Roman blood

Author's note

Readers of historical novels who habitually read the afterword ahead of the text should know that Roman Blood is also a mystery; certain matters germane to its solution are discussed here, if only obliquely. Caveat lector.

Our chief sources for the life of Sulla are Plutarch's biography, which is typically full of gossip, scandal, and hocus pocus — in other words, a good read — and Sallust's Bellum Iugurthinum Jugurthine War), which recounts Sulla's African exploits with Kiplingesque verve. There are also numerous references in the works of contemporary Republican writers, especially Cicero, who seems never to have tired of holding up Sulla as a symbol of vice against whom the standard-bearer of virtue (Cicero) could be compared. Sulla's own autobiography is lost, a cause for some regret. Given what we know of his character, it seems unlikely that his memoirs could have been as spellbinding as those of Caesar or as unconsciously revealing as those of Cicero, but they must surely have been more lively and more literate than those of our own political leaders.

For the trial of Sextus Roscius, we have the text of Cicero's defence. It is a long document, and to the extent that I have compressed and adapted it, I do not feel I have taken any undue liberties. Historians agree that Cicero's original, spoken orations by no means corresponded exactly to the published versions handed down to us, which Cicero (and Tiro) revised and embellished after the fact, often for political purposes. There is considerable doubt, for example, that certain satirical jabs at Sulla found in the written text of the Pro Sexto Roscio Amerino would actually have been spoken from the Rostra while the dictator was still alive. However, certain of Cicero's rhetorical flourishes, as reproduced here, are absolutely authentic; I would never have dared to invent the melodramatic 'by Hercules!' to which Cicero resorted more frequently in his own writings than I have allowed him to do in Roman Blood.

The known details of the murder case are all supplied by Cicero; the prosecutor's speech has not survived and its main points can only be inferred from Cicero's rebuttals. In drawing certain conclusions about innocence and guilt that go beyond the judgment of the original court, I have gone out on a limb, but not, I think, unreasonably far. Cicero was not above defending a guilty client; he could take considerable pride in doing so and could boast, as he did after the trial of Cluentius, of having thrown dust in the judges' eyes. Curiously, he speaks on the issue of defending guilty men in his treatise De Officiis (On Duties), and almost immediately (consciously or unconsciously) brings up the matter of Sextus Roscius.

But there is no need, on the other hand, to have any scruples about defending a person who is guilty — provided that he is not really a depraved or wicked character. For popular sentiment requires this; it is sanctioned by custom and conforms with human decency. The judges' business, in every trial, is to discover the truth. As for the counsel, however, he may on occasion have to base his advocacy on points which look like the truth, even if they do not correspond with it exactly. But I confess I should not have the nerve to be saying such things, especially in a philosophical treatise, unless Panaetius, the most authoritative of Stoics, had spoken to the same effect. The greatest renown, the profoundest gratitude, is won by speeches defending people. These considerations particularly apply when, as sometimes happens, the defendant is evidently the victim of oppression and persecution at the hands of some powerful and formidable personage. That is the sort of case I have often taken on. For example, when I was young, I spoke up for Sextus Roscius of Ameria against the tyrannical might of the dictator Sulla.

Cicero is best read between the lines, especially when he hammers hardest upon his own boldness and sincerity.

As for the high-level intrigue behind the trial, I have taken some cues from ideas in Arthur D. Kahn's monumentally detailed The Education of Julius Caesar (Schocken Books, 1986), a radically revisionist view of political wheeling and dealing in the late Roman Republic as seen from.the perspective of a citizen-survivor ofthe Republic of McCarthy, Nixon, Reagan, et alia. I should also mention the prolific Michal Grant, whose translation of Cicero's Murder Trials (Penguin Books, 1975) first set me on the trail of Sextus Roscius.

Metrobius's song in chapter 26 is original. The anonymous ditty about sundials (chapter 9) and the passage from Euripides (chapter 33) are my own adaptations.

'Every detective story writer makes mistakes, of course, and none will ever know so much as he should.' Raymond Chandler's dictum is doubly true when the setting is historical. I want to thank all those who helped to eliminate anachronisms from the original manuscript, including my brother Ronald Saylor, an expert on ancient glassware; a certain classicist who prefers to be anonymous; and the attentive copy editors at St Martin's Press. My thanks also to Pat Urquhart, who gave technical advice on the map; Scott Winnett, for his practical advice on pubushing in the mystery genre; John Preston, who appeared like a deus ex machina when the manuscript was finished and literally whisked it into the right hands; Terri Odom, who helped batten the hatches on the Roman galleys; and my erudite editor, Michael Denneny.

A final acknowledgment: to my friend Penni Kimmel, a perceptive student of mysteries modern, not ancient, who meticulously studied my first draft and delivered invaluable oracles in the form of yellow Post-its. Without her sybilline interventions, a wretched girl might have needlessly suffered, a wicked man might have gone unpunished, and a lost boy might have wandered silent and lonely forever in the dark, dingy alleys ofthe Subura. Culpam poena premit comes; but also, miseris succurere disco. Or in plain English: punishment follows hard on crime, yet I learn to comfort the wretched.