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Well, lying is too harsh a word. If you want to pen a novel about Abraham Lincoln hunting vampires, you have a perfect right to do so, and it doesn’t make you a liar. Historical novels are by definition fiction. Novelists should be able to write whatever they please, and so should screenwriters. I enjoyed the movie Gladiator even though it’s not remotely historically accurate. To start with, Emperor Commodus wasn’t killed fighting in the arena. (The real Commodus was every bit as nasty as the one in the movie, and he did get killed by his own people. Just not that way.) Still, I prefer historical novels that adhere pretty closely to the truth.

A British scholar interested in historical fiction, Peter J. Beck, has made these two points: 1) Most adult Americans and Britons have forgotten much of what they (hopefully) learned about history in school. 2) Many people nowadays learn about history mainly from films and novels. He has data to back this up. (My review of Beck’s fascinating book: Presenting History: Past and Present )

If historical novelists wind up teaching history whether we intend to or not, isn’t it better that we teach true history? Isn’t it better to help people get a real understanding of the past that they can draw on when, for example, they walk into a voting booth?

My biggest gripe with Gladiator is that the movie implies overthrowing a tyrant is pretty easy—just get a noble general to fight him man-to-man. Then the Senate can take over because it’s the noble general’s dying wish. But history doesn’t work that way. Rome had a republican form of government for nearly five hundred years. (It resembled ours in some ways—because our government was partly modeled on it.) A lot of people, some every bit as admirable as the fictional Maximus, struggled to reform and/or preserve the tottering republic. They couldn’t do it. People had lost faith in their government. And when the Roman Republic fell, it fell for good.

I think it’s even more important that novelists get the history right when they write about more recent times. There are topics in American history—slavery is one—that we need to approach with particular care, because of the potential impact on how we see the world now. If you write that Lincoln hunted vampires, you do no harm. That’s historical fantasy and we all know better than to believe it. But subtly distorting the historical record can have a pernicious effect on events today. There is also real potential for good in writing truthfully. Picasso said, “Art is the lie that makes us realize the truth.� Reading a good novel, we may grasp truths that would be obscured if we were reading a mere recitation of facts.

Can any novel be completely accurate? Not really. In historical fiction, novelists must select certain events and omit others. In both my novels, Augustus’s sister Octavia, once Mark Antony’s wife, is an important minor character. Augustus actually also had a half-sister whose historical role was negligible. I left her out of both books. I don’t think I’m doing an injustice to the truth by giving Augustus only one sister, or by not mentioning in my Authors Note that I omitted this obscure relative.

But with the big things, it’s important to clarify what is true and not true. For example, near the end of The Daughters of Palatine Hill, Cleopatra Selene performs a highly significant act after making an extremely hard and painful moral choice. The action fits what we know of Selene’s actual life and character. She really might have done what she does in the book. But we don’t know if she did or not, and I said so in the Author’s Note. I felt that in a sense I owed this not only to my readers but to Selene’s memory. If we historical novelists owe one thing to the people we write about, it’s that we do our best to tell the truth about them.

Truth matters even when it comes to fiction. Especially because how we look at the past helps to shape our view of the present, historical novelists have a responsibility to get the history right.

We’re hearing a lot about Caesarism lately, and every time I hear that term I feel a jolt of anxiety. I’m interested in ancient Rome—have written two novels with Rome as a setting--and I love America. I ask myself: Are there grounds for comparing modern day America to Rome? Could we go the same way the Romans did…toward Caesarism?

Caesarism is one-man, dictatorial rule, centered on a charismatic leader. When Caesarism is established, the dictator sweeps away established law and constitutional checks, with the rationale that this is necessary for the good of the nation. He is special, he and his followers assure their fellow citizens; he can save the country and no one else can. Caesarism obviously involves a cult of personality. Force, however, is the main element. Julius Caesar mesmerized the masses, but his rule ultimately rested on the fact that he commanded an army.

Longevity is no guarantee that a form of government will exist forever. The Roman Republic lasted for almost five hundred years. Our republic has existed for less than half that span. When a woman asked Benjamin Franklin what form of government the Constitutional Convention had given America, he famously answered, “A republic if you can keep it.� A republic is a form of government in which leaders are elected and adhere to the rule of law. It is fragile. The Founding Fathers knew this.

I could go on and on about the ways the Roman Republic was not a democracy in the modern sense. To begin with, many people were enslaved, including about a third of those in the city of Rome. Women could not vote. Rome had no mass media. Once a man was a senator, he served for life. Still, I think we need to remember Roman history.

As the empire became bigger and richer, the ruling Senate lost the ability to govern effectively. It defended the interests of a narrow oligarchy and forfeited popular respect. You could make a case that this sounds like contemporary America. Think of Congress’s abysmal approval ratings and its unwillingness to pass measures that a large majority of the public, when polled, say they want.

The added element in Rome was violence.

In 133 B.C., a tribune of the people—an elected official—was clubbed to death on the steps of the Temple of Jupiter while addressing a crowd during an election campaign. The mob of killers was led by other public officials, notably the pontifex maximus. (In Rome that was a political as well as a religious post.) Three hundred people, who defended the tribune or just got in the way, also died.

The tribune’s name was Tiberius Gracchus. He advocated a land reform law that most of the citizenry wanted but the oligarchy blocked. Gracchus may have gone beyond his rightful authority by getting the citizens to vote to depose and replace another tribune. But in his defense we can say that the people supported him and he killed no one.

His murderers were never brought to justice. The pontifex maximus was hustled out of Rome on a diplomatic mission and died abroad.

Something ruptured in Rome with the killing of Gracchus. Afterward, other reformers were assassinated. Peaceful periods ended when violence broke out again. Ultimately there were civil wars. Julius Caesar made himself master of Rome in 49 B.C. and his adopted son Augustus consolidated one-man rule in 31 B.C. In the modern world, the chain of events wouldn’t take so long.

To me the aspect of Rome’s story that stands out is the descent into violence, encouraged by Rome’s leaders. “Let everyone who wants to save his country, follow me!� the pontifex maximus yelled when he led the mob that attacked Gracchus and his supporters.

Ineffectual government, government that could not command allegiance and respect, and above all, political violence—that was the prescription for the Roman Republic’s fall and the triumph of Caesarism. I suppose the mob that killed Gracchus could be described in modern terms as a bunch of right-wingers. But their opponents eventually responded in kind, and in the end everyone had blood on his hands. Caesar himself belonged to the political faction that claimed to admire Tiberius Gracchus.

In my books, I’ve taken a rather benign view of Caesar’s heir Augustus. By his time, the republic was such a wreck, it’s hard to completely blame him for finishing it off. I don’t think he could have saved if he wanted to (and he didn’t want to).

The protagonist of my first novel, Livia, mourns the republic her father fought for, but ultimately sees no solution for Rome but one-man rule. Rome was exhausted. People unsurprisingly wanted stability and peace. Rome looked for a strongman to save it from anarchy and more bloodshed.

As it turned out, Augustus was a pretty good ruler, for an autocrat. But some of the men who followed him were murderous tyrants. That’s the way it goes with Caesarism. I don’t think many Americans want to see the U.S. trying that path.

These days I’m chilled when I hear of violence at an American political rally. One candidate in particular uses provocative language that demonizes opponents. I see people on both sides of the partisan divide allowing themselves to be provoked.

A lesson from ancient Rome: The most dangerous enemies of a republic are people who claim they want to save their country, but legitimize and incite violence against their fellow citizens.

Americans should not follow such leaders. Hopefully, we will look at history and see them for what they are.

Beware, if you haven’t read the book yet! There are some spoilers in here!

1--Julia saw herself as motherless even though she had both a mother and a stepmother. Were Livia or Scribonia to blame for this? Do you think if Julia had had a closer relationship to one of them growing up her life would have been different?

2¬--Did Augustus (Tavius) truly love his daughter? How did their relationship impact Julia’s life?

3--Cleopatra Selene managed to survive and prosper after an adverse start in life. Why do you think that was?

4--Each of Julia’s marriages were political arrangements, but she reacted differently to each one. Why?

5--Augustus (Tavius) tried to legislate morality in Rome. Do you think governments can successfully foster morality? Should they try to?

6--Why do you think Tiberius turned on Julia when their baby died? How do you imagine their relationship would have evolved if the baby lived?

7--Jullus says he wants both Julia and political power. Which do you think was most important to him?

8--In arguing with her father, Julia says Livia can’t see Tiberius clearly because she is his mother. Was she right? Thinking of the three central women characters, Julia, Livia, and Cleopatra Selene, would you say they have accurate views of the people close to them?

9--Was Julia right to revolt against her father? Do you think she was willing to have him killed by those who plotted to overthrow him?

10--Livia says that some people are unable to be happy in the situation they are born into. Was this true of Julia? Do you think it is true of some people today?

11--How are the women in the novel used by men to help them keep or obtain political power? How do Livia, Julia, and Cleopatra Selene exercise power themselves, openly and/or behind the scenes? Have the political roles of women completely changed in the modern world—or only in some respects?

P.S. I love hearing from readers! You can contact me here at Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ or at [email protected].

I’d like to say that a muse seized me and I woke up one day eager to write about Livia Drusilla, the much-maligned wife of Rome’s first emperor. It didn’t happen that way. I wanted to write historical fiction about the ancient world for a long time. Ancient Rome was a natural subject for me. But Livia? When I first thought of writing about her, I cringed.

I was searching for the right subject for my first novel, when, at a writers� conference, I heard a literary agent talk about how Anne Boleyn’s story was catnip for readers of historical fiction. There have been mountains of books about Anne and Henry VIII, miniseries and movies and plays. The novelistic possibilities appealed to writers as different as Philippa Gregory and Hilary Mantel.

Here is the essence of the story: A strong-willed young woman has a passionate love affair with an all-powerful (and married) male ruler. His divorce and their eventual marriage scandalizes England and transforms it. But she can’t provide him with the heir he desperately needs and his love turns to hatred.

What is it that is so gripping here? The forbidden romance? The twists and turns? The danger? How intimate feelings impact history? Whatever the reason, this tale captivates us.

It occurred to me, listening to the agent’s lecture, that there was one Roman story that had some parallel features with Anne and Henry’s: Livia and Augustus’s. But of course I saw glaring differences. Rome was not Tudor England. And not only was the man in the story married to someone else to start with, so was Livia. The twists and turns were different. And the romance did not end with the chop of a headsman’s ax. Instead, there was another outcome that I found if anything more surprising. For better or worse, these events helped to shape the history of Rome. Maybe, just maybe, Livia and Augustus’s story would make a good historical novel.

But my reaction when I first thought of writing about Livia was to recoil. Livia was evil! In I, Claudius, Robert Graves portrays her as a kind of serial killer, knocking off family members right and left in her pursuit of power. I didn’t want to snuggle up with a psychopathic protagonist for as long as it takes to write a novel. Of course I knew modern historians didn’t see Livia as the villainous figure she is in I, Claudius. Still, the term “poisoner� does cling to her name.

After the agent’s talk—after the notion of writing about Livia popped into my head—I spent months just thinking about the idea. I really resisted it. But I did some research on Livia’s life. There I was in for a surprise. No less than three modern biographers had examined the evidence and come to the conclusion that she never murdered anyone. In fact, she saved lives. Let’s emphasize that point. Livia saved lives.

Roman historians (all of them men of course), were offended by the very idea of a woman exercising political power. They had a habit of blackening the names of powerful women, Livia included. If they couldn’t call them prostitutes, they called them poisoners. What they wrote has to be weighed against other evidence, and taken with more than a grain of salt.

As I delved deeply into Livia’s life, I began to develop empathy for her. I pictured her as a girl in her mid-teens, giving birth to her first child just a few weeks after her father suffered a military defeat that had dire consequences for her family, a girl who had to find a way to survive in a country rent by civil war. The parallels with Anne Boleyn soon faded from my mind. Livia became very real to me and utterly unique. I found it natural to write in her first person voice. The more I wrote, the more I identified with her.

I admire smart, courageous survivors, and Livia was that. The fact that she has been painted as a monster became a goad to me. I didn’t wish to turn her into a saint, but I did want to portray her as someone as human as the rest of us. Someone who lived in a tough time, when women were often viewed as chattel, who nevertheless had an impact on history. I wanted to write a book that was true to the person I believe Livia was. I Am Livia is the result.

Livia continues to be a presence in my life and in my writing. My new novel, The Daughters of Palatine Hill, carries forward the story of her family. Livia appears, but the main characters who drive the action are Julia, her stepdaughter, and Selene, the daughter of Cleopatra. I’ve started to write another novel about the next generation of the family. Livia, Augustus, and their progeny continue to fascinate me.