Catching up on the last two Steven Saylor novels in his Roma Sub Rosa series was enjoyable but deepened my impression that Saylor finds writing about Gordianus in his youth, travelling through the Mediterranean countries and not tied to the detective story format creatively invigorating while writing about older Gordianus in Rome, tied to the Whodunit format, can‘t seem to escape the aura of „been there, done that“. The two novels were „Wratch of the Furies“ (young Gordianus has to go undercover in Ephesus while King Mithridates is about to unleash hell for everyone Roman) and „The Throne of Caesar“ (the Ides of March, in three words) respectively.

„The Throne of Caesar“ doesn‘t solely cover the most famous Roman murder of them all, it treats one of the murders in its aftermath which you might remember even if you only know the Shakespeare play as its central mystery: the death of Cinna the poet.

( Slight spoilers abound )

What I did appreciate about this novel is that Gordianus’ daughter Diana, hitherto as opposed to her brothers confined to cameo appearances much like her mother, this time around has a more prominent role, and one which suggests that Saylor might be thinking of following Lindsey Davis’ lead in making his detective’s daughter the detective heroine of a new set of novels. This might just be what his mystery novels needs, because a female perspective is something he truly hasn’t done before, and it would be a good counterpoint to Gordianus’ occasional tendency to go “women: they’re a mystery!” On us.

(Which, btw, doesn’t mean the Roma Sub Rosa novels don’t contain memorable female characters. Saylor’s take on Clodia (Pulcher) is my absolute favourite, and he’s one of the very few who not only use Fulvia (as in: Clodia’s one time sister in law and later wife of Antony) in novels set during this particular era in a capacity other than “the one before Cleopatra”, but use her prominently as a key figure of the late Republic. (I can’t believe it never occured to me that the violent aftermath of Clodius’ death and funeral - the Roman senate torched - and the aftermath of Caesar’s death and funeral had Fulvia in common.) )

Something that’s both endearing and a bit irritating about “Throne of Caesar” is how meta it is; very consciously a writer writing about the act of writing, not just because Cinna the poet plays such a prominent role but because Gordianus contemplates writing his memoirs and eventually starts doing it, thus bringing us full circle since he finishes this novel dictating the first Roma Sub Rosa novel.

In conclusion: doesn’t rise to the heights of my three favourites of the series (“Catilina’s Riddle”, “The Venus Throw” and “Murder of the Appian Way”), but was still entertaining to read. And as I said: makes me hope that if Saylor continues with detective format, it will be with Diana as the pov character.

Wrath of the Furies, otoh, continues his winning streak of young Gordianus away from Rome. When last we left our youthful hero, he’d just experienced an adventure with pirates in Alexandria, which was great fun to read and a witty play on both ancient and modern literature tropes involved with pirate adventures. This time around, he gets the news that his old tutor Antipater, last seen in the first of the young Gordianus novels, “The Seven Wonders of the World”, might be in dire trouble at the court of King Mithridates, who around 88 BC was on a seemingly unstoppable wave of conquest, fancying himself the new Alexandra, unleashing the resentments the Romans had been busy invoking in the various Greek speaking countries around the Mediterreanean. Which means Gordianus, who is by now fluent in Greek but with an unmistakable Latin accent, can’t come to the rescue as himself, but has to pose as a (mute) Greek from Alexandria, with his slave (and future wife, as the reader of the other novels know) Bethesda “translating” for him.

Compared with the first two books, “Wrath of the Furies” is considerably less light hearted, which is it not surprising given that Mithridates wasn’t kidding around, and there are massacres in the air. There are also contempory parallels if you want to see them, both with the situation of war refugees disdained by a lot of people and with the idea of a superpower faced in a really bloody way with the result of their policies and someone using all that stocked up hatred to their own bloody ends while not being any better. Still, the fact that young Gordianus is a good deal more naive and idealistic than his older self, and that the story doesn’t need to conform to the mystery format - this time around, Saylor has a go at the spy tale, as our hero who originally just wants to make sure his old teacher is okay is blackmailed into doing some spying as well -, and the multicultural mix of people Gordianus is surrounded with both in Alexandria and Ephesus (which is the novel’s main location) continue to make this set of novels feel fresh. The most interesting new character is Gordianus’ neatly mysterious handler, an Alexandrian Jew code named Samson with his own agenda. Hopefully this won’t be the last time we’ve seen him.

Saylor published these two novels just a year apart and might have written them overlapping, because there are some mutual call backs, especially given that Gordianus’ old teacher is a poet, and that the mythical allusions to the Furies and Artemis in one novel are paralleled by the stories of Orpheus and Pentheus in the other. Neither book is a good “entry” - they rely on their readers knowing the regulars already - but if you’ve been following the Roma Sub Rosa series, both are worth your time. To paraphrase the inevitable quote, it’s not that I like “Throne of Caesar” less but that I love “Wrath of Furies” more.

Steven Saylor is mostly famous for his Roman mysteries series set during the last decades of the Roman Republic, collectively known as Roma Sub Rosa and starring one Gordianus the Finder as his main detective. He also published two multigeneration novels about Roman history - Roma and Empire which have nothing to do with the Roma Sub Rosa series, and two collection of short stories featuring Gordianus, set at various points of his life not covered by the novels. While I always enjoy Saylor's style and way to give us believable Roman characters, not contemporary ones dressed up in togas, my response to his books is varied. Three of the Roma Sub Rosa novels I really, truly love, and they're from the middle of the serie - Catilina's Riddle (deals with the Catilina conspiracy), The Venus Throw (Clodia) and A Murder on the Appian Way (death of Clodius Pulcher). These three I would unhesitatingly recommend to anyone. The others I like in varying degrees, and sometimes even see as interesting failures. As for Roma and Empire, they're okay, but the very format prevents connecting with characters, and they feel more like illustrated highlights of Roman history. So my expectations for this newest novel, which features Gordianus again but is set in his youth, years before the Sub Rosa series starts, were that it could be anything from compelling to merely okay-ish to "try again, Mr. Saylor".

Well, I'm happy to report this one is a highlight again. Saylor has managed to meld his short story and episodic epic approach to his mystery novel approach; the premise of the novel is that young Gordianus (and he's really young, only 18 years old as opposed to the middle aged man he's through most of the series) is travelling the ancient world with his Greek tutor in order to see the fabled Seven Wonders of the World, and while he's at it also growing up in emotion and spirit as well as starting his life long penchant of solving mysteries. So it's a coming of age novel as well as a travelogue through the ancient world, like a miniseries where every episode takes place at a different place, but with an overreaching and connecting emotional arc. He's also in great form bringing the places and people to life, be they Ephesus, Halikarnass, Babylon, Rhodos or Egypt, and convey the awe and amazement the wonders inspire (only one of which, the Pyramids at Gizeh, still exist today) in a way that allows the readers to share it, which is no mean feat. If you're familiar with the previous books ,then it's interesting to meet Gordianus so young; he's both different and similar enough to his older self to be a just out of teenagedom version of his character, and because of all the mess that happened to Gordianus and his family over the course of the novels, the youthful idealism feels like a breath of fresh air. Otoh if you have never read anything by Steven Saylor before - and you can start with this novel, which requires no previous knowledge - then this effect will be missing, but this won't stop you from enjoying the story.

Of couse, Gordianus on his lonesome never was what made the Sub Rosa series so compelling, but the fact that Saylor keeps throwing him against a rich cast of interesting characters, some historical, some not, some showing up in more than one novel, others limited to one book. In The Seven Wonders, we get a great cast as well, and more interesting women in the same book than in any previous Saylor novel. Said previous novels also feature great female characters, but percentage-wise they're simply more men around, and so in most of the novels, you have more interesting men than interesting women per book. Not so here. My favourite is Bitto, the cousin of Gordianus' tutor, who became a hetaira, but there are plenty of others in all ages.

Another ongoing theme: the overall resentment of Rome as the new superpower of the Mediterrenean, which for Gordianus, a young Roman on his first trip abroad, is something he increasingly and keenly becomes aware of. This isn't just a question of atmosphere but ties in the personal story of the novel, as his Greek tutor, Antipater, increasingly shows his own issues with Rome in a way the man for obvious reasons never did when living at the place. (Speaking of, only the opening scenes of the novel are set in Rome before the big journey starts, but they allow Saylor to describe a Roman funeral and pulling all the stops there, which is great. Roman funerals were elaborate and highly theatrical affairs with mimes, and are immensely entertaining to read about.)

Complaints: only one. Now Gordianus in the series has been established as mostly straight but not completely unreceptive to the occasional homoerotic impulse, though with one possible exception, he doesn't follow up on it (being a married man for most of the series, he also doesn't follow up on heterosexual temptation, again with one exception). In The Seven Wonders, at one point a young Gaul hits on him, and Gordianus says no, which isn't my problem. It's ic (especially for a younger, more naive Gordianus), not least because the Gaul in question is quite full of himself and more like an enthusiastic gold retriever than someone bothering with seduction, so a "err, thanks, but no thanks" reaction is what this particular reader would have recomended, too. However, by the end of that particular episode in a sudden reverse Saylor leaves it open whether Gordianus finally did come around to the Gaul after all. Given that by contrast we're left in no doubt about the women he does and doesn't sleep with elsewhere in the book, this strikes me as unworthy in its coyness. (Before anyone says anything, yes, I'm aware Saylor is gay himself and also writes gay erotica. But each book should be judged on its own merits and not what its author does elsewhere.)

But this is my only complaint. Otherwise, I really loved the book, and highly recommend it, whether or not you've read anything of Saylor's before, especially if you want to read a historical novel set in the first century BC which doesn't follow the usual patterns and manages to bring the ancient world alive (as opposed to focusing on one particular part of it only, be that Rome or Egypt).