ROMA SUB ROSA NOVELS by Steven Saylor

The Seven Wonders

(Roma Sub Rosa 0.5)

The year is 92 B.C. and the youthful Gordianus has just turned eighteen, and is about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime: a far-flung journey to see the Seven Wonders of the World. Gordianus is not yet called “the Finder”—but at each of the Seven Wonders, the wide-eyed young Roman encounters a mystery to challenge his powers of deduction.

Accompanying Gordianus on his travels is his tutor, Antipater of Sidon, the world’s most celebrated poet. But there is more to the apparently harmless old poet than meets the eye. Before they leave home, Antipater fakes his own death and travels under an assumed identity. Looming in the background are the first rumblings of a political upheaval that will shake the entire Roman world.

Teacher and pupil journey to the fabled cities of Greece and Asia Minor, and then to Babylon and Egypt. They attend the Olympic Games, take part in exotic festivals, and marvel at the most spectacular constructions ever devised by mankind. Along the way they encounter murder, witchcraft and ghostly hauntings. Traveling the world for the first time, Gordianus discovers that amorous exploration goes hand-in-hand with crime-solving. The mysteries of love are the true wonders of the world, and at the end of the journey, an Eighth Wonder awaits him in Alexandria. Her name is Bethesda.

Roman Blood

(Roma Sub Rosa #1)

Elena asks that you come to the House of Swans at once . . . Compelled by this message, the wealthy, sybaritic Sextus Roscius goes not to his harlot, but to his doom—savagely murdered by unknown assassins. In the unseasonable heat of a spring morning in 80 B.C., Gordianus the Finder is summoned to the house of Cicero, a young advocate staking his reputation on this case. The charge is patricide; the motive, a son's greed. The punishment, rooted deep in Roman tradition, is horrific beyond imagining.

Gordianus's investigation takes him through the city's raucous, pungent streets and deep into urban Umbria, unraveling layers of deceit, twisted passions, and murderous desperation. From pompous, rouged nobles to wily slaves to citizens of seemingly simple virtue, the case becomes a political nightmare. As the defense proceeds toward a devastating confrontation in the Forum, one man's fate may be threaten the very leaders of Rome itself.

Arms of Nemesis

(Roma Sub Rosa #2)

The hideously disfigured body was found in the atrium. The only clues are a blood-soaked cloak, and, carved into the stone at the corpse's feet, the word Sparta . . . The Overseer of Marcus Crassus's estate has been murdered, apparently by two slaves bent on joining Spartacus's revolt. The wealthy, powerful Crassus vows to honor an ancient law and have his ninety-nine remaining slaves slaughtered in three days. Gordianus the Finder is summoned from Rome by a mysterious client to find out the truth about the murder before the three days are up.

Catilina's Riddle

(Roma Sub Rosa #3)

Using scholarly, historical insight, and evocative storytelling that brings to life the glories of ancient Rome, Steven Saylor takes the reader from the bloody lines of clashing Roman armies to the backrooms of the Senate floor, where power-hungry politicians wrestle the Fates for control of Rome's destiny.

With the consular election drawing near, Rome is fiercely divided between the conservative Cicero and the tempestuous Catilina, whose followers are rumored to be plotting a blood-thirsty siege for power if their leader fails to win office.

Gordianus the Finder, retired to his Etruscan farm, is happy to be free of the intrigue and danger of the capital, but when his old friend Cicero enlists the Finder in an elaborate plot to control Catilina, Gordianus is drawn back into a familiar world. Now caught in a cloak-and-dagger political struggle for the fate of the Republic, Gordianus finds himself strangely drawn to the controversial candidate. Is Catilina really a subversive renegade, or are Cicero suspicions part of an even greater conspiracy? When a headless corpse ominously appears on his farm, Gordianus knows he must unlock the secret of Catilina's Riddle before Rome tears herself apart.

The Venus Throw

(Roma Sub Rosa #4)

On a chill January evening in 56 B.C., two strange visitors to Rome—an Egyptian ambassador and a eunuch priest—seek out Gordianus the Finder whose specialty is solving murders, but the ambassador, a philosopher named Dio, has come to ask for something Gordianus cannot give—help in staying alive. Before the night is out, he will be murdered.

Now Gordianus begins his most dangerous case. Hired to investigate Dio's death by a beautiful woman with a scandalous reputation, he will follow a trail of political intrigue into the highest circles of power and the city's most hidden arenas of debauchery. There Gordianus will learn nothing is as it seems—not the damning evidence he uncovers, not the suspect he sends to trial, not even the real truth behind Dio's death which lies in secrets—not of state, but of the heart.

A Murder on the Appian Way

(Roma Sub Rosa #5)

This is the fifth in Steven Saylor's "Roma Sub Rosa" series—murder mysteries set in classical Rome just before the fall of the Roman Republic (1st century BCE). Once again, Saylor's sleuth Gordianus the Finder is hired by the rich and infamous of Roman society to solve their personal and political troubles.

This time the powerful politician Publius Clodius is murdered (53 BCE) on the Appian Way (a major road leading south from Rome), and as riots break out in Rome at the news of his death, the fate of the Republic is in doubt. All of the major political figures of the time are involved: Pompey (the great), Julius Caesar, Milo, and Cicero, plus any number of lesser figures. Surrounded by intrigue and beset with problems, Gordianus seeks out the unpalatable truth behind this death, and uncovers a complex and dangerous sequence of events.

The House of the Vestals

(Roma Sub Rosa #6)

It is Ancient Rome, and Gordianus the Finder has a knack for finding trouble. Stalking about the city's twisting trails looking for clues and finding bodies, Gordianus has had his share of misadventure with nobles and slaves alike. Known to many as the one man in the ancient world who can both keep a secret and uncover one, Gordianus has stories to tell.

Rubicon

(Roma Sub Rosa #7)

Caesar crossed the Rubicon, and the Romans, governed by his rival Pompey, fear for the future of their city. Patricians and senators fled the city to escape the armies of the proconsul, leaving it defenseless against thugs and looters. In such chaos, murder could almost go unnoticed, except when the victim is related to Pompey himself. Steven Saylor raises major Roman figures with astonishing virtuosity, and leads his characters in an exciting plot, on a historical backdrop brilliantly documented.

Last Seen in Massilia

(Roma Sub Rosa #8)

In this mystery set in Marseilles in 49 B.C., master detective Gordianus the Finder is on a personal quest to learn the truth about his missing son, Meto. Plunged into the midst of the bloody Roman civil war, the well-connected Gordianus and his son-in-law Davus survive adventure after adventure as they penetrate the Gaulic city Massilia, which is walled against Roman invasion.

From the first pages, author Steven Saylor is on sure ground with his distinguished protagonist. Gordianus's careful, thoughtful musings are infused with real pathos as he seeks out information about his son whom, he has been informed, is dead. There is some speculation that Meto betrayed Caesar and that death was his punishment. Lacking a corpse, Gordianus cannot bring himself to believe that Meto is really dead.

Indeed, bonds between fathers and children—their betrayals, promises, and legacies—play a key role in the twisting plot of Last Seen in Massilia. Literally the title refers to Meto, but the motif extends to other key characters as well. Apollonides, the imperious ruler of Massilia, has a peculiar bond with his horribly deformed daughter. The city's "scapegoat", Hieronymus, lives out the legacy of his parents' illegal double suicide by being the human repositor of Massilia's collective sins. He is expected to hurl himself from Sacrifice Rock to appease vengeful gods.

Sacrifice Rock is central to the book, the site of a tussle between man and woman that ends, provocatively, in the woman's death. Was it suicide or murder? The three witnesses—Gordianus, Davus, and Hieronymus—are sharply divided on exactly what they saw. Gordianus pursues the truth of this mystery almost as a diversion from the more compelling mystery of his son's disappearance.

A Mist of Prophecies

(Roma Sub Rosa #9)

In the year 48 B.C., Rome is in the midst of civil war. As Pompey the Great and Julius Caesar fight for control of the Republic, Rome itself becomes a hotbed of intrigue, riven by espionage, greedy profiteering, and bitter betrayals...

Against this background a beautiful young seeress staggers across the Roman marketplace and dies in the arms of Gordianus the Finder. Possibly mad and claiming no memory of her past, Cassandra—like her Trojan namesake—was reputed to possess the gift of prophecy. For such a gift there are many in Rome who would pay handsomely—or resort to murder.

Obsessed with Cassandra and her mystery, Gordianus begins to investigate her murder. As he gradually peels away the veils of secrecy that surround Cassandra's life and death, he discovers a web of conspiracy linking many of the city's most ruthless and powerful women. Now Gordianus's pursuit of the truth not only endangers his own life, but could change the future of Rome itself.

The Judgment of Caesar

(Roma Sub Rosa #10)

In 48 B.C. the Roman generals Caesar and Pompey are engaged in a battle to rule the world. Now, as Pompey plots a reckless stand on the banks of the Nile, Gordianus the Finder—who has brought his dying wife Bethesda to the Nile seeking a cure from its sacred waters—finds himself suddenly at the heart of a series of treacherous and history-altering events.

While Caesar and Cleopatra embark on a legendary romance, Egypt remains ravaged by the brutal contest between the Queen and her brother King Ptolemy. Worst of all for Gordianus, Meto, his once disowned son and Caesar's right-hand man, stands falsely accused of murder.

Caesar's judgment will decide his son's fate, and it is up to Gordianus to somehow overcome malevolent forces to reveal the carefully obscured truth in order to save his son's life.

A Gladiator Dies Only Once

(Roma Sub Rosa #11)

Steven Saylor's Roma Sub Rosa series of novels, set in the later Roman Republic and featuring Gordianus the Finder, has garnered unusual acclaim from readers and reviewers alike, establishing him as one of the pre-eminent historical mystery writers. In A Gladiator Dies Only Once, the second collection of his award-winning stories featuring Gordianus, Saylor more than meets his own high standards. Set between the events of his novels Roman Blood and Catilina's Riddle, these previously untold adventures from the early career of Gordianus - when his adopted son, Eco, was still a mute boy and his wife, Bethesda, was but his slave - will delight Saylor's many fans while illuminating details of the ancient world like no other writer can.

The Triumph of Caesar

(Roma Sub Rosa #12)

The Roman civil war has come to its conclusion: Pompey is dead, Egypt is firmly under the control of Cleopatra (with the help of Rome's legions), and for the first time in many years Julius Caesar has returned to Rome itself. Appointed by the Senate as Dictator, the city abounds with rumors asserting that Caesar wishes to be made King: the first such that Rome has had in centuries, but not all opposition to his rule has been crushed.

Gordianus, recently returned from Egypt with his wife Bethesda, is essentially retired from his previous profession of 'Finder', but even he cannot refuse the call of Calpurnia, Caesar's wife. Troubled by dreams foretelling disaster and fearing a conspiracy against the life of Caesar, she had hired someone to investigate the rumors. but that person, a close friend of Gordianus, has just turned up dead—murdered on her doorstep.

With four successive Triumphs for Caesar's military victories scheduled for the coming days, and Caesar more exposed to danger than ever before, Calpurnia wants Gordianus to uncover the truth behind the rumored conspiracies—to protect Caesar's life, before it is too late. No fan of Caesar, Gordianus agrees to help, but only to find the murderer of his friend. Yet, once an investigation is begun, there's no controlling what it will turn up, who it will put in danger, and where it will end.