Steven Saylor's The Judgement of Caesar

The Judgment of Caesar by Steven Saylor

Steven Saylor’s Roma Sub Rosa books, featuring Gordianus the Finder, started out much like Lindsay Davis’s Marcus Didius Falco books – as mysteries set in ancient Rome. In both series, the characters were interesting, the details of life in Rome well researched, and plots well constructed. But while Davis continues to write mysteries (very good mysteries, I should say), Saylor really has gone down a different path. More and more his books are becoming historical novels (usually very good historical novels), with the mystery being only a small part of the story. The Judgment of Caesar is perhaps an extreme example of this trend.

As the novel opens, Gordianus and his wife Bethesda, along with his latest adopted son and two young slaves, are heading to Egypt. Bethesda has been ill, and she wants to return to Egypt to bath in the waters of the Nile. However, the trip brings Gordianus to Egypt in time to once again take part in the great historical events of his time. First, he’s captured by Pompey the Great, who had promised to kill him, and is on hand when Pompey is assassinated by the servants of King Ptolmey (who is ruling Egypt, but in the midst of a civil war with his sister Cleopatra). He meets Ptolmey, but is also on hand when Caesar arrives to meet Ptolmeny (accompanied by Meto, Gordianus’s adopted son, whom he had disowned in the last book). Soon, Cleopatra is smuggled into Alexandria to meet Caesar, and the Civil War is rekindled as Caesar – pursuing Rome’s (and his own) best interests tries to bring about a settlement.

The portrait of Caesar – the man who is changed from a Consul to someone more and more fascinated with the absolute power of Eastern monarchs – is fascinating, and I think spot on. Egypt is a pivotal point in Caesar’s transition from Consul to absolute monarch. Gordianus presents a view that is both modern and, to a strong degree, pre-imperial Roman. He abhors the way people in Egypt revere their monarchs and bow to them, treating them like Gods. He hates the way they exercise absolute power and wield life and death on a whim. Through him, the novel gives us a good glimpse of the clash between the fanaticism of the Egyptians and the practicality of the traditional Romans (and presents some parallels between the Middle East and America of our own times).

The mystery is only a minor part of the novel. This is a 320 page novel, and the mystery doesn’t start until about page 200 or so, and is over within about 60 pages. It almost feels like Saylor – whose novels are marketed as mysteries – felt he couldn’t simply write a straight historical as part of the series and had to add the mystery to it. While the mystery does provide him an opportunity to further explore the relationship between Gordianus and Meto and to further reveal the characters of Caesar and Cleopatra, the novel could have done without it.

The novel could also have done without its last ten pages, where we have a happy ending added on in what feels like an artificial manner. As a reader, I found myself on one hand hoping it would work out that way (I like these characters and want things to turn out well for them) but at the same time it felt wrong, it felt contrived.

Overall, though, the book is a very good historical novel, well worth reading even if you don’t normally enjoy mysteries.