Books

They tried to write him out of history

Master and God

This novel’s reach stretches from the glories of monumental Rome to a prisoner-of-war camp above the snowline the wrong side of the frontier. Its settings include barracks and bars and quiet domestic rooms, the fabulous Flavian palace on the Palatine, Domitian’s fortress villa at Alba Longa, a villa that may have belonged to the poet Horace. It scoffs equally at the military life and poets. Even the doctor is paranoid.

We know that Domitian killed flies with his pen – how did a fly view this? Who killed the dancer – and was it illegal? What chance Europe could have had a Dacian Empire instead a Roman one? What snacks should be served at a high-powered committee meeting summoned to discuss shedding the ruler it is charged to protect? When a Chief Vestal Virgin is buried alive for adultery, what are the logistics to ensure there are no riots? What kind advice would a female friend give to a Roman soldier who has committed bigamy by accident while in the throes of alcoholism and impotence, at the same time as he is organising a political death squad under a loathsome regime that threatens her personal friends and her divorced husband?

Gaius Vinius Clodianus is a reluctant Praetorian Guard, with a disastrous marriage history and post-traumatic stress – but he is a hero. Flavia Lucilla has given the imperial ladies a ridiculous hairstyle and makes toupees for the increasingly paranoid emperor – and she is good at her job. A devastating fire in Rome starts their story then a shared apartment brings them together, leading to a lifelong friendship, passion and love.

Together they watch Domitian’s once talented rule unravel into madness and cruelty, until the people closest to the Emperor conspire to delete him from history. As an imperial bodyguard, Gaius then faces an impossible dilemma, where the bloody outcome inevitably threatens his and Lucilla’s hopes of a future together and even their lives.

Note on the UK audiobook:

This version is probably not like any other audiobook! The narrative is divided up (by Lindsey) in a way nobody has tried before. There are long passages where one voice tells everything in the usual way. Then conversations between Gaius and Lucilla are a kind of drama. As the book goes on and the main characters come together, the whole story is a dialogue for two voices, just as it is narrated in the printed version. It’s not dramatised formally: all the text is there, but it is something special.

That hairstyle!