsibility to abide by the historical reality.
Invented characters must be true to the times in which they are placed. A fifteenth-century damsel can’t go off to her job as a news broadcaster. But as long as we avoid anachronisms and don’t engage our characters in activities that couldn’t or wouldn’t have happened in the time and place we’re writing about, we’re free to have them say, do, and be whatever we please.
Not so when bringing real people to life in fiction. They’ve been written about already in contemporary records, history texts, or earlier works of fiction. Their existence was noted at the time they lived, with some degree of accuracy, if not always objectivity. Their lives, deeds, personalities, and manner of death (place, time, cause, etc) are often well known. We cannot tamper with those things.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t use our creative vision to flesh them out. In fact, if we choose to include them in our fiction, we must flesh them out. Cardboard characters, real or invented, are of no interest to anybody. So we pour over the history books in search of the living people we seek to portray, then exercise our best talents to make them seem as “real” as they were in life.
In Rubies of the Viper, the protagonist, Theodosia, and most of the supporting cast are invented, but six historical people also play important roles.
Four of those are future emperors at the start of the novel: Nero, Otho, Vespasian, and Vespasian’s elder son, Titus. Their lives, personalities, and characteristics are well documented in historical records. (Vespasian’s younger son, the future Emperor Domitian, appears in one of my scenes as a small child. Even though he doesn’t speak, I did my best to suggest the man he would become.)
I saw my role as recreating these future emperors as fully as possible without altering their true stories and essential natures. It was a challenge to start with the historical facts about each one and imagine how—on his rise to the pinnacle of power—he might have acted, talked, and related to Theodosia.
Nero actually was a pampered, self-indulgent prince, but he might by turns be bored, charming, treacherous, and (as emperor) merciless to Theodosia.
Otho actually was a blue-blooded patrician, but his ambition, ego, and boorish behavior might cause trouble for Theodosia.
Vespasian actually was a low-born soldier with an irreverent tongue, but he became a general, a national hero, and a well-respected emperor through organizational skills that might serve Theodosia in time of need.
Titus actually was “mankind’s darling” (according to one Roman historian), but he might seek to use Theodosia as a stepping-stone on his way to the top.
With the two real women in my novel, Poppaea and Flavia, it was great fun to be creative.
Poppaea actually did manage to marry both Otho and Nero, and her life as Nero’s empress is well documented. I was able to build her character to suit my needs, based on her historical reputation as a beautiful, manipulative, and ambitious woman.
Vespasian’s daughter plays a pivotal role in the book, but since she—the historical Flavia—was barely noticed in her time and died young, I had almost nothing to go by. So I was free to create an impish, bubbly, and clever teenager who adores her father and brother and becomes Theodosia’s best friend.
Could another author portray these six “real people” in a different way? Of course. Many already have, and many more will do so in the future. But no author can deviate from their essential natures (by turning Otho into a sweet, lovable man, for example) or the basic facts of their lives. And that remains one of an historical fiction writer’s greatest challenges: creating well-developed characters who function nicely in the context of a novel while remaining true to their historical selves.
—text copyright © Martha Marks—
by marthamarks | Houses, Roman, Nero, Rome
In a previous post, I addressed the question of where Nero lived between the Great Fire in A.D. 64 and his suicide in 68. The answer was: the (in)famous Domus Aurea (“Golden House”). Quite a place, that!
But where did he live before the Domus Aurea was built?
It’s an interesting question, and it raises yet another that I had to address in Rubies of the Viper: where was Nero living in A.D. 56?
Here’s what my research turned up and how I dealt with that residential question:
In the years immediately before the Great Fire, his residence was a palace he’d had built on the prestigious Palatine Hill. (It’s the almost-circular area in the center of the map here.) That building provided a structural link between the Palatine Hill and the Esquiline Hill and thus was known as the Domus Transitoria. It burned in 64 and later was covered over with the even-more-sumptuous Domus Aurea.
But the Domus Transitoria was built around A.D. 60, so it wouldn’t have been in existence in the previous decade, when Rubies of the Viper takes place.
There are reports that before A.D. 60 Nero lived on the Quirinal Hill, a less prestigious part of town north of the Palatine Hill. (The Quirinal is the first hill inside the wall near the top center of the map.) But that doesn’t seem to fit with his status as a member of the Julio-Claudian family, which had inhabited the Palatine for generations. As the grand-nephew and adopted son and heir of Emperor Claudius, it’s hard to imagine Nero living anywhere but on the Palatine Hill.
So, needing to place some key scenes of my book in Emperor Nero’s first palace, I created one on the Palatine, closer to where other important scenes would take place. It was fun to combine my knowledge of Roman houses of the day with my imagination of the sort of place a party-loving teenage ruler—Nero was just 17 when he became the most powerful man in the world—would call home.
Like all Roman houses of the time, Emperor Nero’s first palace would have had an atrium featuring an opening in the roof for light and a pool in the center to catch rainwater. That atrium would have been surrounded by the usual dining, sleeping, and reception rooms, with an attached garden room, or peristyle. But my creative license expanded those everyday accommodations to be more fitting for a young emperor… with a banquet hall large enough for 90 guests plus a web of service corridors leading to storage rooms, staff offices, a kitchen big enough to accommodate the many slaves needed to cook and serve the emperor’s dinner parties, and sleeping quarters for those slaves.
As for the decor… I envisioned his first palace as impressive (especially in the eyes of the beleaguered protagonist, Theodosia), but not as over-the-top ostentatious as the two he would build in future years.
Here’s how I describe Nero’s imagined first palace in Rubies of the Viper:
Theodosia followed the liveried slave through a network of passageways to the most elegant chamber she had ever seen. Frescoed walls of purple and gold soared into a gilded dome. Fine Greek statues stood guard around the perimeter, and in the center an enormous fish of hammered gold spouted purple-tinted water into a golden pond. The white marble furniture was draped and cushioned with such opulence that someone raised with ordinary wealth would feel out of place.
…
Theodosia shivered as Scopan led her into Nero’s private dining room. The sight of another gilded room no longer impressed her, but the ostentatious number of servants in attendance on nine people made her jaw drop. Behind the three couches stood a waiter for every diner. Others moved about the room with enormous gold salvers, bowls, and pitchers. Still others stood at attention against the side walls… as if waiting to do something that someone else might somehow have forgotten. The enormous, purple-clad figure of Nero shared the center couch with two women, one of whom Theodosia identified as the Empress Octavia. Six other guests lounged on cushions that sculpted a purple arc around the table.
…
The banquet hall glowed with hundreds of lamps, but the perfumed oil that fueled their flames had long since lost its duel with the aromatic dishes on their golden platters. Gigantic vases of cobalt-blue glass—overflowing with purple and gold lilies—set off the ten trios of couches where the emperor and his eighty-nine guests had been lounging for over three hours.
These descriptions are plausible and fit the needs of my story.
—text copyright © Martha Marks—
by marthamarks | Houses, Roman, Nero, Rome
Almost everybody who reads or writes about first-century Rome knows of the Domus Aurea, the gigantic, super-ornate, and multi-storey “Golden House” that Nero had built after the Great Fire consumed much of the city in A.D. 64.
Rumors have lingered for 2,000 years that the emperor deliberately started the fire to clear land for his cozy new domus, which he didn’t get to enjoy for very long since he was forced to commit suicide a mere four years after the fire.
Nevertheless, his final palace—which sprawled across three of Rome’s seven hills—set a new standard of opulence in a city already well known for it. In designing this structure, Nero’s architect and engineer (who are known by name: Severus and Celer) introduced several new concepts.
First, they began lining vaulted ceilings with colorful mosaics, which formerly were just for floors, allowing for bright patterns and tasteful (or, more likely, titillating) scenes on every surface of a room.
Second, they plastered some interior walls with gold and gemstones, because ordinary painted frescoes, even with their customary golden accents, could not possibly be grand enough for the master of the world.
Third, they created dining rooms with rooftops that could be slid open, so diners could look up into the stars. One dining room was circular with a revolving roof (powered by slaves, of course), giving guests an ever-changing view of the night sky.
Fourth, they transplanted forests and installed fields, vineyards, pastures with livestock, and an artificial lake in the heart of the metropolis. (If you’ve ever been to the Colosseum, you’ve stood on the spot of Nero’s fake lake, which Emperor Vespasian later drained to build his amphitheater. Vespasian, a frugal man who rose to power a year after Nero’s death, declined to live in the Domus Aurea. Much of it was converted into the public Baths of Titus and, early in the next century, of Trajan.)
The most delicious comment made (in public at least) about the Domus Aurea is credited to Nero. Upon dedicating his new palace, he reportedly said: “Good, now I can at last begin to live like a human being.”
Some archeologists believe the Domus Aurea contained no sleeping quarters, which suggests its 300 rooms were intended for heavy-duty partying, not as a real residence. However, one scholar (Sir Banister Fletcher, writing in A History of Architecture) describes it as “less a palace than a series of pavilions and a long wing comprising living and reception rooms,” which rings true to me.
If anybody reading this post has the definitive answer… or just additional information about that, please leave a comment here!
My next post (see Where else did he live?) will answer this related question: Where did Nero live before the Great Fire of A.D. 64?
—text copyright © Martha Marks—
by marthamarks | HISTORICAL CHARACTERS, Poppaea Sabina, Women (Roman)
Poppaea Sabina lived her life as a patrician Roman woman on a top-tier stage in the middle decades of the first century A.D. For an author researching and writing about that time period, it would be hard to ignore her flamboyant rise and catastrophic fall.
Even though Poppaea’s role in Rubies of the Viper is small, I found her engrossing and wrote her into several scenes with a major impact on the larger story of my fictional heroine, Theodosia Varro.
Unlike most women of her day (see Flavia, Missing Woman), Poppaea Sabina’s life is well recorded in history, although some modern scholars believe that an anti-Nero bias may have influenced those reports.
Still, Poppaea’s life story is full of tantalizing tidbits.
She was born in Pompeii in A.D. 30, the daughter of Titus Ollius, who died the next year following a political purge, and Poppaea Sabina the Elder, who committed suicide in A.D. 47 as the result of more palace intrigue. During Nero’s reign, Poppaea Sabina the Younger’s first husband was executed, and after her death Nero drowned her son by that husband. Whew!
After the death of her first husband, the ambitious young widow set her cap for—and ultimately married—Nero’s best friend, Marcus Salvius Otho, thus winning a higher place in court and perfectly positioning herself to make a play for Nero. It’s at this point in time that Poppaea Sabina first appears in my novel.
While still very much married to Otho, Poppaea became Nero’s mistress, which must have caused friction between herself and her husband, and between the emperor and his long-time friend, Otho. Nero managed the situation by sending Otho to be governor of distant Lusitania (now Portugal), thus removing him from competition and giving Poppaea an excuse to divorce Otho and marry Nero.
In A.D. 62, Nero divorced the Empress Octavia (daughter of the late Emperor Claudius) and married Poppaea.
Poppaea soon bore Nero a daughter, named Claudia Augusta, but the child lived only a few months. She was pregnant again in 65 when she and, we must assume, her unborn child both died. There’s controversy over the manner of her death. Contemporary historians—perhaps with an ax to grind—reported that Nero kicked her to death following a quarrel. Modern scholars believe it’s possible she simply died in childbirth, a common occurrence in the first century. Poppaea was 35 years old at her death, which meant she had already outlived the average woman of her time.
Here are a few snippets from a Rubies of the Viper scene that features Poppaea as a young woman… before her relationships with either Otho or Nero. The occasion is a ladies-only dinner party in Rome; the women have taken note of Theodosia’s enormous, handsome slave, Stefan.
“Do you have only females at your villa, Theodosia?” asked a dainty young patrician in yellow.
The other guests howled in laughter.
“Poppaea Sabina is the only one who’d think that!” said Annia. …
“If it were mine, I’d love it! All those gorgeous men around, and no husband to spoil the fun!”
“And she pretends to be so modest.”
“You’re turning red, my dear. Are you ill?”
“They grow big in the country, don’t they? Got any more like him [Stefan] stashed away out there?”
“Hey, this isn’t fair!” said Poppaea Sabina, who had unwittingly introduced the topic. “I didn’t see him.”
“Bring him in then,” Livia said, “for Poppaea’s education.”
“Oh, Stefan may not be here right now,” Theodosia said, hoping it was true. “I told him he might go see a bit more of the city.”
Titters erupted around the table.
“He must be something special then,” Poppaea said. “What good is a bodyguard if he’s not around to guard your body when you need him?”
Livia snapped her fingers at the slave behind her couch.
“Go and see if the lady Theodosia’s bodyguard has returned from sightseeing in the city.” Her tone was droll. “If he has, tell him to come here at once.”
…
“Come here, Stefanus,” said Livia, pointing to the space between her couch and Poppaea Sabina’s. “We all want a good look at you.”
Stefan stepped warily across the room. Theodosia felt a swell of pride in him… until his eyes reached hers. They were seething.
Juno, I wish we were both anywhere but here.
Poppaea Sabina reached out and ran a single fingertip down Stefan’s arm; then she let it wander on down his leg.
“He’s magnificent! I’ve never seen a man this big so close up. Is he a gladiator?”
…
“Why not make a gladiator of him?” chirped Poppaea Sabina in her little-girl voice. Her yellow sleeve rippled as she poked a finger into Stefan’s abdomen. “Turn around, slave. Oh, just look at the muscles on his back! He’d be the best of the lot!”
…
“Tell you what,” Marcia said, “we’ll give your Otho credit for the new gladiator. He’ll surely win once the mob sees this fellow in action.”
“He’s not my Otho!” [said Theodosia.]
“Don’t be so coy. Think about it. Your fortune combined with Otho’s senatorial rank… You’ll be one of the most powerful couples in the empire. That’s not a bad swap for a single slave.”
“Maybe she wants him for something else,” Poppaea Sabina said, setting off another round of titters.
—text copyright © Martha Marks—
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—
