Kaye George has won a copy of Sword of the Gladiatrix by Faith Justice. Congrats to Kaye George!
Thanks to Faith Justice for showing us the historicity of women gladiators. Thanks, also, to everyone who visited and commented on Relevant History this week. Watch for another Relevant History post, coming soon.
Did you like what you read? Learn about downloads, discounts, and special offers from Relevant History authors and Suzanne Adair. Subscribe to Suzanne’s free newsletter.
Relevant History welcomes Faith L. Justice, who writes award-winning fiction and articles in Brooklyn, New York. Her work appeared in such publications as Salon.com, Writer’s Digest, and The Copperfield Review. She is a frequent contributor to Strange Horizons and Associate Editor for Space and Time Magazine. For fun, she likes to dig in the dirt—her garden and various archaeological sites. To learn more about Faith’s books, check out her web site and blog. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads.
*****
Yes, really! Whenever I pitched Sword of the Gladiatrix as my “lesbian gladiator novel,” I encountered raised eyebrows and skeptical snorts. The first question everyone asked: “Were there really lesbian gladiators?” My answer: “Of course!” We know there were female gladiators fighting in arenas for several centuries. Some had to be lesbian.
What really surprised people was the fact of female gladiators. They rarely appear in popular culture. Despite the popularity of “Xena Warrior Princess” and the myths of the Amazons, female gladiators don’t come to mind in the media-soaked imaginings of brutal, bloody, gladiatorial games. Women warriors? Maybe. Women gladiators? No. Yet they are there in grave markers, classical literature, laws, and art. All you have to do is look.
The Writers
One organizer in Ostia brags on his tombstone that he was the first person to put women in the arena as fighters. Tacitus in his Annals mentions that Emperor Nero regularly had female gladiators in his shows. Suetonius tells us in his Life of Domitian that the Emperor once staged a performance at night where women fought other women by torchlight. Martial in his description of the entertainments in the Flavian Arena (the Coliseum) compared the women’s feats to those of Hercules.
These women fighters weren’t all captives, slaves, or from the lower classes. Juvenal in his Satires mocks women from the senatorial class who chose to join the gladiatorial ranks: “…and look how their little heads strain under such weighty helmets and how thick bandages of coarse bark support their knees.” Dio Cassius wrote of Nero, “There was another exhibition that was at once most disgraceful and most shocking, when men and women not only of the equestrian but even of the senatorial order appeared as performers in the orchestra, in the Circus, and in the hunting-theatre, like those who are held in lowest esteem…they drove horses, killed wild beasts, and fought as gladiators, some willingly and some sore against their will.”
The Lawyers
Some of the strongest evidence we have of female gladiators is in the law—recruiting and fighting women was banned, not once, not twice, but three times! Augustus, the first emperor, implemented lots of laws restricting women. Among them, in AD 11, he decreed that freeborn females under the age of twenty were forbidden from appearing on the stage or in the arena. In AD 19, he extended that to prohibit “gladiatorial recruitment of daughters, granddaughters, and great-granddaughters of senators or of knights, under the age of twenty.” In 200, Emperor Septimus Severus banned single combat by women in the arena because of “recrudescence among some upper-class women, and the raillery this provoked among the audience.” These prohibitions probably made the fights all the more popular, human nature being what it is.
The Artists
Although we have no mosaics showing female gladiators, we do have a couple of art depictions: a bronze statue of a woman in gladiatorial dress and a stone relief found in Halicarnassus (modern Bodrum, Turkey) showing two women equipped as gladiators and fighting without helmets. The Greek inscription on the stone relief says Amazon and Achillia (obviously stage names) fought bravely. I saw this piece in the British Museum and the image of those two women haunted me. They were real women who lived and died centuries ago. Who were they? Where did they come from? How did they feel about their lives? That’s when I decided to tell their story. Well, not their story—no one knows their background or fates. I had to create my own characters.
One of the non-fiction authors I consulted felt Nero encouraged the expansion of women in the games, so I looked closely at his reign and found two remarkable events that happened, in the same time frame, at opposite ends of the Empire: an expedition to Kush and the British revolt. Both involved cultures where women were valued as more equal partners in life and government than in Rome, and both had powerful queens who defied Roman power—one unsuccessfully in battle, one successfully with guile. These cultures provided plausibly strong (both in body and character) female protagonists. I created Afra and Cinnia to stand in for those two women carved on the stone. I hope you enjoy their story in Sword of the Gladiatrix.
*****
A big thanks to Faith Justice. She’ll give away a copy of Sword of the Gladiatrix to someone who contributes a comment on my blog this week. I’ll choose the winner from among those who comment by Friday at 6 p.m. ET. Delivery is available worldwide. (A winner in the US or Canada may choose between an ebook or trade paperback.)
Did you like what you read? Learn about downloads, discounts, and special offers from Relevant History authors and Suzanne Adair. Subscribe to Suzanne’s free newsletter.
Warren Bull has won a copy each of Nobody Gets the Girl and Burn Baby Burn by James Maxey. Congrats to Warren Bull!
Thanks to James Maxey for showing us the ancient, historical roots of superheroes. Thanks, also, to everyone who visited and commented on Relevant History last week. Watch for another Relevant History post, coming soon.
Did you like what you read? Learn about downloads, discounts, and special offers from Relevant History authors and Suzanne Adair. Subscribe to Suzanne’s free newsletter.
Linda Price has won a copy of Patriots, Redcoats & Spies by Robert Skead. Congrats to Linda Price!
Thanks to Robert Skead for discussing one of George Washington’s greatest weapons against the redcoats. Thanks, also, to everyone who visited and commented on Relevant History this week. Watch for another Relevant History post, coming soon.
Did you like what you read? Learn about downloads, discounts, and special offers from Relevant History authors and Suzanne Adair. Subscribe to Suzanne’s free newsletter.
The monk in the middle of this picture is Geshe Sangpo, a Tibetan-born Buddhist, taking his oath of American citizenship in Raleigh, North Carolina. When he was a boy, he fled the repression in his homeland and made the iconic but arduous crossing of the Himalayas by foot into Nepal so he could pursue his calling as a monk—not unlike the Dalai Lama’s own journey. Until May 2015, when he became an American citizen, Geshe Sangpo was essentially a man without a country. However from now on, every Fourth of July will have special meaning for him.
What would you do for liberty? Would you leave family members behind and walk hundreds of miles in rugged terrain with little food? That’s what Geshe Sangpo did. At some point today, while you’re enjoying your holiday feast, the company of friends and family, and a fireworks display, pause a moment to think about all the people worldwide who are living in repressive regimes. And give thanks for the freedom you have.
I’m selling and signing my books in person today from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Joel Lane Museum House’s annual Fourth of July celebration. I’m also an online guest in the following spots. Stop by and say hello:
Happy Fourth of July!
Did you like what you read? Learn about downloads, discounts, and special offers from Relevant History authors and Suzanne Adair. Subscribe to Suzanne’s free newsletter.
Relevant History welcomes Robert J. Skead, with Robert A. Skead, authors of YA historical fiction. Their ancestor, Lamberton Clark, one of the main characters in Patriots, Redcoats & Spies, fought in the Revolutionary War as a member of the Connecticut Militia and the Continental Army. Patriots, Redcoats & Spies includes many historical facts about the war and features events that took place in 1777 in Bergen County, New Jersey, where the Skeads live. To learn more about their books, visit their web site, and follow them on Facebook and Pinterest.
*****
The best part about writing Patriots, Redcoats & Spies, an American Revolutionary War adventure, was living in 1777—and becoming a teenage spy. You see, our protagonists were twin teenage boys, John and Ambrose Clark. And key to making their adventure real for the reader was the research involved, particularly involving the Culper Spy Ring.
The twins’ father, Lamberton, is a spy/courier for the Culper Ring, and when he is shot by British soldiers while on a mission, he has only two hopes of getting the secret message he’s carrying to General George Washington: his 14-year-old twin boys John and Ambrose.
The boys accept their mission without a clue about what they may be up against. They set off from Connecticut to New Jersey to find General Washington, but the road to the commander-in-chief of the Continental Army is full of obstacles—including the man who shot their father, who is hot on their trail.
I had plenty of help in the research about the Culper Spy Ring in the form of my father, Robert A. Skead (now 89-years-old and a member of the Sons of the American Revolution), who crafted the story with me. In the story, all the twins know is that the letter they carry is from Culper Jr. and is written in invisible ink—and that it’s imperative they trust no one and place that letter in the general’s hand, fast.
Culper Jr.’s real name was Robert Townsend. He operated in New York City, gathering information about British troop movements for General Washington. He made his fellow spy Abraham Woodhull, also known as Samuel Culper, pledge never to tell his name to anyone, not even to George Washington. Townsend posed as a Tory coffee shop owner and society reporter, which helped him gain information from British loyalists and soldiers at fellowship gatherings.
Invisible ink did exist during colonial times, and was used by the Culper Spy Ring with their messaging. The ink was developed by James and John (future chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court) Jay. It was made of a mixture of water and ferrous sulfate, and could be read when activated by heat or when in contact with a reagent. Secret sentences were often crafted between the lines of real letters. That is the device we used in our story.
Tremendous success and secret codes
The Culper Spy Ring operated in the New York City tri-state area for five years, and they were very successful—no spy was ever unmasked. Washington himself didn’t know their identities. To protect his spies identities, Major Benjamin Tallmadge, whom Washington appointed as head of the intelligence-gathering operation (the Culper Spy Ring), used a number system and pseudonyms in documents rather than their real names. The numbers pertained to words only discernable if one had the codebook divulging them.
Tallmadge used John Entick’s New Latin and English Dictionary (1771). Only four copies of the codebook were made—one for him, one for Washington, and the others for the Culpers. His codes, for example, included General Washington as 711, Culper Jr. was 723, and 727 was used for New York. Overall, more than 760 numbers were used in his codebook.
Ben becomes a central character in our sequel story Submarines, Secrets and a Daring Rescue, which launches on 4 August 2015. Tallmadge’s spy team was comprised of schoolmates from Long Island where he grew up. Other names of members included Sarah Townsend, Austin Roe, and Abraham Woodhull.
Petticoats and Benedict Arnold
Secret drop points, locations where messages would be hidden, were part of the spy ring’s operations. Anna Strong, a member of the secret team, would hang a black petticoat on her clothesline, signaling another operative (Caleb Brewster) to retrieve the message. We used the black petticoat in the sequel adventure as well.
The Culper Spy Ring was also behind the capturing of the British spy Major John Andre, and had that not occurred, the British might have taken control of our fort at West Point through the traitorous efforts of Benedict Arnold.
So, right now, you know more about the Culper Spy Ring than the boys in Patriots, Redcoats & Spies. All they know is they have a mission to accomplish and that they have to somehow find a way to do it, which isn’t easy because one of the boys, John, isn’t quite sold on the concept that a cause can be worth dying for. He likes his life as it is. But the reality is none of our lives would be as they are now were it not for the brave men and women who operated as spies in the Culper Spy Ring and were it not for the wisdom of General George Washington, who understood the importance of intelligence and deception to win the war.
We had the pleasure of being spies in this operation, even if only in our imaginations, which was more than historical—it was quite an adventure.
*****
A big thanks to Robert Skead. He’ll give away a hardback copy of Patriots, Redcoats & Spies to someone who contributes a comment on my blog this week. I’ll choose the winner from among those who comment by Friday at 6 p.m. ET. Delivery is available in the US only.
Did you like what you read? Learn about downloads, discounts, and special offers from Relevant History authors and Suzanne Adair. Subscribe to Suzanne’s free newsletter.
Relevant History welcomes back Los Angeles native and award-winning author Jeri Westerson. She writes the critically acclaimed Crispin Guest Medieval Noir mysteries, historical novels, paranormal novels, and GLBT mysteries. To date, her medieval mysteries have garnered twelve industry award nominations. The Historical Novel Society Review said of her latest historical novel Roses in the Tempest, “It is a wonderful, utterly involving performance—very strongly recommended.” Jeri is former president of the SoCal chapter of Mystery Writers of America and frequently guest lectures on medieval history at local colleges and museums. To learn about Jeri’s books and find discussion guides, videos, and more, check out her web site.
*****
I think whenever anyone hears the name “Tudor” we think of two things: Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn.
Anne, Anne, Anne. I’m a little sick of her, but no one else seems to be. Why is she so important to the story of Henry VIII (who had four more wives after her)? And why is she important to my newly released novel of historical fiction Roses in the Tempest?
Let’s back up a bit to Prince Arthur Tudor. He was the elder brother to Henry VIII, slated to be King Arthur. Way back in 1497 he was betrothed—by proxy—to one Katherine of Aragon of Spain. The reason it was by proxy was because he and his betrothed were too young, but a treaty between England and Spain was desired by monarchs of both countries and so the kids were connected early on. They even had a wedding by proxy because they didn’t meet until October of 1501 when it was deemed they were finally old enough to get married in the flesh.
The deed was done and not long thereafter, Arthur fell ill. In fact, he died short of his 16th birthday.
Now enter the young Henry. Suddenly, he’s heir to the throne. And elder King Henry didn’t want all that dowry money to go back to Spain so he insisted on young Henry marrying his sister-in-law. But when Henry turned 14 he said no!
In 1509 at the ripe old age of eighteen, Henry succeeded to the throne of England. And he looked at his accounting books and decided that thousands of pounds worth of dowry was probably a good thing to have when starting a reign, not to mention keeping the Spanish treaties intact. But this was his brother’s widow. Didn’t he need papal dispensation to marry her? It’s just a little bit incesty. But the pope said no problem. You only need a dispensation if the marriage was consummated, and Katherine swore devoutly that it was not. She and Arthur were 15 years old and married for twenty weeks but didn’t consummate their legal marriage. Well, there’s this bridge I’d like to sell you, too.
“There is no more lovely, friendly and charming a relationship, communion or company than a good marriage.” –Martin Luther, 1569
Henry and Katherine were happy in the beginning. But it soon turned sour. She gave birth to a stillborn girl, then she gave birth to a boy, Henry, but he died after seven weeks. Then she gave birth to the Princess Mary (who was to become Queen Mary I, otherwise known as “Bloody Mary.”) During this time, Henry was catting around with all sorts of women. But he was also a devout Catholic. So much so that in 1521 he wrote his “Defense of the Seven Sacraments” a direct argument against the protestant reforms of Martin Luther. Pope Leo X named Henry “Defender of the Faith” for that bestseller.
But by 1525, Henry was getting impatient for a legitimate male heir and certain courtiers were beginning to whisper in his ear—courtiers like Cardinal Wolsey and his secretary the commoner Thomas Cromwell. Leviticus 20:21 says that “if a man shall take his brother’s wife it is an unclean thing: they shall be childless.” Though Henry was far from childless, he preferred to interpret the text to mean “sonless.” On this basis, Wolsey sought an annulment. The pope said nope.
Henry was getting all excited that this would work, that he could divorce his wife and marry—wait for it—Anne Boleyn, with whom he had been carrying on a chaste affair after having a not-so-chaste affair with Anne’s sister Mary (talk about incesty) who gave birth to yet another dead child. He got pretty pissed off with Wolsey, trumped up some charges, had him arrested, took over his just-finished manor house estate (that became Hampton Court) and was ready to put him on trial when he had the decency to die before that. Now Cromwell moved up and still had the king’s ear.
“The less prudent the prince the more his deeds oppress.” –Proverbs 28:16
Cromwell’s plan was to reform the Church, and since the pope wasn’t cooperating with Henry’s need for this divorce, why not break away from the Church of old and reform it into the Church of England? And who but the monarch was fit to rule that? Henry then gave himself a divorce, declared his daughter a bastard, and married Anne Boleyn, who, after all that, didn’t give him the son he wanted, but another princess, Elizabeth.
Henry’s taking over the province of the Church in England meant that he could get rid of all those corrupted and wealthy monasteries where all that expensive land was just sitting there when instead it could be sold and the revenue fill his coffers. And so that’s what he did. Cromwell was in charge of collecting officers with the cover story that they were inspecting the monasteries to root out corruption…but while they were there, they took an inventory of all the goods, too.
And that’s how Anne Boleyn becomes an intimate part of my story. The two main protagonists—Thomas Giffard, a knight of the court, and Isabella Launder the daughter of a yeoman farmer, who becomes a prioress in a tiny priory, two people that really did exist—are imminently affected by events at court. I thought it was a story seldom told, what happens when the rich and powerful make their decisions and how it trickles down the line. It makes my novel unique in that we get a glimpse of court and its machinations, but spend equal time down and dirty in the trenches. And though there are sad moments, it is not a sad tale. For because this is a true tale of real people, there is a dusting off of hands, a rising up, and stoically going on.
*****
A big thanks to Jeri Westerson. She’ll give away a paperback or ebook copy of Roses in the Tempest to someone who contributes a comment on my blog this week. I’ll choose the winner from among those who comment by Friday at 6 p.m. ET. Delivery is available worldwide.
Did you like what you read? Learn about downloads, discounts, and special offers from Relevant History authors and Suzanne Adair. Subscribe to Suzanne’s free newsletter.
Sandra has won a copy of Aurelia by Alison Morton. Congrats to Sandra!
Thanks to Alison Morton for showing us about world building in alternate history. Thanks, also, to everyone who visited and commented on Relevant History this week. Watch for another Relevant History post, coming soon.
Did you like what you read? Learn about downloads, discounts, and special offers from Relevant History authors and Suzanne Adair. Subscribe to Suzanne’s free newsletter.
Relevant History welcomes alternate history author Alison Morton. Raised by a feminist mother and an ex-military father, it never occurred to Alison that women couldn’t serve their country in the armed forces. After six years, she left as a captain, having done all sorts of interesting and exciting things she can’t talk about, even now. Fascinated by the complex, power and value-driven Roman civilisation since childhood, she wondered what a modern Roman society would be like if run by strong women. Now, she lives in France and writes award-winning Roman-themed alternate history thrillers with tough Praetorian heroines—Inceptio, Perfiditas, Successio, and (her latest) Aurelia. To learn more about Alison’s books, check out her blog, and follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads.
*****
“Only if you know your history well, can you attempt to alternate it.” Not a saying by anybody famous, but something I wrote five years ago in my first blog post about writing in an alternate timeline environment. And I still stand by it today.
My fourth Roma Nova alternate history thriller, Aurelia, out last month, is set in the late 1960s partly in an alternative Germany consisting of small states rather than one whole nation. Although Germany was the subject of my history masters’ degree, I had to research the real small states of a pre-unification Germany in some depth as well as the 1960s social revolution before I typed one single word.
What is alternate history?
With history and science fiction as parents, alternate (or alternative) history stories are a type of speculative fiction set in a world where historical events have developed differently from the way they did in our timeline. What if Julius Caesar had taken notice of the warning that assassins wanted to murder him on the Ides of March? Or if Elizabeth I had married and had children to succeed her? If Washington hadn’t crossed the Delaware River on Christmas night in 1776?
Modern alternate historical fiction favourites of mine include Robert Harris’s Fatherland, Keith Roberts’ Pavane, and C J Sansom’s Dominion, but alternate history itself stretches back a long way. Roman historian Livy writing in the 1st century AD suggests that the Romans would have beaten Alexander the Great if he had lived beyond 324 BC and turned west to attack the Roman Republic (Book IX, sections 17-19 Ab urbe condita libri [The History of Rome], Titus Livius). Louis Geoffroy’s Histoire de la Monarchie universelle: Napoléon et la conquête du monde (1812–1832) imagines Napoleon’s French Empire succeeded in invading Russia in 1811 and England in 1814, later unifying the world under Bonaparte’s rule.
What defines alternate history?
There are three key characteristics to alternate history stories. Firstly, the event that turned history from the path we know—the point of divergence, or PoD—must be in the past; in my Roma Nova series set in the modern period, the PoD was in AD 395. Secondly, the new timeline follows a different path forever—there is no going back. Thirdly, stories should show the ramifications of the divergence and how the new reality functions.
The world can partially resemble our timeline or be very different. Sometimes there are documented historical characters, sometimes entirely fictional ones or a mixture of both. In no case are alternate history stories parallel or secret histories such as The Da Vinci Code.
But is all alternate history credible?
Alternate history varies in “hardness,” based on how plausible the alternation is when measured against historical reality.
Type I, Hard Alternate History: Well-researched work based on historical sources and trends, and that projects changes that flow logically from the PoD. This follows strict standards in its plausibility. Most historical counterfactuals fall into this category.
Type II, Hard/Soft Alternate History: Usually well researched with historical logic and methodology, but which allows some escapist elements.
Type III, Soft Alternate History: Here, setting up a world that fits the writer’s creative objectives is more important than the setting’s alternate history. Research is minimal to moderate and plausibility will take a back seat.
Type IV, Utterly Implausible Alternate History: Works so implausible as to be effectively impossible. Often, authors prioritise their own ideology at the expense of research, historic details, or sensible logistics.
Type X, Fantastical Alternate History: In contrast with Type IV, these works are deliberately designed as pure fantasy.
Perception is, of course, subjective, but I’ve positioned my Roma Nova thrillers at the historical end of the alternate history scale, probably Type II above with elements of Type I.
World building
If a writer sets the story in a different country, they can visit the places the characters would live in, smell the sea, touch the plants, walk under the hot blue sky, or freeze in a biting wind. Historical fiction writers can visit buildings and gardens, explore costume, watch or partake in reenactions. Tasting food cooked to Roman recipes, including the (in)famous garum fish sauce, was certainly an education for me! But inventing a country means their imagination has to spread wide and walk hand-in-hand with solid research. Humans are creative beings; we have all imagined alternative realities since we were children and that drives world building.
No country can survive without a functioning government, an economic, social, and political system, food, law and order, and income. Readers and fans will expect the creator of an imagined world to have worked all that out and also be able to talk about every aspect from costume, social philosophy and weapons to food, transport and childcare provision. (Yes, I was asked about childcare in Roma Nova at the launch of my second book, Perfiditas!)
Plausibility and consistency are, as in all historical fiction, the key guidelines so that the reader is not lost or alienated. Local colour and period detail are essential, but only where necessary and when relevant.
Characters should act, think and feel like real people, whatever language they speak or however they’re dressed. The most credible ones live naturally within their world, i.e. consistently reflecting their unique environment and the prevailing social attitudes. But it makes a stronger story if the permissions and constraints of their world make additional trouble and conflict for them.
What use is alternate history?
Alternate history fiction enables us to explore the consequences of even a small change in history, sometimes known as the “butterfly effect” from chaos theory, or the “nail of the horseshoe” effect after the popular verse dating back to the 14th century. Further, it lets us speculate on transgressive, over-optimistic, morally controversial, or even frightening situations from the safety of our armchair. More than that, it allows us to ask “what if”, to exercise our imaginations and assess our modern situation in an entirely different light.
*****
A big thanks to Alison Morton. She’ll give away a copy of Aurelia in either signed trade paperback form or .pdf ebook form to someone who contributes a comment on my blog this week. I’ll choose the winner from among those who comment by Friday at 6 p.m. ET. Delivery is available worldwide.
Did you like what you read? Learn about downloads, discounts, and special offers from Relevant History authors and Suzanne Adair. Subscribe to Suzanne’s free newsletter.
Happy Memorial Day to all my visitors in the United States!
The winners of Regina Jeffers’s books are as follow:
Pam Hunter—Darcy’s Passions: Pride and Prejudice Retold Through His Eyes
Ruth Telford—Captain Frederick Wentworth’s Persuasion: Austen’s Classic Retold Through His Eyes
Lou Ann LaJeunesse—Elizabeth Bennet’s Deception: A Pride and Prejudice Vagary
M. Louisa Locke—Mr. Darcy’s Fault: A Pride and Prejudice Vagary Novella
Congrats to all!
Thanks to Regina Jeffers for the brief history of post-traumatic stress disorder. Thanks, also, to everyone who visited and commented on Relevant History last week. Watch for another Relevant History post, coming soon.
Did you like what you read? Learn about downloads, discounts, and special offers from Relevant History authors and Suzanne Adair. Subscribe to Suzanne’s free newsletter.
