From the book jacket:

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Peter the Great, Nicholas and Alexandra, and The Romanovs returns with another masterpiece of narrative biography, the extraordinary story of an obscure young German princess who traveled to Russia at fourteen and rose to become one of the most remarkable, powerful, and captivating women in history.

Massie delivers a wonderfully researched and readable book. My knowledge of Catherine the Great was vague to the point of mythical. I had hazy memories of multiple lovers, a (possible) scandal about her and a horse, and a movie starring Greta Garbo. The lovers were real, but few; there was no mention of the horse; and the Garbo movie turned out to be about Queen Christina of Sweden who lived a century earlier. So much for memory.

To say Catherine is a fascinating character is to do her a disservice. Massie shows her towering intellect, force of personality, and steely resolve from an early age. He also shows her craving for love and approval; denied in childhood and in her marriage. But her story is not a simplistic psycho-drama, it’s populated with complicated characters, shifting political agendas (both domestic and foreign), and colored with the burgeoning philosophies of the Age of Enlightenment.

Her life (1729 – 1796) spanned a turbulent time in the American colonies (of which I have a great deal more knowledge.) It was fun to see our revolution reduced to a postscript in one chapter where Britain asked Russia for some troops to send to America. (Catherine didn’t send any, so the Brits hired Hessians instead.) Later our “Father of the Navy” John Paul Jones worked for Catherine as an Admiral. While we were fighting our (mostly) backwoods guerrilla war, Catherine was partitioning Poland, expanding Russia to the Black Sea (at Turkey’s expense) and building the finest art collection in Europe. She wrote a remarkable document on human rights and government, several years before our Declaration of Independence and called a cross-class assembly to “advise” her very early in her rule. She advocated freeing the Russian serfs, while we were legitimizing slavery in our Constitution.

Unfortunately, the Russian nobility wasn’t ready for those significant changes. They completely balked at freeing their serfs/slaves and it was the nobility that put Catherine on the throne and kept her there. The peasants that were part of the advisory assembly were completely cowed; poorly educated, they turned their “votes” over to the nobility. So Catherine started a series of reforms and education that she could accomplish. Over her thirty-four year reign, she sent hundreds of young talented Russians to the great universities of Europe (at crown expense), trained doctors and established hospitals in all regions of her empire, built model “foundling homes” that were the envy of Europe, forbade torture as part of interrogation and abolished the death penalty for all but high treason. Catherine became much more conservative as she aged and felt threatened by the bloody horror of the French Revolution, but she never outgrew her Enlightenment ideals about the human condition.

Massie takes seriously his subtitle: “Portrait of a Woman” by providing us with insight into Catherine’s everyday life, her relationships, fears and triumphs. My heart went out to the young woman who gave birth to her first child, only to have the Empress Elizabeth snatch the child away within seconds, leaving the mother alone and bleeding on the floor for hours. She was never allowed to mother any of her children. Given her own mother’s neglect, her insane husband’s abuse and Elizabeth’s horrendous treatment; it’s a wonder Catherine turned out sane, much less one of the most powerful and insightful rulers in Europe. I loved the description of her informal meals and evenings where titles were not allowed, people were forbidden to rise when she stood and good humor was the order of the day.

Catherine was an incredibly hard-working ruler, rising at 6:00 am to start her day reading reports. She established a bureaucracy, but she was an absolute ruler, firmly believing that “enlightened autocracy” was the best way to rule the Russian people. She refused to be called “Catherine the Great”, saying she was “Catherine II” or “Mother.” Her success in wielding absolute power, came from her sensitivity to the possible. A young aide quoted Catherine on her technique,

“It is not as easy as you think,” she replied. “In the first place, my orders would not be carried out unless they were the kind of orders which could be carried out. You know with what prudence and circumspection I act in the promulgation of my laws. I examine the circumstances, I take advice, I consult the enlightened part of the people, and in this way I find out what sort of effect my laws will have. And when I am already convinced in advance of good approval, then I issue my orders and have the pleasure of observing what you call blind obedience. That is the foundation of unlimited power. But believe me, they will not obey blindly when orders are not adapted to the opinion of the people.”

Massie is a master of his art, presenting material that could be deadly dull in a lively manner. He primarily uses a chronological approach, with more “theme” chapters toward the end. Where there are controversies (such as the paternity of her children), Massie presents all sides and, when he takes a stand, supports his thesis with ample evidence. My only quibble is a minor one. Massie explored the relationships of all Catherine’s “favorites”–mostly young guardsmen who serially occupied the suite of rooms attached to Catherine’s with a back staircase. Most were “eye-candy” meant to escort Catherine to social events, accompany her on her travels, and basically keep her amused in any way she required. A few went on to other careers. The best known was Gregory Potemkin, to whom Catherine might have been married. When he left Catherine’s bed, he became the most powerful man in the Empire. Massie sets us up early for some revelation about her final favorite Platon Zubov who was “in a class by himself.” At the end of the book Zubov is sitting in Catherine’s death chamber “alone in a corner, shunned by everyone.” He never ties up that thread and we don’t learn why Zubov is unique and shunned.

That tiny quibble aside, I highly recommend this one.

The details:

• Title: Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman
• Author: Robert K. Massie
• Publisher: Random House, November 2011
• Format: Advanced Readers Copy, 604 pages
• ISBN: 978-0-679-45672-8

Note: I read an ARC (with several typos and formatting issues which should be taken care of in the final printing) received through the Early Readers Program at LibraryThing. The opinions are my own.

I realized many people (not just students) are puzzled over Hypatia’s contributions to math and science. There’s a lot of magical thinking about her life and work. The movie Agora used a mythical search for heliocentrism (the sun as the center of the solar system vs. the Ptolemaic earth-centered view, held by most people at the time) as a metaphor for Hypatia’s scientific thinking. So what did she do? Did she discover any important scientific or mathematical principles? Was she merely a glorified teacher who would be lost to history except for her extraordinarily brutal death? Here’s my best take on Hypatia’s contributions…and students remember this is copyrighted material; no cutting and pasting for your papers, but feel free to check out the reference at the end, quote and attribute!

To understand Hypatia’s contributions we have to understand her times and what knowledge came before her, as well as the sources of our current knowledge on her work. The early fifth century was a time of major political and religious upheaval. Barbarians threatened the Roman Empire and sacked Rome itself in 410 sending shock waves around the Mediterranean. The institution that was to become the Catholic Church emerged from three centuries of external persecution and internal conflict to flex its political muscles, both locally and in Imperial politics. The vast majority of people were poor and uneducated. Literature, rhetoric and history were more likely to appeal to the educated elites. Philosophy teachers, including Hypatia, taught “higher” mathematics and logic as a means of disciplining the mind and making one more open to the religious aspect of ancient philosophy, but only a special few were deemed worthy of such instruction.

In antiquity, there were four branches of mathematics: arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music. The first two were “pure” the second two “applied.” Hypatia, according to Hesychius, worked in the first three. She studied and taught both arithmetic and geometry for its own philosophic discipline, not for its practical applications. Astronomy was practical and used extensively to predict eclipses, construct calendars and aid navigation. Many “magicians” studied astronomy to conduct astrology, which was rampant at the time, even though banned by the Church. One of the (highly unlikely) charges against Hypatia by the Church was that she engaged in astrology.

We know Hypatia’s father Theon edited and commented on the “definitive texts” in math and astronomy, making them useful for students (some of them not so bright!) There is evidence that Hypatia contributed to his later editions. The Suda Lexicon also says she wrote three books, “a Commentary on Diophantus, [one on] the astronomical Canon, and a Commentary on Apollonius’s Conics.” Some modern scholars also suggest she wrote or edited a number of other mathematical texts that survive. Let’s take a look at what we know and what we don’t.

In the late fourth/early third century BC, Euclid compiled his Elements a text on geometry which included a system of rigorous mathematical proofs that remains the basis of mathematics today. His work was expanded by Apollonius (262 – 190 BC) who more fully developed three-dimensional geometry in “conics” and Diophantus (200 – 284 AD) who founded the branch of mathematics known today as number theory. In astronomy, Ptolemy‘s (90 – 168 AD) Almagest laid out the basis for an earth-centered solar system that held sway until Copernicus (1473 – 1543 AD) proved sun-centered heliocentricsm centuries later. These four men comprised most of the modern thinking on arithmetic, algebra, geometry and astronomy at the time.

Theon used the Almagest to teach astronomy because it didn’t require any earlier knowledge of the subject other than familiarity with Euclid’s geometry. Ptolemy taught the needed math in the text. Theon wrote a note in a surviving commentary on Book III of the Almagest indicating “my philosopher-daughter Hypatia” contributed to this later edition. Most historians consider the proof of her contribution a technical enhancement where Books III and  IV use a new and more efficient way of doing long division. The other books in the Almagest use an older method. [As a side note, Hypatia didn't have the Arabic numerals we use—including the zero. She did all her calculations using Greek letters. Try doing long division doing that!]

It’s believed that Hypatia did write the books mentioned in the Suda and possibly some other books that are lost. All those dealt with more complicated or “higher” math which would have been of interest to (and therefore saved by) only a few people. Identifying her specific contributions in the surviving texts is problematic. Some scholars believe she prepared the “commentaries” to teach the advanced conics of Apollonius and higher math of Diophantus that survive from antiquity; but that is conjectural. Her name isn’t on any of the surviving documents. There is a lot of scholarly research devoted to analyzing who added what in the various editions of the ancient texts and to what purpose. The upshot is that very little of Hypatia’s writing has come down to us, and most of that, not in its original form. But after all the academic wrangling, no one suggests that Hypatia contributed any new mathematical thinking (other than the more efficient long division.) All evidence shows her teaching what was known (including the most advanced work) in an accessible way.

Hartmann astrolabe from Yale University

What about her scientific contributions: heliocentrism, the astrolabe and the “hydroscope?” Although the movie Agora proposed that Hypatia could have discovered heliocentrism based on her study of conics and astronomical observations; that is highly unlikely. I discuss the possibilities in depth here. Although it makes for a wonderful dramatic arc, there just isn’t any evidence for it. As for the astrolabe, it is a navigational instrument that was probably known in Ptolemy’s time and Theon wrote about it. So Hypatia certainly built them and instructed others in how to do it, but didn’t “invent” it. The same can be said for the “hydroscope” that her former student Synesius asked her to build and send to him. It’s generally thought this is a hydrometer (or possibly a urinometer), to measure the density of liquids, which is based on Archimedes‘ principles. The principles seem well known to both teacher and student, with no evidence that she “invented” this device.

So to answer the question implied by my title: does Hypatia’s lack of original contributions in math and science make her “merely” a teacher, undeserving of any praise or remembrance? Hypatia and her father Theon were probably the foremost mathematicians in the Roman Empire, and most likely the world, during their lifetimes; but that doesn’t mean they were great mathematicians in the same way as Euclid and Diophantus. They are best understood in the context of the times. The famous Museum was dying; the Great Library dispersed and diminished. Only a tiny elite studied the great mathematicians and conserved their work in a time of rampant anti-intellectualism. Faith and astrology were more important to everyday people than math and astronomy; and much more accessible.

Hypatia devoted herself, as a teacher, to preserve the knowledge of the past through a turbulent time; so she was much more than a geometry teacher. She and her father passed that knowledge on through their students and their writing. It is through their texts and commentaries that the work of Euclid, Ptolemy, Diophantus and other important thinkers came down to us. Not the spectacular career modern mythmakers would like to claim for Hypatia, but given her times, her sex, and her opportunities; it’s a very important legacy.

Thank you, Hypatia.

Note: I relied heavily on the work of Professor Michael A. B. Deakin in his Hypatia of Alexandria: Mathematician and Martyr (Prometheus Books, 2007) for the “what we know” part of this essay. He goes into much more detail as to the exact nature of Hypatia’s contributions, the scholarship around analysis of her contributions; and has an extensive bibliography of research articles. I reviewed his book here and highly recommend it.

From the back:

Noah’s wife is Na’amah, a beautiful, brilliant girl with a form of autism (now) known as Asperger’s. She wishes only to be a shepherdess on her beloved hills in ancient Turkey—a desire shattered by her powerful brother’s hatred, the love of two men, and a looming disaster only she knows is coming.

Review:

I got this book in the Historical Novel Society Conference goodie-bag and was intrigued. Asperger Syndrome runs in my family, so I was curious as to how T. K. Thorne would handle that aspect of her debut novel. She states in her “Acknowledgements” and “Postscript” that she doesn’t have AS and relied on research and particularly the writings of Dr. Temple Grandin, a well-known speaker and writer on the topic. (Dr. Grandin is autistic.) For the most part, I felt Thorne got it right. As she notes, this is a neurological condition that runs a vast spectrum of behaviors and can present as a severe disability up to creative genius. Every person with AS presents differently, but they all share a common difficulty with social engagement. They are “clueless” until they figure out, or someone teaches them, the social rules that most children seem to absorb with no instruction. There’s no reason to believe AS didn’t exist in 5500 BCE, but, from a Darwinian point of view, it was probably very rare. Loners, folks who didn’t “belong” or conform to group norms, would have had a significant survival disadvantage. This is how Na’amah describes herself:

My name, Na’amah, means pleasant or beautiful. I am not always pleasant, but I am beautiful. Perhaps that is why I am trundled atop this beast like a roll of hides for market and surrounded by grim-faced men. If my captors had bothered to ask me, I would have told them that their prize is of questionable value because my mind is damaged…Memories appear as images in my mind. Each word-sound I hear has its own color and shape and they fit together with the others in patterns that I can recall as easily as I can name every sheep on my hillside…I speak only truth, unwise as it may be, since lies distress me…my words and manner seem odd to other people. I am more comfortable with animals, who do not expect me to be any way than the way I am.

Na’amah is an appealing first person character and, in one sense, an unreliable narrator. Because of her autism, she misses the nuances in others’ behavior, facial expressions and voice. The author has to give the reader clues through Na’amah’s descriptions about what is “really” going on—a tricky proposition and usually handled well. Where it falls down is with Tubal, Na’amah’s brother and nemesis. He is an irredeemably evil character (and therefore boring) from the first pages. Na’amah knows him as a bully with a burning hatred for her. As the story continues, he breaks every (to be written) commandment in the Good Book. The readers have no clue as to why that might be, except that his mother died at Na’amah’s birth. Because we can’t see the nuances, we find out his motivation far too late in the book. Any chance that he might be a complicated (and, therefore, more interesting) character is lost in Na’amah’s black and white world.

Thorne builds a believable prehistoric society. Technology and agriculture are appropriate for the age. But I found the (Earth) Mother Goddess/(Sky) Father God dichotomy a bit religiously simplistic. Most of the evidence we have points to our ancestors’ profound belief in the supernatural, with spirits and “gods” inhabiting every niche of the unknown. Even today, the vast majority of people believe in a range of  supernatural beings, so I would have liked to see our ancestors engage in a wider range of belief and practice.  The concept of being able to harm others through supernatural means surely did exist and any “odd” person would be at risk for expulsion or other harm, even death. Na’amah’s religious skepticism and her awareness of its dangers, is nicely portrayed:

I loved stories, though many of them were not truth. People pretended they were, so sometimes I did too, but I had never seen Mother Goddess or Father God…Speaking such thoughts would get me thrown into the pit. My mind might be damaged, but I was not stupid.

As to the flood? This is not your traditional Bible story. No Heavenly Being giving directions to build an Ark. No animals trooping two by two (sorry dragons and unicorns who didn’t make it on the boat!) But I like this story better. Thorne uses archaeological and geological evidence to put her fictional characters in a real catastrophic situation that might very well have happened. The echoes of that catastrophe have come down to us as fable and myth. Thorne’s version is quite satisfying.

In summary, I enjoyed this book and thought it was a good debut novel. The story is engaging and moves along. The setting is unique and interesting. The science and history seem to be solid. My only complaint is that some characters were a little two-dimensional; but that could be an artifact of the Aspie POV and, therefore, brilliant writing.

The details:

• Title: Noah’s Wife
• Author:  T. K. Thorne
• Publisher: Chalet Publishers, LLC; 2009
• ISBN-13: 978-0-9840836-4-0
• Format: Trade paperback, 354 pages,
• Price: $16.95

For more information on Asperger Syndrome:

• National Institutes of Health (AS information page)
• Autism Society (AS webpage)
• OASIS @ MAAP (Online Asperger Syndrome Information and Support center)
• Autism Research Institute

Please note: I received this book free from the publisher, but not in inconsideration for a review. The opinions expressed are my own.

A bust of Herakles returned to Turkey.

You can’t kick a stone in the Middle East without uncovering an artifact. It’s an archaeologist’s paradise and a diplomat’s nightmare. When it comes to biblical-related stories, there’s always a furor. Does this artifact “prove” Jesus lived or does this inscription substantiate the story of David and Goliath? The past couple of months provided several stories touching on biblical narratives. The trend in returning looted artifacts to their rightful home is continuing with a couple of good news stories. Finally, it’s been thirty years since Indiana Jones made archaeology sexy in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” But Dr. Jones preferred a bull whip and pistol to scientific methods. We’ll see what scientific innovations have evolved since Indy’s time. First story in our lineup: the city of Shekhem; supposedly the final burial site of Joseph of the many-colored coat.

On the West Bank, in the city of Nablus, Palestinian and Dutch archaeologists are excavating the site of the ancient city of Shekhem and preparing to open it as an archaeological park next year. Shekhem was an important regional trade center, mentioned in Pharaonic archives and the earliest biblical narratives of Abraham, Jacob and Joseph. The site had massive defensive walls (they defeated invading Egyptians), monumental gates and a large temple. The Romans abandoned the city 2000 years ago and built a new city to the west. (Link to original story. )

Israeli archaeologists are excavating the ancient Philistine city of Gath. The Philistines are the perpetual bad guys in the Hebrew Bible: David slays the Philistine giant Goliath and Samson was betrayed and blinded by them. Today we call someone a philistine who is ignorant of, or doesn’t appreciate, the better things in life such as art, music and culture. The ongoing dig at Gath paints a more nuanced picture. The Philistines came by sea from the Aegean around 1200 B.C. and occupied the coastal plain, of present day Israel and the Gaza Strip. They warred constantly with the ancient Israelites who occupied the inland hills. Evidence from their material goods—pots, food waste, inscriptions—show Greek influences. And who among the ancients do we prize more for their culture than the Greeks? (Link to original story.)

Moving on to the New Testament, Israeli scholars have declared the inscription on an ossuary, seized from tomb robbers three years ago, to be authentic. The stone chest, used to store bones, is decorated with the stylized shapes of flowers and inscribed with “Miriam daughter of Yeshua son of Caiaphas, priest of Maaziah from Beth Imri.” Scholars say the word “maaziah” on the inscription refers to a subset of the priestly cast and believe “Beth Imri” refers either to a priestly family or to the family’s village of origin. A Caiaphas appears in the story of Jesus as a high priest and adversary. Another ossuary bearing the inscription of “James son of Joseph brother of Jesus” is considered a hoax and is the center of a fraud trial in Israel. (Link to original story.)

The effort continues to find the more than 15,000 artifacts looted during the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and return them. Most recently these include an ancient bead necklace, possibly from the royal tombs of Ur; terra cotta tablets from ancient Babylonia depicting Ishtar, the goddess of love and war; and modern Ba’ath government relics such as a tea set and posters of deposed leader Saddam Hussein. The necklace was located at a Christies’ auction. The FBI, investigating defense contractors accused of fraud, found they were also collecting and smuggling Iraqi artifacts in to the US; among them the terracotta pieces. Other pieces were being sold on Craigslist. So far, the US has returned about 1,200 artifacts. (Link to original story.)

The Boston Museum of Fine Arts returned a beautiful marble bust (shown above) known as “The Weary Herakles” to Turkey. It will be reunited with its lower half at the Antalya Museum later this year. The Turkish government, like Egypt and Italy, is aggressively pursuing pieces it feels were looted from its country through the years. The lower half was discovered in southern Turkey in 1980. The MFA bought the bust in 1981 from a German dealer. The Turkish government presented the MFA with photos and other evidence of looting from the site which convinced them of the Turkish claim. The completed statue might return to Boston on a short-term loan. (Link to original story.)

Last January, Italian police prevented looters from smuggling pieces of a monumental statue of the emperor Caligula out of the country. Archaeologists excavated at the looters illegal dig near Lake Nemi, south of Rome, where Caligula based a pair of pleasure boats.  They revealed a large semicircular nymphaeum, or fountain court, enclosed by a series of 23-foot-tall columns; and discovered 150 other objects, such as vases and pieces of jewelry. A niche at the center of the nymphaem once held the Caligula statue and contained more than one hundred fragments, including the head. Reassembled, the statue shows a young robed man in the attitude of the god Zeus, sitting under a pillow on a beautifully decorated throne. On the left foot, the statue wears the “caligae” military boot after which the notorious Roman emperor, whose real name was Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, was nicknamed. (Link to original story.)

From real looted artifacts, it’s only a short step to fictional ones. “Raiders of the Lost Ark” celebrated its 30^th anniversary on June 12. I admit, I saw it during its original run. Don’t do the math. Indiana Jones made archaeology sexy and exciting for a whole generation of young people, but he didn’t have many scientific tools to work with. Since the nineteen-thirties, when the first movie is set, a whole array of advanced technology such as satellite imaging, DNA analysis, airborne laser mapping, robots and full-body medical scanners supplement, and sometimes replace, the pick and shovel of archeology’s early days. Now archeologists don’t have to destroy a site or an artifact to study it. (Link to original story.)

The following are a sample of stories in the news using these advanced techniques:

• Scientists have determined that tsunamis, not an earthquake and flood, destroyed the city of Olympia, the site of the first Olympic Games. They used sedimentological, geophysical, geochemical and microfaunal analyses of the 26 feet of sand and debris covering the site to bolster their conclusions.
• The Field Museum of Chicago embarked on a project to use CT scans on their collection of mummies (the largest in the Americas) from Egypt and Peru. The coffins can’t be opened without damaging them. A CT scan, in three dimensions, allows researchers an unparalleled look at what lies within the ornate coffins. Among the results so far: a 40-year old woman with lower back pain, a teenager who may have jumped to his death, and a mummy with no torso.
• Archaeologists are studying nearly 800 sacks of compacted human waste from a septic tank, which lies beneath the remains of a Roman apartment block in Herculaneum, buried by ash from the Vesuvius eruption in AD79. The estimated 150 middle- and lower-class inhabitants of the three-story block of flats regularly feasted on fish, spiky sea urchins, figs, walnuts, eggs, dormice and olives.
• Using microscopy and other lab analyses, an Egyptologist is studying Bronze age weapons for evidence of how the weapons were used. It looks like the Pharoahs and elite of that period led their armies and engaged in combat. Previously, scientists thought the weapons were ceremonial.

Other interesting history in the news stories:

• An ancient theater at Hieropolis is being restored. The project is financed by the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
• A team unearthed the first Roman-era basilica in Alexandria Egypt.  The basilica was built on the ruins of a temple from the Ptolemaic era.
• Archaeologists unscramble ancient graffiti at Beit She’arim in Israel.  The national park and necropolis dates back to the first century.
• A gladiator’s gravestone describes a ref’s wrong call that cost him his life. “After breaking my opponent Demetrius I did not kill him immediately,” reads the epitaph. “Fate and the cunning treachery of the summa rudis (referee) killed me.”
• Anomalous round huts were excavated in the Roman fort of Vindolanda in the UK. They are possibly refuge huts for locals who helped the Romans and were at risk for reprisals.
• A fifth century shipwreck was discovered in Istanbul with its full load and timber frame completely intact. The wreck is among some 35 sunken ships at the old Byzantine harbor which had silted over, probably in the 10th century.
• Archaeologists continue to explore the ancient Roman city of Berenika in Egypt. The port was a major transfer point for the eastern spice trade and was recently featured in the Discovery Channel documentary “When Rome Ruled Egypt.”

One follow-up story:

• Moammar Gaddafi’s Libyan government may be storing munitions in cultural sites such as museums and ruins like the U.N. World Heritage Site at Leptis Magna. I posted in April about the concerns for Libya’s rich historical sites during the on-going conflict. In June NATO officials said they could not rule out bombing in the area of Leptis Magna if Gaddafi’s troops are found to be using it as a military staging ground. UNESCO issued a statement calling for all parties in the conflict to protect heritage sites.

Empire continues the story of the Pinarius family chronicled in Steven Saylor’s earlier novel Roma: The Novel of Ancient Rome. In the earlier book, we followed the aristocratic family from the founding of Rome through the Republican years. Empire picks up at the end of Augustus’ reign and concludes at the end of Hadrian’s, covering about 130 years and four generations of Pinarii.  Saylor sets himself a Herculean task to cover the major events and people of the times in an entertaining and accessible way using a formula perfected by James A. Michner in his historical epics. He mostly succeeds. (Read the entire review here.)

The details:

• Title: Empire: The Novel of Imperial Rome
• Author: Steven Saylor
• Publisher: St. Martin’s Press, 2010
• Format: Hardback with dust jacket, 587 pages
• Price: $25.99

The giveaway (sorry, US only, due to shipping costs):

This is a once-read, like-new copy, which I received from the Library Thing Early Reader Program.  Entry is easy: leave a comment on this post (make sure to give your email when asked, but not necessary in the post). If you want a second entry, sign up to follow the blog or indicate you’re already a follower. For a third chance, repost this giveaway on your Facebook, blog, Twitter, website, etc. and post the link in your comment. Don’t worry if your comment doesn’t appear immediately, because I moderate comments and don’t spend my life at my computer. I’ll randomly select a winner and announce it on Thursday, June 3o. At the end of the month I’ll enter everyone who didn’t win in all my June giveaways into a bonus drawing for a mystery book. Good luck!

And the Raffle King declared the winner…

Cindi!

Congratulations and I’ll be in touch by email.

I truly enjoyed this reading experience. Roma introduces the reader to events that receive short shrift in most history books. Although it covered a vast sweep of time, I felt the story telling was consistent and the characters varied and interesting. This is a wonderful achievement in both effort and results. Among the “extras”–including an interview with the author, a historical essay and reading group questions–I particularly liked the maps of Rome at the beginning of each chapter, showing the walls, major landmarks, public buildings, temples, and altars. It’s a great way of showing Rome’s expansion and evolution. “Thanks” to Saylor for a great read. (Read the entire review here.)

The details:

• Title: Roma: The Novel of Ancient Rome
• Author: Steven Saylor
• Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2007
• Format: Trade paperback, 555 pages
• Price: $15.95

The giveaway (sorry, US only, due to shipping costs):

This is a once-read copy, which I purchased from the bargain bin (has a black magic marker dot on the bottom.)  Entry is easy: leave a comment on this post (make sure to give your email when asked, but not necessary in the post). If you want a second entry, sign up to follow the blog or indicate you’re already a follower. For a third chance, repost this giveaway on your Facebook, blog, Twitter, website, etc. and post the link in your comment. Don’t worry if your comment doesn’t appear immediately, because I moderate comments and don’t spend my life at my computer. I’ll randomly select a winner and announce it on Wednesday, June 22. At the end of the month I’ll enter everyone who didn’t win in all my June giveaways into a bonus drawing for a mystery book. Good luck!

And the winner is:

Judith!

Congratulations! I’ll be in touch by email.

As anyone knows, who’s stopped by this blog, I’m a sucker for anything set in Alexandria, especially during the Roman period. I’ve studied the city for many years and it’s the setting for my first novel. So I’m continuing my Alexandria series with this book review and giveaway. I’ll post some more history later in the month.

Lindsey Davis is well known for her Marcus Didius Falco historical mysteries and this one is number nineteen in the series. From the back cover:

In A. D. 77 Marcus Didius Falco, private “informer” and stalwart Roman citizen, undertakes one of the most fearsome tasks known to man—he goes on vacation with his somewhat pregnant wife, Helena Justina, and their family. They travel to Alexandria, Egypt, and they aren’t there long before the Librarian of the great library is found dead under suspicious circumstances, in his office with the door locked from the inside.

Falco quickly finds himself on the trail of dodgy doings, malfeasance, deadly professional rivalry, more bodies, and the lowest of the low—book thieves! As the bodies pile up, it’s up to Falco to untangle this horrible mess before the killer begins to strike closer to home.

This lighthearted description closely matches the tone of the book: modern attitudes and dialog set in ancient times. The concept of pater familias where the father is the head of the Roman house and holds (theoretical) powers of life and death over his wife, children and slaves is nonexistent in this book. Helena Justina is more than a full partner in this marriage, making key decisions not only on childrearing and running the household, but economic and employment decisions, as well.  Falco, his wife, three children and brother-in-law descend on his uncle Fulvius “a negotiator.” The fact he has a male partner in life, as well as in business, causes no condemnation, furor or even comment, except as regards the partner’s party hosting skills.

This kind of writing can be a boon or a bane. There are heated debates, on several of the boards where I hang out online, on the “legitimacy” of using modern dialog and the extent to which modern attitudes throw the reader out of the story. I come down on the side that says whenever the story took place it was “modern” times to the characters. Before the advent of recording equipment, we have some evidence on the formal language peopled used when writing and giving speeches, but no way of knowing how people of various classes spoke to one another…especially in dead or archaic languages. As long as the author doesn’t use modern slang, I’m fine with modern prose.

Modern attitudes however, are a different story. Generally, I prefer my historical fiction to be accurate about attitudes towards family relationships, sex, government,religion, money, social roles, etc. These have changed over the years. That’s why I read historical fiction, to be transported to a different time and place. If a character holds “modern attitudes” or acts in a “modern way,” there has to be a good reason for their exceptionalism. A skilled author will make it seem natural, even inevitable, for that character, at that time, to think and act that way. The author has to show why this behavior is exceptional to the time and what the consequences are to the character of thinking and behaving in an unexpected way.

But I do make exceptions.

This book is funny. Yes, there are mysteries, bodies, and the occasional brush with death, but the reader knows (just as in their favorite Agatha Christie book or crime T.V. show) that the main characters will live to solve another mystery and crack another joke. It’s a formula that works, or this wouldn’t be the nineteenth in the series. Readers come back for the familiar characters, the well-researched history and the humorous writing. The humor, in this book, is based on the thesis that “human nature never changes”—the sneering society matron, the bored bureaucrat, the absent-minded professor, the perpetual student—are all familiar stereotypes and nothing in the story challenges our imagination about the past. The people are just like us with a bit of history and mystery thrown in. Here’s Falco’s assessment of his brother-in-law’s ambitions:

Like all students, immediately his family thought he was finally settling down in a prestigious, extremely expensive university, he heard through some grapevine that there was better teaching at another one. Or better parties and the chance of a better love life, anyway…His father would pay for it. The senator, a diligent tolerant man, would just be thankful that Aulus had not—so far—expressed a wish to be a gladiator, a muster forger or a writer of ten-scroll epic poetry.

Because the setting of the murder is the famous Library on the grounds of the Museum, the most celebrated learning center in ancient times, we even have the benefit of a CSI-like autopsy and specialists in poison and mechanics. Scholars at the Museum and Library are secretive with their research, jealous of each others’ favor and united only in their contempt for the Museum’s administration. One of my favorite scenes is a back-biting academic board meeting which could have taken place in my former place of employment.

And if the reader gets a dose of history, while enjoying the mystery? Great! Davis provides a wonderfully researched book with lots of details on food, clothing, geography, architecture, and the state of science. Because I’ve researched Alexandria for my books and other blog posts, I had an eagle eye out for errors. I found nothing of any significance. So, if you’re interested in a fun read where you might inadvertently learn something, this book is for you. Don’t worry about it being part of a series; it stands on its own, just fine.

Note: I purchased this book and the opinions in the review are mine.

The details:

• Title: Alexandria: A Marcus Didius Falco Mystery
• Author: Lindsey Davis
• Publisher: Minotaur Books, 2009
• Format: Trade paperback, 349 pages
• Price $14.99

The giveaway (sorry, US and Canada only, due to shipping costs):

This is a gently used, once read copy, in like new condition.  Entry is easy: leave a comment on this post (make sure to give your email when asked, but not necessary in the post). If you want a second entry, sign up to follow the blog or indicate you’re already a follower. For a third chance, repost this giveaway on your Facebook, blog, Twitter, website, etc. and post the link in your comment. Don’t worry if your comment doesn’t appear immediately, because I moderate comments and don’t spend my life at my computer. I’ll randomly select a winner and announce it on Wednesday, June 15 Good luck!

And the winner is:

Carol Wong!

Pharos Lighthouse

Alexandria has always fired my imagination. It’s the setting for my novel Selene of Alexandria. I’ve written about its Great Library and Cleopatra’s Needle, an obelisk from the Caesarian that sits in New York’s Central Park. Alexandria is fascinating and complicated, with a reputation for learning and a history of violence. Recently, it was in the news as Muslims attacked Christians, harking back to the bad old days of the fourth and fifth centuries. The next month, I wrote about young people of all faiths forming a human chain around its museums and library, protecting those vulnerable institutions during the Egyptian uprising. In ancient times, as today, it was a major port and the gateway to the rest of Egypt. A diverse city of many religions, where people from all over the world come to work, trade, study and enjoy the culture. You could think of it as the Manhattan of the East, but maybe Manhattan should be known as the Alexandria of the West. After all, Alexandria did come first.

Alexander the Great founded the city in 331 BC and it thrived for nearly a thousand years as Egypt’s capital before the Muslim conquest in AD 641. Alexander didn’t live to see his city built, but he was buried there in a lavish tomb which was a “must see” tourist attraction in ancient times. Every Roman emperor who came to Alexandria made a pilgrimage to the Soma. Within a hundred years of its birth, Alexandria’s population exceeded Carthage’s. As a trading center, it soon outstripped Rome.

The city was physically impressive, set on a limestone ridge between the Mediterranean Sea and the huge Nile-fed Lake Mareotis, it had great harbors on both. As one ancient wag put it, the people of Alexandria “enjoyed sea fish, lake fish and river fish.” More boats and trade came through the lake harbor than left by the sea one. Its elevation gave its inhabitants welcome sea breezes. Even today, its population doubles during the summer as people escape from the Saharan heat. The streets were generous and laid out on a grid system. But the crown jewel was the Via Canopica, an east-west boulevard that spanned the city and was an impressive 30.5 meters wide. Massive gates, set in limestone walls, sat at each terminus: the Gate of the Sun in the east and the Gate of the Moon in the west. The Ptolemaic palaces and grounds took up nearly one-third of the city.

The Ptolemies, heirs to Alexander’s empire, built one of the ancient Wonders of the World—the Pharos Lighthouse and endowed one of the most famous education centers of all times: the Museon and its famous Library. The last Ptolemy, Cleopatra VII, seduced Caesar (or vice versa) and created a lavish temple to his memory, the Caesarian; where the famous Lady Philosopher Hypatia was murdered four hundred years later. Philosophers, physicians, mathematicians and scholars of all types flocked to Alexandria to live and study. Some of my favorites (sorry if this list is a bit heavy on the scientists and mathematicians, but I’m a science geek):

• Herophilus (335-280 BC), a Greek physician from Chalcedon, spent the majority of his life in Alexandria, where he was the first to systematically perform scientific dissections of human cadavers. He was the first anatomist and invented the Scientific Method. Together with Erasistratus (below) he founded the great medical school of Alexandria.
• Aristarchus (310 BC – ca. 230 BC), a mathematician and astronomer, born in Samos, lived and worked in Alexandria. He developed the theory of heliocentrism – the theory that the earth revolves around the sun, rather than the sun revolving around the earth; which was the generally accepted belief of the times.
• Erasistratus (304 BC – 250 BC) a Greek anatomist and royal physician who, with Herophilus (above), founded the Alexandria medical school. He was among the first to distinguish between veins and arteries, is credited for describing the valves of the heart, and concluded that the heart functioned as a pump. He also differentiated between the function of the sensory and motor nerves, linking them to the brain.
• Eratosthenes (276 BC – c. 195 BC) was a mathematician and astronomer, born in Cyrene (Libya), and was the third head of the Great Library. He calculated the circumference of the earth and the angle of its tilt to the sun, both remarkably accurate. He created a system of longitude and latitude and established geography as the field of knowlege we know today.
• Hero (or Heron 10 – 70 AD) an engineer and mathematician; invented a steam engine, a coin vending machine, a force pump (used in fire engines), a wind-powered organ and he put a lot of the “magic” in several religious temples. He is well-known for his mechanical automatons.
• Galen (September AD 129 – 199/217) a physician born in Pergamon, studied in Alexandria. He traveled widely and wrote a number of medical books. His works on anatomy held up until the sixteenth century and his medical books were still studied well into the nineteenth.
• Hypatia (AD 355? – March 415) a pagan philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer (and a major character in my novel), wrote one of the best textbooks on Euclid in the ancient times, making Euclid’s proofs accessible to people throughout history. She is best known for teaching Neoplatonic philosophy to the elite young men of the age and her brutal murder at the hands of a Christian mob.

But the people of Alexandria gained a mixed reputation. Yes, they had wealth, trade, education and vibrant culture; but the ancient writers also tarred them with an inclination to violence. Early in the Roman era, an unfortunate Roman accidentally killed a cat (sacred to the Egyptians) and was torn to pieces by a mob. But most of the early violence was normal reaction to outside oppression. The Alexandrines backed the wrong imperial aspirant a couple of times and paid the price. Diocletan’s army laid siege to the city in AD 297. When they finally broke through the gates, they massacred the inhabitants and destroyed the ancient palace district (which included the Museon and the Great Library.) It was still in ruins 120 years later. It wasn’t until the fourth century that intra- and inter-religious riots, pogroms, arson and murders made Alexandria infamous. I’ll address that issue in my next post on this great city.

Sources:

• Alexandria in Late Antiquity by Christopher Haas (John Hopkins University Press, 1997)
• Alexandria: City of the Western Mind by Theodore Vrettos (The Free Press, 2001)

Caesar is dead, and Rome is, again, divided. Lepidus has retreated to Africa, while Antony rules the opulent East, and Octavian claims the West, the heart of Rome, as his domain. Though this tense truce holds civil war at bay, Rome seems ripe for an emperor—a true Julian heir to lay claim to Caesar’s legacy. With the bearing of a hero, and the riches of the East at his disposal, Antony seems poised to take the prize. Like a true warrior-king, he is a seasoned general whose lust for power burns alongside a passion for women, feasts, and Chian wine. His rival Octavian, seems a less convincing candidate: the slight golden haired boy is as controlled as Antony is indulgent and as cool-headed and clear-eyed as Antony is impulsive. Indeed, the two are well- matched only in ambition.

Anthony and Cleopatra is the last of seven novels, collectively called the Masters of Rome series, covering the end of the Roman Republic in all its twisted glory. The result of this herculean task, is a legacy of some of the best researched historical fiction of this time; meticulously covering politics, battles, people, religious rites, traditions, trade, architecture, etc. The best books of the series draw the reader in with fascinating characters, Machiavellian plots, and scintillating detail. The worst give the reader the sense of reading an entertaining history book. Which is not, necessarily, a bad thing. McCullough had intended to end the saga with The October Horse, but avid fans prevailed and she concluded with this novel, which shows the final end of the Republic and beginning of Empire.

I found Anthony and Cleopatra to be one of the weaker books in the series, but still enjoyable. McCullough’s admiration for Caesar was evident in every book in which he appears. Now that he’s dead, she seems to have lost her inspiration. Octavian (Caesar’s heir and grand-nephew) is decidedly colder than Caesar, more cerebral; not good at battles, but superb at politics and manipulation. Agrippa, one of the more admirable and interesting characters, is his battle arm and sounding board; a loyal and shrewd friend who is popular with the people and the army. Although the book is titled Antony and Cleopatra, McCullough gives just as much ink to their rivals as to the titular characters. A good thing, because I knew less about their story.

In this book, McCullough sets up an East/West culture divide. The monarchs of the East are treacherous, untrustworthy, murderous, worship strange gods, and wield absolute power for their own aggrandizement in their kingdoms. The Romans have honor, rule by laws, representative government; and when one person has to rule the Senate and People of Rome; it’s for a limited time only and for the good of the Roman people, not the individual wielding power. At least, that is what the men seizing power in Rome tell themselves and the people. McCullough shows us the hypocrisy in that thinking, the inevitable decline of the republic and the ultimate triumph of Empire. Cleopatra runs afoul of this divide and is incapable of truly understanding her rival Octavian, his motives or his plans. Antony doesn’t have the intelligence or subtlety to understand that Octavian and Agrippa are setting him up for a fall. At every juncture, he makes the wrong decision.

Neither Antony, nor Cleopatra, come off well in this narrative. From early in the series Anthony is portrayed as brutish and limited; elevated only by his relationship with Caesar. In this story he is a depressive drunk, driven by his physical passions; an egoist with an over-inflated sense of entitlement and his own skills as a general. He’s easily manipulated by sycophants and beautiful women. Cleopatra is portrayed as the ultimate scheming Eastern monarch who uses her wealth and power to ensnare Antony with the sole purpose of using him to put her eldest son Caesarion (fathered by Caesar) on the throne of Rome; a throne which didn’t exist because Rome was still (in name) a republic. In this story, Cleopatra is robbed of any credit for her intelligence, political acumen, or many accomplishments as a ruler. Anything good is Caesar’s doing, anything wrong is hers. From pages 23-24 where we first meet Cleopatra:

Chin on her hand, Cleopatra watched Caesarion as he bent over his wax tablets. Sosigenes at his right hand, supervising. Not that her son needed him; Caesarion was seldom wrong and never mistaken. The leaden weight of grief shifted in her chest, made her swallow painfully, to look at Caesar’s son was to look at Caesar, who at this age would have been Caesarion’s image: tall graceful, golden-haired, long bumpy nose, full humorous lips with delicate creases in their corners. Oh, Caesar, Caesar! How have I lived without you?…And always, she thought, I made the wrong decisions….Without Caesar to guide me, I proved myself a poor ruler.

McCullough tries to make up for the lack of suspense in this well-known story, by populating the book with dozens of secondary characters, exploring the twisted politics of all the various rulers, and providing wonderful and telling details that transport the reader to that faraway time and place. She is brilliant at showing us how people thought and acted in those times; their motivations, superstitions, the philosophy and culture that shaped their lives; and how different it was from our own. Unlike many novels of this time, the women don’t disappear. Not only Cleopatra, but Antony’s earlier wives come across as tough and shrewd. And where would Octavian be without his mate Livia or his sister Octavia? The misogyny of Roman men is a key element in the story and even blamed (to some extent) for the Antony’s downfall. Cleopatra was a female ruler with great power and wealth. Antony’s male Roman advisers resented her and ultimately defected. In the end, I wasn’t happy with the portrayal of Cleopatra, but McCullough’s version is well routed in the research and is true to her narrative.

In summary, I enjoyed the book, but not as much as the earlier ones. I have nothing but admiration for the McCullough’s accomplishment with this series, but some readers might find her writing tough going. For people who like a complicated story, multiple characters and meticulous details, I recommend the series. Reading from the beginning is best, but Antony and Cleopatra can stand on its own. If you want a more rounded take on Cleopatra, I’d recommend the biography Cleopatra: a Life by Stacy Schiff.

The Masters of Rome series:

1. The First Man in Rome (1990); The rise of General Marius, (110–100 BC)
2. The Grass Crown (1991); Marius, Sulla and the Social War (97–86 BC)
3. Fortune’s Favorites (1993); Sulla’s dictatorship, Caesar’s youth (83–69 BC)
4. Caesar’s Women (1997); Caesar’ early politics in Rome  (67–59 BC)
5. Caesar (1998); Caesar in Gaul and the Civil War (54–48 BC)
6. The October Horse (2002); Caesar in Egypt, his death and the Battle of Phillipi (48–41 BC)
7. Antony and Cleopatra (2007); The second triumvirate and end of the republic (41–27 BC)

The details:

• Title: Antony and Cleopatra
• Author: Colleen McCullough
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2007
• Format: Hardback, 567 pgs. (also available in paperback, ebook and audio book)
• ISBN: 978-1-4165-5294-9
• Price: $26.95

Please note: I purchased this book. The opinions in the review are my own.

Cleopatra VII, the last Macedonian Greek Ptolemy to rule Egypt, is one of those historical characters that everyone thinks they know because she is so enmeshed in popular culture. The subject of plays, books, movies, art; all with the same theme: beautiful woman seduces the most powerful men of the age, gets her comeuppance by falling passionately in love, betrays her lover in his hour of need and commits suicide by snakebite. All agree on some central tenants: she was physically beautiful; was profligately sensual, using sex, food, drink and other delights of the senses to ensnare her victims; and she was highly ambitious.

A tetradrachm of Cleopatra VII, Ascalon mint

If you read the classical writers, she’s all that is anti-Roman in the world: a woman, a queen, an Eastern ruler who worships strange animal gods. To male-dominated, republican Rome, she’s a mystery and a threat to their very way of life. But the real Cleopatra is obscured by myth and legend. Octavian (later known as the Emperor Augustus) and his publicists probably manipulated her image to enhance his own as her conqueror. We don’t even have a good likeness. I saw a museum show about Cleopatra several years ago and they had a couple of busts which may, or may not, have been her. All we have for certain are a few coins which show a woman with a prominent nose and sharp chin.

Most that was written about her was written after her death, by her enemies. A few authors, in recent times, have tried to pull back the veil of mystery surrounding the legends of Cleopatra. The most recent is Cleopatra: A Life by Pulitzer-award winning author Stacy Schiff. I picked up this book because it was getting a lot of buzz on various history and reading sites for being a lucid, easy-to-read, modern biography of Cleopatra. I wasn’t disappointed. Schiff tells us early on what she wants to accomplish:

To restore Cleopatra is as much to salvage the few facts as to peel away the encrusted myth and the hoary propaganda. She was a Greek woman whose history fell to men whose futures lay with Rome, the majority of them officials of the empire….There is no universal agreement on most of the basic details of her life, no consensus on who her mother was, how long Cleopatra lived in Rome, how often she was pregnant, whether she and Antony married, what transpired at the battle that sealed her fate, how she died….I have not attempted to fill in the blanks, though on occasion I have corralled the possibilities. What looks merely probable remains here merely probable—though opinions differ radically even on the probabilities. The irreconcilable remains unreconciled. Mostly I have restored context.”

There is a lot of context. In addition to telling us about Cleopatra and other leading players on the stage; Schiff fills in lots of details about the city of Alexandria and the lives of people at those times. We have pageantry, economics, palace intrigue, architecture, global politics, food, medicine and childcare, among many subjects. She also does the scholar’s job of evaluating the sources and putting them in context. Who had an axe to grind, who worked for whom, how did their commentary on Cleopatra fit in with their life’s work. As Schiff says, Cleopatra “ceases to exist without a Roman in the room.” She points out that the most comprehensive sources never met Cleopatra. Plutarch, Appian and Dio all lived after she died and for their own purposes:

…conflated accounts, refurbishing old tales. They saddled Cleopatra with the vices of other miscreants. History existed to be retold, with more panache but not necessarily greater accuracy. In the ancient texts the villains always wear a particularly vulgar purple, eat too much roasted peacock, douse themselves in rare unguents and melt down  pearls….Cleopatra’s was a world in which you could visit the relics of Orpheus’s lyre, or view the egg from which Zeus’s mother had hatched. (It was in Sparta.)”

Schiff’s book, like any good non-fiction history, is well documented. She provides forty pages of end notes, a selected bibliography and extensive index. But it reads like a novel, even to the extent of putting thoughts in the heads or giving feelings to some of the characters (which I think is a mistake in non-fiction.) She gives us a portrait of an intelligent, pragmatic ruler. Cleopatra held on to power for twenty-two years in the face of the most ambitious men of her age, prosecuted wars, alleviated famines and controlled one of the largest economies in the Ancient world. Based on Cleopatra’s actions, background, and the times she lived in; Schiff gives us a character that rings true. Whether or not it is accurate, no one will ever know.

The details:

• Title: Cleopatra: A Life
• Author: Stacy Schiff,
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company ( 2010)
• ISBN: 978-0-316-00192-2
• Format: hardback, 369 pages
• Price: $29.99