 I’m known as a writer of alternative history thrillers featuring modern Praetorian heroines, Carina and Aurelia. That’s my “brand” and my deep interest. Not always a wise commercial decision, but these have been the stories I’ve itched to write.
But since JULIA PRIMA came out in August, I’ve been asked frequently what made me go back to the real timeline in the 4th century to write about the founders of Roma Nova.
JULIA PRIMA was inspired by my readers. They wanted to know how and why the 21st century Roma Nova originated back in the 4th century. Most of all, they were more than curious about the people who had stood up for their values in the face of lethal threats and eventually torn themselves away from everything they knew.
At the time of JULIA PRIMA, we are still in the normal timeline – history as we know it is exactly the same – so this story is a standard, real historical novel. Well, as much as any historical fiction is standard or real where the sources are not brilliant. And writing within those “constraints” was an interesting experience, to say the least.
The difference comes twenty five years later in AD 395, when the timeline does diverge and create an alternative path through the centuries. However, the research is absolutely necessary in order to set the framework for the point of divergence from the timeline. Believe me, the last three decades of the fourth century were complex, unstable and not always well-documented!
How different is it writing standard historical fiction from writing alternative history stories?
JULIA PRIMA is set in our historical timeline between AD 369 and 371 when the Roman world was riddled with religious strife and on the brink of transformation. That transformation hasn’t kicked off yet, but it’s hovering. No moment in history is fixed; it has its causes – direct and indirect – and its consequences – short term and long term. Behind the personal story of Julia and Lucius, this new book shows how the signs of decline are well and truly there and sets the scene for the start of the collapse.
 Julia’s world in AD 400 Alternat(iv)e history takes off from a point of departure (POD) triggered by an event, large or small. Writers should use the conditions prevailing at that point as the basis for developing their alternative timeline along historically logic lines. But essentially, you are writing in a void. With historical fiction, there are sources, both documentary and archaeological, sometimes sparse and often biased, but they are something available for reference and consultation, even though analysis of these sometimes causes strong arguments!
So, on the one hand, historical fiction writers have a skeleton, sometimes a whole body of research to mine for research. But opposite that, the good historical fiction writer is constrained by being obliged to search out and check with existing sources and in my opinion, not wander too far off verifiable facts. You can’t invent new Roman emperors, for example and retain credibility – we know who they all were!
Will the next book, EXSILIUM, the sequel to JULIA PRIMA, be standard historical fiction or alternative history fiction?
Both. 😉 The first part continues in our timeline until the first ox-cart and group of riders leave Rome.
After that, we launch into the Roma Nova void and undertake the journey that will form the background legend to the whole Roma Nova series.
Then everything comes back full circle to the 21st century and INCEPTIO.
Updated February 2024: Alison Morton is the author of Roma Nova thrillers – INCEPTIO, CARINA (novella), PERFIDITAS, SUCCESSIO, AURELIA, NEXUS (novella), INSURRECTIO and RETALIO, and ROMA NOVA EXTRA, a collection of short stories. Audiobooks are available for four of the series. Double Identity, a contemporary conspiracy, starts a new series of thrillers. JULIA PRIMA, Roma Nova story set in the late 4th century, starts the Foundation stories. The sequel, EXSILIUM, is out on 27 February 2024.
Download ‘Welcome to Alison Morton’s Thriller Worlds’, a FREE eBook, as a thank you gift when you sign up to Alison’s monthly email update. You’ll also be among the first to know about news and book progress before everybody else, and take part in giveaways.
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 Blacksmith tombstone, York Museum Trust (Author photo) When looking at Julia’s home town of Virunum in an earlier post, I sketched lightly over Roman involvement. Never a good idea… Seriously, it was a long relationship lasting from the 2nd century BC through to the 5th century AD.
Dealing with Rome
The Celts of Noricum had discovered around 500 BC that their local deposits of iron ore made superior steel, so they built up a major metalworking industry. Traces have been found on the Magdalensberg (the pre-Virunum settlement on the hill) of a major production and trading centre where specialised blacksmiths crafted metal products, including sophisticated tools and weapons.
By 200 BC, the tribes of Noricum had united into one kingdom, the Regnum Noricum. During the Republican period, the Romans discovered the high quality of the weapons coming out of Noricum and, never ones to miss an opportunity, started negotiations with the Regnum Noricum and its craftsmen.
The resulting trade agreements led to the kingdom becoming a key ally of Rome, benefitting from Roman military protection in exchange for the constant supply of high-quality products.
The proverbial hardness of Noric steel is even expressed by Ovid: “…durior […] ferro quod noricus excoquit ignis…” which roughly translates to “…harder than iron which Noric fire tempers [was Anaxarete towards the advances of Iphis]…”.
The iron ore was quarried at two mountains in modern Austria still called Erzberg (‘ore mountain’ in German) today, one at Hüttenberg, Carinthia and the other at Eisenerz (‘iron ore’ in German!), Styria, with only 70 km between them. The latter is the site of the modern Erzberg mine.
Back to Roman times… Noricum thus became a major provider of weaponry for the Roman armies from the mid-Republic onwards and a strategic asset that needed protection.
This was demonstrated in 113 BC, when the German tribes Teutones and Cimbri invaded Noricum. In response, the Roman consul Gnaeus Papirius Carbo led an army over the Alps to repel these Germanic tribes. He ambushed them near Noreia (wherever that was). Although Carbo had the advantage in terrain and surprise, his forces were overwhelmed by the sheer number of tribal warriors and roundly defeated. He was afterwards accused by Marcus Antonius (yes, that one) for losing the battle through incompetence. Convicted, Carbo committed suicide rather than go into exile.
 Noricum (West). Circa 170-150 BC. Silver tetradrachm (21mm, 12.09 g, 12h). Kugelreiter type (Photo: Carlomorino CC Licence) Roman rule
For a long time, the Noricans enjoyed independence under their own local rulers while continuing to trade profitably with the Romans. In 48 BC, they took the side of Julius Caesar in the civil war against Pompey – a savvy move.
However… (you knew there was going to be a ‘however’…)
In 16 BC, having joined with their neighbouring Pannonians in invading Histria, they were defeated by Publius Silius Nerva, proconsul of Illyricum – not such a good move.
For all its virtues, Rome was a robust military society which did not tolerate rebellion or invasion. As a result, Noricum was annexed and, although called a Roman province, it was not organised as such but remained a kingdom with the title of Regnum Noricum, yet under the supervision of an imperial procurator.
 Antoninus Pius, Glypotek, Munich For practical reasons, mostly trade and administrative creep, Noricum was fully integrated into the Roman Empire during the reign of Claudius and apparently the Noricans offered little resistance. It was only in the time of Antoninus Pius (AD 138–161) that troops in the form of the Second Legion Pia (later renamed Italica) were stationed in Noricum; their commander became the governor of the province.
Under Diocletian (AD 245–313), Noricum was divided into Noricum ripense (Noricum along the right bank of the Danube, the northernmost part of the original province), and Noricum mediterraneum (landlocked Noricum, the southern, more mountainous area). Each division was administered by a civilian governor called a praeses, and both belonged to the diocese of Illyricum in the Praetorian prefecture of Italy. But pragmatism often led to a praeses leaving fully Romanised local community leaders like Julia’s father to manage local affairs.
Noricum and Christianity
 Saint Florian, Francesco del Cossa, 1473 (Public domain) Rome’s many nationalities practised widely different forms of religion, but all priests and communities recognised the overarching authority of the emperor, especially as he was the pontifex maximus (chief priest) for the whole empire. Diocletian and his immediate successors strongly promoted the traditional Roman pantheon of gods.
When members of the Christian cult refused to make sacrifice to the established gods, which included deified past emperors, they were deemed by the emperor to have rejected imperial rule, i.e. committed treason. And treason tended to have only one outcome.
In AD 304, Florianus, a Christian serving as a high-ranking imperial military commander in Noricum who had amongst other achievements set up an extremely effective firefighting unit, refused to sacrifice and was executed. He was later canonised as Saint Florian and to this day is the patron of firefighters in the German-speaking world.
Traditional religion still flourished in Noricum and a new temple to the god Mithras, especially revered by the military, was dedicated in Virunum around AD 311.
 Mithras relief, originally from Rome, now in the Louvre (Photo: CC Licence by Jastrow) Only when Constantine (reigned AD 306–337) became emperor, and in practice only from AD 312, did Christianity begin to take hold in Noricum. By AD 343, there were at least five bishops with well-established circuits of congregations. By the end of the fourth century, statues of gods in the Virunum baths quarter had been destroyed.
In the fifth century, enthusiastic Christian mobs smashed the most important shrines and traditional temples throughout Noricum. Pagan cults survived in patches as late as the second half of the fifth century, but those practising the rites were officially shunned and courting death.
Proof of an early Christian church, whose existence had been presumed for a long time, has recently been found in the northern section of Virunum.
The transition from Roman to barbarian rule in Noricum is well documented in Eugippius‘ Life of Saint Severinus, providing information which could be used as possible examples in other regions where primary sources from the period are lacking.
———
Knowledge of Roman Noricum has been extensively documented by Géza Alföldy in his work Noricum (Routledge, 1974, rev. 2014) to which I am much indebted.
Alison Morton is the author of Roma Nova thrillers – INCEPTIO, CARINA (novella), PERFIDITAS, SUCCESSIO, AURELIA, NEXUS (novella), INSURRECTIO and RETALIO, and ROMA NOVA EXTRA, a collection of short stories. Audiobooks are available for four of the series. Double Identity, a contemporary conspiracy, starts a new series of thrillers. JULIA PRIMA, Roma Nova story set in the late 4th century, starts the Foundation stories. The sequel, EXSILIUM, is out on 27 February 2024.
Download ‘Welcome to Alison Morton’s Thriller Worlds’, a FREE eBook, as a thank you gift when you sign up to Alison’s monthly email update. You’ll also be among the first to know about news and book progress before everybody else, and take part in giveaways.
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 Detail from 2nd century sarcophagus
© Trustees of the British Museum Our heroine Julia Bacausa’s problem in JULIA PRIMA is that she is caught between Roman law and Christian dogma; divorced legally under the first, but bound to her unpleasant (ex-) husband under the second.
The late Roman family inherited its basic form from the high empire. Monogamy was a strong cultural value, whatever the personal sexual behaviour of the spouses.
Late Roman law, following social practice, tended to recognise the nuclear family unit when considering the rules for marriage, guardianship and succession.
Christianity reinforced this but introduced two distinctive and revolutionary ideas: the doctrine of indissolubility of marriage and the ideal of sexually exclusive marriage.
The basics of Roman families
Familia in the Roman sense meant the legal group under the power of a paterfamilias, not only of biological descendants, but extended family including cousins, sometimes brothers, sisters, sons- and daughters-in-law, protégés and slaves. It was a complex organism, but the conjugal bond and parent–child relationships were at its core.
The marriage bond in classical Roman law was only lightly regulated by the state. Marriage was a relationship formed procreandorum liberorum causa (for the purpose of producing children); it required no formal ceremony or even property exchanges, only marital intent, consent from all those who were a party to the marriage (including the patres familias), and legal capacity to marry (age, degrees of separation, status and citizenship). Because mutual intent defined marriage in classical law, a marriage could be dissolved by either one of the spouses.
 Family of Drusus (38 – 9BC), from the Ara Pacis, Rome. Author photo By Late Antiquity, things had changed
Betrothals became increasingly formalised and enforced by public law; moreover, men began making a contribution similar to the dowry, the donatio ante nuptias, allotting part of their property as a donation to a conjugal fund. Already in the imperial period, men were known to have made engagement gifts to cement the process of contracting a marriage.
Third-century texts show that these gifts could be reclaimed by the man if the engagement was broken, unless he was responsible for breaking it off. At some point before AD 380, Roman legislators instituted a system in which betrothals were ensured by the exchange of earnest payments, called arrhae. Breaking the engagement entailed repayment of four times the arrhae.
 Corbridge hoard, British Museum. Author photo Whatever its origins, the practice of the donatio ante nuptias, the gift from groom to bride, extended rapidly over the fourth and fifth centuries. These gifts, which joined the dowry as part of the conjugal fund in the wife’s ownership, would be considered a form of insurance that was especially useful in situations where the man’s social position or social intentions were less than fully defined. The donatio functioned more like a safety deposit than a true exchange, since the property went to the wife rather than her natal family, thus remaining under the husband’s control unless he ended the marriage.
Constantine takes a step back (Quelle surprise!)
 Bronze of Constantine’s head, Capitoline Museum, Rome. Author photo Abandoning law and practice of centuries, Constantine issued his own regressive law restricting the grounds for divorce to the most heinous crimes. If a woman repudiated her husband for any other cause, she not only lost her dowry, but she was also deported.
Nevertheless, women could breathe a sigh of relief when during the later reign of Julian (AD 361–363), the classical regime of free, unilateral divorce was re-established. This is how Julia was able to divorce her unsatisfactory husband perfectly legally under Roman law. But it wouldn’t last…
Christianity’s enduring effect
However, the doctrine of indissolubility which prevailed in late Roman Christianity held that a marriage was the joining of two into one flesh which meant the early Christian Church strongly opposed both divorce and remarriage. Moreover, to discourage remarriage further, bishops could evoke the belief in an afterlife and insist that a couple joined on earth continued to exist after death. Divorce was therefore impossible, and remarriage would be considered bigamous, even for a widow or widower.
Elements of the traditional Roman marriage would go on to blend with Christian dogma, leading to the purpose of marriage being defined from Late Antiquity as ‘procreation, partnership, and preventing fornication’ (Isadore of Seville, Etymologiae c. 600-625). But easy divorce and the lack of need to have a blessing or sanction from the state or religious authorities vanished until the twentieth century.
Alison Morton is the author of Roma Nova thrillers – INCEPTIO, CARINA (novella), PERFIDITAS, SUCCESSIO, AURELIA, NEXUS (novella), INSURRECTIO and RETALIO, and ROMA NOVA EXTRA, a collection of short stories. Audiobooks are available for four of the series. Double Identity, a contemporary conspiracy, starts a new series of thrillers. JULIA PRIMA, a new Roma Nova story set in the late 4th century, is now out.
Download ‘Welcome to Alison Morton’s Thriller Worlds’, a FREE eBook, as a thank you gift when you sign up to Alison’s monthly email update. You’ll also be among the first to know about news and book progress before everybody else, and take part in giveaways.
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