{"id":41525,"date":"2022-01-08T01:10:49","date_gmt":"2022-01-08T06:10:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/bibleandculture\/?p=41525"},"modified":"2021-12-29T20:47:30","modified_gmt":"2021-12-30T01:47:30","slug":"a-comedy-of-terrors-another-flavia-albia-mystery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/bibleandculture\/2022\/01\/08\/a-comedy-of-terrors-another-flavia-albia-mystery\/","title":{"rendered":"A Comedy of Terrors– Another Flavia Albia Mystery"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We are now nine novels into the spinoff series from the very popular Falco series, only in these novels the detective in question is the adopted daughter of Falco and Helena Justina, found as a street child in Britain, Flavia Albia.\u00a0 The series started out a little too stridently with Flavia sounding like a mad-at-the-world modern feminist, but predictably, Lindsey Davis, who is a great writer found her groove, and the series has been percolating along quite nicely ever since.\u00a0 One of the things that makes Davis\u2019 novels so enjoyable is her wry wit, with some scenarios bordering on hilarious in all these novels.\u00a0 This sets her work apart from other major novelists who write about this period.\u00a0 These novels are just more fun, but still full of excellent historical data and insights.<\/p>\n

For example, this particular novel is about the celebration at the end of the year of Saturnalia, a fascinating festival if there ever was one, in which slaves, wearing freedom caps get to be masters and kings for a day, while masters and others are ordered about. This is one more reminder, if it\u2019s needed, that ancient slavery in the Roman world was not identical with ante-bellum slavery in the South. For one thing, emancipation was very possible in the Roman world, and against the law in various states in the South before the Emancipation Proclamation and the end of the civil war, in 1865. For another thing, many many of the slaves in the Roman world were captured through war, as the Empire expanded. This resulted in some slaves being well educated upon capture. For a third thing, slavery in the Roman world did not focus on a particular ethnic group.\u00a0 Greeks could be slaves, Asians could be slaves, Egyptians could be slaves, Jews could be slaves. It varied.<\/p>\n

As for Saturnalia, here\u2019s how Wikipedia sums things up:<\/p>\n

\u201cSaturnalia<\/b>\u00a0is an\u00a0ancient Roman festival<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0holiday<\/a>\u00a0in honour of the\u00a0god<\/a>\u00a0Saturn<\/a>, held on 17 December of the\u00a0Julian calendar<\/a>\u00a0and later expanded with festivities through to 23 December. The holiday was celebrated with a sacrifice at the\u00a0Temple of Saturn<\/a>, in the\u00a0Roman Forum<\/a>, and a public banquet, followed by private gift-giving, continual partying, and a\u00a0carnival<\/a>\u00a0atmosphere that overturned\u00a0Roman social norms<\/a>:\u00a0gambling<\/a>\u00a0was permitted, and masters provided table service for their\u00a0slaves<\/a>\u00a0as it was seen as a time of liberty for both slaves and freedmen alike.[1]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0A common custom was the election of a \u201cKing of the Saturnalia\u201d, who would give orders to people, which were to be followed and preside over the merrymaking. The gifts exchanged were usually\u00a0gag gifts<\/a>\u00a0or small figurines made of wax or pottery known as\u00a0sigillaria<\/a><\/i>. The poet\u00a0Catullus<\/a>\u00a0called it \u201cthe best of days\u201d.<\/p>\n

This particular novel starts very slowly. Flavia has no case, and anyway the holiday revelry is about to begin. Her husband Tiberius Manlius the tribune however is very busy. On the surface it appears he is dealing with the nut wars, between sellers of nuts vying for a corner on the market.\u00a0 Beneath the surface however lurks organized crime, actual mob gangs, with dark clouds on the horizon of truly bad things about to go down and what could the poor vigiles or even a tribune do about it.\u00a0 FYI the vigiles were a sort of combo fire department and law enforcement group.<\/p>\n

The real strengths of these novels including is one are: 1) the insight into the messiness of domestic and public life in ancient Rome; 2) the wittiness of the dialogue and various story lines; 3) and Davis\u2019 unrivaled ability to build a story, create suspense, and still have a total surprise by the end of the tale, saving the reveal to the very end.\u00a0 \u00a0I love the exploration of the life of a somewhat ordinary family where there is plenty of stress, but also plenty of familial love.\u00a0 Let\u2019s hope there will be many more volumes in this series that rightly feature the roles women often played in society, roles that tended not to make the history books later written by men focusing on men\u2019s roles.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are now nine novels into the spinoff series from the very popular Falco series, only in these novels the detective in question is the adopted daughter of Falco and Helena Justina, found as a street child in Britain, Flavia Albia.\u00a0 The series started out a little too stridently with Flavia sounding like a mad-at-the-world […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nA Comedy of Terrors-- Another Flavia Albia Mystery<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We are now nine novels into the spinoff series from the very popular Falco series, only in these novels the detective in question is the adopted daughter\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta 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