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 | 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 | HISTORICAL CHARACTERS, Otho
How common is it in historical mysteries that one of the bad guys also happens to have been a genuinely rotten guy in history? Not too common, I suspect.
Marcus Salvius Otho (A.D. 32-69) is another character who, like Alexander, evolved and grew as Rubies of the Viper progressed. Otho started out as just one of many in my mind, but he almost literally leaped off the pages as I learned more about his fascinating real-life story and began writing him into my fictional one.
It would be hard to invent a fictional character quite like the real Otho… whose patrician father repeatedly flogged him for juvenile delinquency… who hung out with Nero both before and after Nero became emperor… who coveted, won, and lost the same woman Nero coveted, won, and lost… who was so ambitious (and hapless) that he achieved his ultimate goal—to become emperor—only to die by his own hand three months later.
Imagine a Roman military officer who “wore a wig, put scent on his feet and on the march to Rome it was suspected that he studied his appearance in a mirror, like an actor in his dressing room.” —author Kenneth Wellesley
I had fun with Otho.
It was fun to play him off against Theodosia… who first falls for him, then sees him for the rat he is, then battles it out with him in a game of wits, guts, and strength.
It was also fun to play him off against Alexander… who sees through him from the beginning and ultimately—while risking everything—manages to pull a fast one on him despite overwhelming odds.
It was even fun to play him off against Nero… who has the world at his feet but is on track to lose it all through sheer, bull-headed stupidity.
If you’ve read Rubies of the Viper, I’d love to see what you thought of my characterization of Otho. Just remember… no spoilers, please!
—text copyright © Martha Marks—
