A Murder on the Appian Way
Roma Sub Rosa #5
By Steven Saylor
Published by Blackstone Audiobooks
Read by Scott Harrison
The Book:
This is another one I have listened to before, but I decided it had been long enough and I wanted to relisten to this series in its chronological order. Sometimes when I do that, my opinions change so if you want to see if that happened this time, feel free to go back to An Audio-Book Review: Another Funny Thing Happened on My Way to the Subura | Jonathan Edward Feinstein’s News (and Reviews!) (wordpress.com) If nothing else, I see I used a similar joke for the title of the review.
One of the hallmarks of Saylor’s books, at least the ones I have read so far) is that they are based on actual historic events. For example, in the first book of this series, our protagonist, Gordianus the Finder, is hired by the young and up-coming Cicero to ferret out information he can use in his defense of Sextus Roscius. Cicero later published his oration in Roscius’ defense so we know a bit about what might otherwise have been a minor and forgotten case that occurred during the time of Sulla’s dictatorship of Rome. As the series progresses, each time we meet various famous and infamous people of the period as Gordianus carries out his investigations and because each one is based on historical events, these people tend to become recurring characters to one extent or other.
This time we learn that one of the leading rabble-rousers of the late Roman Republic has been killed in a skirmish with a rival’s forces somewhere to the south of Rome. The victim is Publius Clodius Pulcher and the accused is Titus Annius Milo and it is up to Gordianus to figure out just what happened when the entourages of the two rivals met up and just how Clodius had died. Saylor takes, perhaps, some liberties with Gordianus’ conclusions which is reasonable since there were many conflicting accusations flying back and forth leading up to Milo’s trial, and most of what we know is yet another of Cicero’s published speeches, the Pro Milone.
Saylor is hardly the only author to set his novels in the latter days of the Roman Republic, but I particularly enjoy Gordianus’ points of view even if he is not the most typical Roman of his period. Once again, I enjoyed listening to this story and look forward to the next in the series, Rubicon.
The Audiobook:
Once again Scott Harrison does fine job of narrating this story. I have said before that given series like I, Claudius, certain episodes of Doctor Who, and other similar offerings I have grown rather used to imagining the ancient Romans speaking with British accents, but somehow hearing the plebian Gordianus speak with an American accent sems right. Make of that what you will 😊 .
Next: A different side of Adrilankha in Steven Brust’s Tiassa
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