novels set during 60BC-400AD

For some unknown reason I’m fascinated with this period, the mingling of pagan world and early christianity, maybe because I’m fascinated with exactly how an obscure fanatical Judean cult ended up dominating the western world. (note I’m not a believer…)

So recommend some novels that really bring alive day to day life of different aspects of this world… “I claudius” and “Claudius the God” of course… Just reading “Augustus” by Allan Massie right now, gives another view of the lives of Augustus and Livia.

Anything set in Roman britain or Judea in this time?

Steven Saylor’s novels of ancient Rome are outstanding. The last time I checked he was up to number eleven. The all take place in Rome between roughly 100 B.C. and 10 B.C. They deal with a “private detective” named Gordianus the Finder who interacts with all the leading political figures of the day. He doesn’t make or change history but rather gets involved as an observer in all the major events in Rome. In addition to the story telling, the books contain vivid descriptions of what it must have been like to live in Rome during this period; customs, food, houses, etc. Highly recommended!

Good Lord – there a lot of them, and of various types
Historical:

Colleen mcCulloch’s “Makers of Rome” series, starting with The First Man in Rome and going through umpteen books

Gore Vidal’s Julian

Howard Fast’s Spartacus
Lew Wallace’s Ben Hur
Thomas B. Costain’s notorious The Silver Chalice

Mysteries:

Lindsay Davis’ Marcus Didius Falco novels, starting with Silver Pigs and going to over a dozen by now.

Stephen Saylor’s mystery novels

yeah sure theres a lot of them… bring em on… I need a stack…

I had no idea there was a sub-genre of Roman age private detective novels… :dubious: but will give them a go…

I’ll add a second vote for the Falco novels, the later ones are a little formulaic, but the first ten or so are fantastic and, as far as I can tell, quite historically accurate.

Yup, the sub-genre is thriving - but then you pick any period of history and you will find a detective series set in it! I blame Brother Cadfael :smiley:

Falco - my particular favourite - has been mentioned. Unlike Ronald C. Semone I found Saylor’s books hard going.

Avram Davidson wrote a few historical-fantasy novels featuring Virgil (imagined as a magician-scholar) as a protagonist - the only one I’ve read is THE PHOENIX AND THE MIRROR, which was pretty good and definitely featured some of the things you’re talking about. (A minor character is a disciple of Daniel Christ, “torn apart by lions for our sins”).

It’s all Umberto Eco’s fault, really.

Try Harry Sidebottom

I believe that Rosemary’s Sutcliffe’s *Sword at Sunset *is pretty good. It is a “King Arthur” story that is a historically plausible tale about post-Roman pretty.

I am slightly hesitant because I have not read it for many years.

Simon Scarrow has a series featuring two Roman Centurians who end up undertaking various dodgy missions. The series starts in 42 A.D. and the first few are set in England following the Invasion, although they go other places later on.
Roman military buffs generally think they’re pretty good on details, afaik.

The 1st is called Under the Eagle, and the most recent (9th) is The Gladiator, although I think it’s a bit too formulaic and has a deliberately open ending for the next volume…

The problem is that SaS is set circa the 500s AD, a little after the OP’s cutoff point. Anything dealing with Arthur is going to be a bit late like that.

You could read Robert E. Howard’s Bran Mac Morn stories – they’re set in Roman Britain. But he’s not noted for his historical accuracy (although he’d clearly read quite a bit about it), and, of course, his stuff is largely literal fantasy.

Read the Asterix books – they’re set in the period you want (and there’s even an Asterix in Britain), with lots of Latin education in-jokes.

Should have added some new choices!

You could try the Robert Harris books Imperium, Conspiraita, and Pompeii. The first two are about Cicero and his life told by his scribe/secretary and the third - as you would expect - about the eruption of Versuvius.

Sutcliffe’s *Sword in the Sunset *is post-Roman but her The Eagle of the Ninth, The Silver Branch, Frontier Wolf, and *The Lantern Bearers *are all right in period (like **Reno Navada **it’s a long time since I read them).

Was just about to suggest Robert Harris. Imperium was fantastic. I didn’t like Pompeii as much. Also, he plans to add a third book at some point to make a Cicero trilogy.

ok, let me narrow it down a bit… I’m specifically interessted in the seemingly little discussed dominance of Mithraism across the Roman empire just before Christianity took over.
Any novels that specifically get into this aspect of the culture?

Thats around 200-300 AD, I should have realised there is a ton of earlier Roman series set in the times of Julius/Augustus/Tiberius etc

Not gonna vouch for her historical accuracy, but Taylor Caldwell did a few…

A PILLAR OF IRON about Cicero
DEAR & GLORIOUS PHYSICIAN about St. Luke
GREAT LION OF GOD about St. Paul

These were in her ultra-Catholic days. Her faith faltered & she became something of a New Ager for a while, and wrote

I, JUDAS (Iscariot, of course)

Anthony Burgess (of A CLOCKWORK ORANGE fame) did the very religious screenplays for the TV miniseries’ JESUS OF NAZARETH and A.D. (The Book of Acts & the Caesars from Augustus to Nero)- he then wrote the more earthy, less pious novel versions MAN OF NAZARETH and THE KINGDOM OF THE WICKED.

rake’s Belisarius series is actually pretty interesting, set in the period but is a fantasy novel. There is actually a lot of research gone into it, and it is an enjoyable read. If you do read it, keep in mind he sort of plaed fast and loose, some of the characters are from different eras of Indian history … but if you can accept that it is not dogmatic history, it is an enjoyable read.

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That’s the **Masters of Rome series

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Really excellent - considered very accurate from a scholar/academic standpoint and a really great read if you can wrap your brain around the reptitive, long Latin names (like reading Tolstoy). A great place to start…

The novel Julian I mentioned by Gore Vidal treats of the emperor Julian (called Julian the Apostate by his detractors) to restore Roman paganism after Christianity had been made the official Roman religion. It’s an interesting read in itself, and it has a lot about Roman religion. I’m pretty sure it touches on Mithraism.

It’s not a novel. but David Ulansey’s The Origins of theMithraic Mysteries is an interesting read, with a new interpretation of Mithraism.

There care a number of books on Mithraism. Those by Franz Cumont are older and more respected.

This book is by a New Age-y author, but he has some interesting criticisms of Ulansey:

searching for Mithraic fiction turns up a lot of Zoroastrian fiction pages, like this:

http://www.mv.helsinki.fi/home/mtoksanen/persian.html
But I think it likely that Roman Mithraism was very different from Persian Zoroastrianism (even if you don’t believe Ulansey). For one thing, the characteristic artwork and the Mithraea where the rites took place aren’t characteristic of Persian religion, and coijcide with Roman military outposts.

The Moon Under Her Feet is a novelization of the “Mary Magdalene was Jesus’ wife” myth, and portrays Mary as a priestess of the Goddess. There’s historical and Biblical footnotes for every chapter, but not being an historian, I can’t vouch for the quality of those sources (the historical ones, that is).