Helter-skelter writing: the start of a new book

Jacquie's November Newsletter

It’s becoming a regular habit for me to spend autumn beginning a new book. This year it’s my fourth Quintus Valerius mystery, working title The Bath Curse. You won’t be surprised that I’m capitalising on a research trip I made to Bath last spring, which helped fill a few gaps in my knowledge and also reminded me what an amazing little Roman town Aquae Sulis was.

With a new mystery to be set there, my mind has turned to thinking and noticing what inspires a new story for me. There’ll be more on that below.

Also this month, I’m wrapping up my autumn series of guest bloggers with the erudite and prolific Fiona Forsyth. Fiona is that impressive thing among Roman novelists, an actual Classics scholar, who taught Greek and Latin for many years before settling down to write the superb Lucius Sestius series. She’ll be telling us about her new historical crime novel, starring the famous Roman poet Ovid (yes, he who blighted so many O-levels). But fear not; I’ll let Fiona explain for herself what Ovid will be getting up to — hint: well beyond poetry — in her new novel.

Plus my usual brief news section.

Oh, in case you’re wondering, the picture is of Bromyard Downs, near us in Herefordshire. Absolutely nothing to do with this blog; I just loved that view, and thought you would too!

Pinning down a new book

This is my fifth go-round with the excruciating and frustrating start to a new story. In general, I pride myself on my planning, whether it’s a journey, Christmas catering, a magazine article, or writing a book. But before the planning happens, I need inspiration. Something out of left field, helter-skelter, a big spark that will see me through the year or so of plodding work before the new book is birthed.

With my previous Roman novels, there has been an obvious historical incident or artefact begging to be written about. In The Governor’s Man, it was the juxtaposition of a hoard hidden in a Roman house that burnt down at the same time, in the vicinity of falsely-stamped lead ingots. The Carnelian Phoenix was inspired by the real-life assassination of the jurist Ulpian in the imperial palace in Rome. And once I had read that the dying Emperor Septimius Severus had ordered the genocide of the rebelling tribes of central Scotland, who apparently didn’t much fancy becoming Roman, there was no better backdrop to The Loyal Centurion. (As well as the lingering mystery of the Ninth legion, who marched into the Caledonian mists a century earlier, and never marched back home …)

But with Bath (Aquae Sulis to us), there was no bludgeoning fact from history to help me. Apart from references to the wonderful hot waters, and the powerful goddess Sulis Minerva who was worshipped there, the Romans mentioned Bath not at all in their histories. But as I dug into the archaeology, I uncovered all sorts of little intriguing titbits to excite me.

For a start, Aquae Sulis as a town was unique in Britannia. It did not begin its Roman life as a fort (although there might have been a small military establishment over the Avon bridge, which I have pressed into service as a notional base for Quintus and Tiro, run by Centurion Marcellus Crispus, who [spoiler alert!] will have a significant role to play in the new book.)

Neither was the town ever a civitas, a tribal capital. We don’t even know which tribal territory it fell into for admin purposes. And no retired soldiers were given a home there, as they were in Gloucester, Lincoln, York and Colchester. There wasn’t a curia, a town council, as far as we can tell. There was just a whacking huge temple and baths complex, with a wall and small residential area round it. And the main temple was that rarest of types in Roman Britain, a large classical structure rather than the cosier and more common Romano-Celtic design.

[Here’s the cut-out model of the temple at the museum in Bath.]

So what sort of people would have lived, and more importantly, visited Bath in Roman times? It was quintessentially a spa town. A religious centre, yes, with the only known augur in Britannia (a super-important official priest whose job was to read the auspices in the entrails of sacrificed animals). But it was also a place that relied, indeed thrived, on the pilgrims and visitors who thronged there to enjoy the wonderful hot healing waters. Aquae Sulis offered entertainment in its large theatre; a place to worship two goddesses in one — the mighty Minerva conflated with the equally mighty native Sulis; a place to mingle with other tourists from all over the empire; to ogle at the rich and famous; a place to be healed of lifestyle diseases; to flirt, to see and be seen, to enjoy all the pleasures money could buy.

There was even a source of justice here for those who couldn’t afford the law. The goddess had a sacred pool, into which for a small fee you could throw your written pleas for retribution, for those who had committed crimes against you. And judging by the 130 curse tablets so far found, this was a big business.

I thought about this small town, drawing the wealthy and leisured as if bees to a honey pot, run by a large religious foundation with an interest in making money, with no standard civic administration. I thought about the sort of underground businesses likely to be drawn to a peripatetic and wealthy population. I thought about Regency Brighton, Twenties Monte Carlo, and modern Las Vegas.

Then I found a book in the Roman library, an edit of a conference on organised crime in antiquity. Therein, like a gift, was a comparative study of Roman-era organised crime, drawing a direct line to the 19th century Mafia in Sicily and its modern racketeering descendants in the US.

Here is the inspiration for my new story. Welcome to shady Aquae Sulis, dear reader — but be very careful!

Interview with guest author, Fiona Forsyth

Fiona Forsyth discusses the background to her upcoming novel, Poetic Justice.

What did Ovid see?

Like many people, the first time I’d heard of the Roman poet Ovid was on the BBC’s famous “I, Claudius,” and yes, I was far too young, and no, my parents did not know I watched it. In one scene, the Emperor Augustus is talking about Ovid:

“I've never liked that man. His poetry's very beautiful, but it's also very smutty. A lot of it's downright indecent. I wouldn't have him in the house.”

If Augustus was hoping to destroy all interest in Ovid and his poetry, then this was not the way to go about it - and to be honest, it is not very fair. Ovid wrote a lot of poetry, some “smutty,” a lot not, but I suspect what Augustus really objected to was the poet’s cheerful irreverence at a time when the Emperor was trying to uphold a raft of unpopular legislation promoting marriage and family values. But surely this was not enough to justify a summary, out-of-the-blue disaster that shattered Ovid’s life?

In the autumn of AD8, Ovid was suddenly dragged back from holiday, brought before the Emperor Augustus himself, and told he was going to spend the rest of his life on the shores of the Black Sea. This was not the result of a trial: the decision was that of the Emperor, who later asked the Senate to ratify it. The terms of the exile were unusual too - Ovid’s wealth was not confiscated as was usual, so his family were at least not impoverished. But why? Ovid’s punishment is an odd episode in many ways. What threat was a middle-aged, middle-class poet to those in power?

Ovid in his hometown, Sulmona.

Barring an amazing archaeological discovery, we shall never find out the whole truth behind Augustus’ decision. But there are some pointers. The biggest clue is in a poem Ovid wrote in exile. Ovid talks about his “carmen et error” (“my poem and my mistake”). We know the poem: Ovid had published a guide to picking up lovers in about 2 BCE. We don’t know what the “mistake” was, but it must have been huge. Here’s our final clue - it was, says Ovid in another poem, something he saw and didn’t report. Sounds ridiculous, right?

Maybe if we look at other exiles at this time, we shall get more of an idea. Well, famous exiles of the Augustan regime include:

1. the Emperor’s daughter Julia, for having lots of sex

2. The Emperor’s granddaughter, also Julia, for having an affair

3. Various upper-class men who had sex with the Emperor’s daughter and granddaughter.

4. The Emperor’s grandson Postumus for being not very nice

The obvious conclusion is confounded by the fact that there is no indication from even the most gossipy of sources that Ovid had sex with the Emperor’s daughter or granddaughter. He wasn’t really of the same social class as the usual run of Imperial lover. Given that he saw something and didn’t report it, it is more likely he knew about the Imperial women being immoral but said nothing. If so, then he was heavily punished. One cannot help but feel that there was something else going on…

And in this way, Ovid lures us neatly into his trap. By writing this poetry with its tantalizing hints, sending them back to Rome for publication, Ovid is teasing his Roman audience, the Emperor and us. It’s all part of his plan to pressurize the authorities into granting him a pardon.

So - we must resist. We must refrain from speculation. And of course, we must not resort to conspiracy theories. Unless of course, we are historical novelists, in which case, I reckon it is all fair game!

Fiona’s previously published novels, Rome’s End, The Emperor’s Servant, Blood and Shadows, and The Third Daughter, are all available from Amazon, here. Poetic Justice is coming very soon!

My November News

• My article on human trafficking in the Roman empire is published in the Historical Writers’ Association magazine, Historia. Read it here.

• I’m away for most of November visiting family in New Zealand, and meeting the littlest members for the first time. There may be the odd Facebook/Instagram post…

[Jacquie’s latest Roman mystery, The Loyal Centurion, is out in ebook and paperback now. You can follow Jacquie on social media, watch her research videos, and read her non-fiction articles at her Linktree.]