Scandal Takes A Holiday, by Lindsey Davis

Friday, November 12, 2004

In Scandal Takes a Holiday, by Lindsey Davis, Falco and family are back exploring the Roman Empire. Their destination is the port city of Ostia, whose current amenities, including public baths and a lavish latrine, were provided by the Emperor Claudius. Falco's two employees, the brothers of his wife Helena Justina, are unavailable. One is seen off to presumed adventures-to-come in Athens where he will be studying law and the other is attending to his own family. But Falco's old confederate Petro (Petronius) is working with the vigiles in Ostia, so when Falco shows up on a (temporarily) secret mission to locate "Infamia," a missing gossip columnist, he has a ready-made professional helper, as well as Falco's own well-read wife.

Petro is living in relative harmony with Falco's sister Maia and her brood, in fancy quarters provided by a member of the evidently corrupt building society. That means that Falco and his brood, which now includes his wife, their two children, and their sort of adopted teenage daughter Albia, can have Petro's assigned quarters at the Ostia patrol house. To create havoc, most living members of both Falco's and Helena's families drop by to visit the "vacationing" family.

Among other interesting liaisons is one between Falco's father, an antique dealer whose sources can't withstand too close scrutiny and the crazed brother of his estranged wife, Falco's mother. Uncle Fulvius was a mystery about whom little was said while Falco was growing up. He apparently got on the wrong ship and ended up who knows where or else he became a castrata in the service of Cybele. No one seems to know. Even when Falco winds up in far too close quarters with him in a cell on which initiates of the rites of Mithras endure the stinking drippings of a freshly slaughtered bull, Uncle Fulvius won't come out and say why Emperor Vespasian's chief informer Anacrites is so familiar to him nor whether his smuggling is officially sanctioned.

On the historical-social-political scene, Pompey the Great is mocked because of his boast that he had done away with pirates in no time flat. What happened to those pirates? What did they turn to when told off? It's not as if they could switch from piracy to carpentry or any other useful, remunerative craft. Obviously they had only limited skills with which to eke a livelihood and although it might not be officially called piracy any longer, its affects are much the same. Clearly, the missing gossip columnist had become embroiled with them or else he suffered at the hands of one of the corrupt members of the builder's guild. The trouble is that there is no visible sign of him and not even the "pirate" whose memoirs he was writing knows what has become of him.

Besides bringing the port city of Ostia to life, Lindsey Davis has presented a compelling picture of first century reformed pirates and the corruption of civic officials. Falco's family is, as always, completely untameable and unpredictable, while Falco himself seems to be slowing down and behaving himself now that he's middle class and approaching middle age, although it doesn't keep him from staying out all night without telling his wife.

Friday, November 12, 2004