Alison Morton's Thrillers

What is it about writing Romans?

The Ermine Street Guard (Photo: Caroline Morton)

Over the years I’ve been asked in interviews why Rome fascinates me and how it led to me imagining Roma Nova. I reveal all…

What period of history particularly inspires or interests you? Why?
Rome! It’s almost visceral. It’s gripped me since I walked on that first mosaic. ‘Rome’ founded (according to Roman historians) in 753 BC lasted 1229 years in the West, which time span would take us back to AD 796 from today. It changed from a tiny community of tribal farmers and, frankly, riff-raff, to a confident military and trading empire boasting high culture, diversity, power, engineering and rule of law. But by 476 AD, the western part of the empire had dwindled to a miserable rump with a young teenager kneeling before the barbarian King Odoacer.

Romulus Augustulus renouncing his role as the last Roman emperor in the West (19th century sketch, public domain)

Rome had the dark side of all ancient cultures: slavery, rampant corruption, patriarchalism and scant regard for disabled and poor people. But it gave us systems, values, including civic-mindedness, cultural and engineering genius and literacy that are still firmly embedded in our psyches today. In my alternate projection of a Roman society in the present day, this heritage is an integral part of the thriller stories and the characters’ motivations. In their minds, hearts and souls, they are Roman.

Is there anything unusual or even quirky that you would like to share about your writing?
My whole writing world is quirky – an alternative historical timeline, women running a 20^th century Roman-based state with a feminist twist. But the characters are still very much people we would recognise. Although they live naturally in their Roman style society with strong values, they have the same feelings and aspirations that we do. But inheritance and family names descend through the female line on the principle that you always know who the child’s mother is… Quirky, yes, but something that I hope provokes a different way of looking at things.

Is there a particular photo or piece of art that resonates with you?

I’ve stayed faithful to the Pont du Gard, near Nimes in southern France since I was seven years old. It’s elegant yet massive, a practical manifestation of Roman authority, but also an inspiration of engineering bringing the essential of life – water – to people in their urban environment. Designed by engineers, paid for publicly (sometimes by a wealthy benefactor), built by both skilled craftsmen and the labouring poor, it’s a true symbol of the complexity and contradictions of Rome. It also makes a nice photo nearly two thousand years later. 😉

Pont du Gard (Author photo)

The great thing about the setting of your thrillers is that you have some leeway with historical accuracy. Was the accuracy in describing the Roma Nova culture important to you?

Absolutely! I have an MA in History which has given me a grounding in being picky about accuracy and the techniques to research sources in a methodical way. I don’t think you can ‘alternate’ history without knowing it first.

When you choose to diverge from the standard historical timeline, you have to know exactly what the world was like at that point of divergence. This is the last solid foothold you have on the historical record. The Roma Nova storyline starts when a group of senatorial families trekked out of Italy at the end of the fourth century (as told in EXSILIUM). In my novel, the main characters worshipped the traditional gods – Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, Mercury etc. For that reason they were persecuted by Christian Emperor Theodosius II for not converting to Christianity, which had become the state religion of the Roman Empire.

Roman gods, frieze in Ashmolean Museum (Author photo)

This persecution in Late Antiquity really happened, and was cemented by a series of edicts in the 390s AD. Theodosius signed the final edict outlawing worship of the traditional Roman gods in AD 394; the punishment was death. Sadly, we’re not taught about that when we ‘do’ the Romans at school – it’s all brushed over with Christianity ‘winning’.

Anyway…Once you’ve researched that divergence point in time ad nauseam, you then project forwards using historical logical until you reach the later time when your story is set. It helps to have a general knowledge of history, know how it unfolds and its dynamics when doing this. If not, research!

In fact, everything has to be checked from technology and attitudes in the 1960s (AURELIA), how to mount a coup d’état, intelligence techniques, warfighting of the 1980s (INSURRECTIO, RETALIO), weaponry, signals, locations and transferable Roman practices for all the books. I spent hours and hours on researching New York for the first part of INCEPTIO and ended up going there. Ditto for Montréal and Québéc for CARINA. As for SUCCESSIO, that drew strongly on my own time in the UK armed forces. But I love research. Honestly!

In your novels, Roma Nova is ruled by women. The real Romans had a very interesting way of viewing women: they were afforded the maximum status and respect, but had no rights or say in the world. How do you reconcile the view of the ‘real’ Romans with the Romans in your alternative timeline?

If freeborn, women in ancient Rome were citizens and increasingly during Imperial period gained much more freedom to act, trade, own property and run businesses of all types. But they held no direct political power. Nevertheless, women from wealthy or powerful families could and did exert influence throughout Rome’s history: the Julio-Claudian Livia Drusilla; the later Severan Julias; and Galla Placidia towards the end of the Roman Empire.

In my novels, women rule, but men are not disadvantaged. Life is much more nuanced than that. Roma Nova survived by changing its social structure. As men constantly fought to defend the new colony, women took over the social, political and economic roles, weaving new power and influence networks based on family structures.

Given the unstable, dangerous times in Roma Nova’s first few hundred years, the daughters and sisters as well as sons and brothers had to put on armour and carry weapons to defend their homeland and their way of life. Fighting danger side by side with brothers and fathers reinforced women’s roles. And they never allowed the incursion of monotheistic paternalistic religions. They and their descendants never forgot the persecution that forced them into exile in Rome. So I don’t think that it’s too far a stretch for women to have developed leadership roles in all parts of Roma Novan life over the next sixteen centuries.

Characters from the Roma Nova thrillers

My female protagonist’s story starts in INCEPTIO in a(n almost) standard Western society. When she’s compelled to flee to her dead mother’s homeland in Europe she finds the Roman-infused culture unnerving. Although outward facing and willing to cooperate with other nations, Roma Novans live to a tough ethic of self-sufficiency and an ingrained sense of duty to their state – core Roman values which have been crucial to their survival down the centuries. They are somewhat robust in their approach to life.

The strong female characters surrounding our heroine – her grandmother Aurelia, cousin Helena, female colleagues and friends – are the result of this and form the pattern for her. As you might expect, the men around her are distinctly Roman in their attitude which often makes personal and professional relationships fraught (but interesting!).

Not all runs smoothly, but the Twelve Families try to keep conspiracies – a core Roman activity – to an infrequent number. But Renschman, Pertinax, Nicola and Caius come along and every heroine needs an enemy…

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 now out.

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Debunking the 'Roman salute'

Oath of the Horatii (Jean-Louis David, 1784)

Recently, a prominent social media personality thrust his arm in the air in a straight arm salute that caused an earthquake of reaction, mostly shuddering. For many, it recalled fascists, Nazis and ultra nationalism of every kind. According to legend, this fascist gesture was based on a customary greeting which was claimed to be used in Ancient Rome.

Um, wrong.

No Roman text describes such a gesture, and the Roman works of art that display salutational gestures bear little resemblance to the modern ‘Roman salute’.

So that’s all sorted out.

Let’s unpick a little…

Originating from Jacques-Louis David’s painting The Oath of the Horatii (1784), the gesture developed a historically inaccurate association with (manly) Roman Republican and imperial culture. All this popped up all over the place in other neoclassic artworks.

In the United States, a similar salute for the pledge of allegiance – the Bellamy salute – was created by Francis Bellamy in 1892. The picture of little children in their classroom making a fascist-like salute seems not only bizarre but repugnant to us today. But the gesture rolled on during the late 19th and early 20th centuries into plays and films that portrayed the salute as an ancient Roman custom.

Italian nationalist poet Gabriele d’Annunzio adopted it in 1919 as a neo-imperial ritual when he led an occupation of Fiume. Through his influence, the gesture became was gradually adopted by the Italian Fascist regime. Then the Nazis made such a gesture compulsory within their movement in 1926 and became the keynote greeting in the Third Reich.

Since the end of World War II, displaying the Nazi variant of the salute has been a criminal offence in Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Poland. Legal restrictions on its use in Italy are more nuanced and use there has generated controversy. Sadly, the gesture and its variations continue to be used in neo-fascist, neo-Nazi, and Falangist contexts.

But what about the Romans saying hi or acclaiming something or somebody?

Augustus, National Museum of Roman Civilisation, Rome (Author photo)

Not a single Roman work of art displays a salute like the straight arm fascist one. The gesture of the raised right arm or hand in Roman and other ancient cultures that does exist in surviving literature and art generally had a significantly different function.

The right hand (Latin dextera, dextra) was commonly used in antiquity as a symbol of pledging trust, friendship or loyalty. Sculptures commemorating military victories such as those on the Arch of Titus, the Arch of Constantine, or on Trajan’s Column are the best-known examples of raised arms in art from this period. However, these monuments do not display a single representation of the straight arm Roman salute.

The images closest in appearance to a raised arm salute are scenes in Roman sculpture and coins which show an adlocutio, acclamatio, adventus, or profectio. These are occasions when a high-ranking official, such as a general or the emperor, addresses individuals or a group, often soldiers. Unlike modern custom, in which both the leader and the people he addresses raise their arms, most of these scenes show only the senior official raising his hand. Occasionally, it’s a sign of greeting or benevolence, but usually is used as an indication of power.

An example of a salutational gesture of imperial power can be seen in the statue of Augustus of Prima Porta which follows certain guidelines set out by oratory scholars of his day. For instance, Quintillian states in his Institutio Oratoria: “Experts do not permit the hand to be raised above the level of the eyes or lowered beneath the breast; to such a degree is this true that it is considered a fault to direct the hand above the head or lower it to the lower part of the belly. It may be extended to the left within the limits of the shoulder, but beyond that it is not fitting.” The Prima Porta does go beyond these dignified limits, but then Augustus was a showman.

That Horatii painting

Jacques-Louis David has a lot to answer for as do people who went on to misinterpret his painting of the three sons of Horatius. They are swearing an oath on their swords, held by their father, that they will defend Rome to the death. It’s based on a historical event described by Livy (Book I, sections 24-6) and elaborated by Dionysius in Roman Antiquities (Book III).

However… the moment depicted in David’s painting is straight from David’s imagination. Neither Livy nor Dionysius mention any oath-taking episode. Dionysius, the more detailed source, reports that the father had left to his sons the decision to fight, then raised his hands to the heavens to thank the gods. But what does historical accuracy matter in art?

In more detail… In the painting, the brothers’ father faces left with both hands raised. His left hand is holding three swords, while his right hand is empty, with fingers stretched but not touching. The brother closest to us is holding his arm almost horizontally. The brother on the left is holding his arm slightly higher, while the third brother holds his hand higher still. While the first brother extends his right arm, the other two are extending their left arms. The succession of arms raised progressively higher leads to a gesture closely approximating the style used by fascists in the 20th century in Italy, albeit with the wrong arms. Oh dear.

The moving image

Those of us of more mature years grew up with epic films such as the 1951 film Quo Vadis where the Nero character repeatedly uses the full arm salute at mass rallies, meant to imply the fascistic nature of the Roman Empire. Others did the same including Ben-Hur, Spartacus, and Cleopatra. In Gladiator, the salute is notably absent in most scenes and in HBO’s Rome series, the emphasis is on the right hand placed over the heart and then extended horizontally to the front of the body, not a ‘Roman salute’.

So there you have it.

Are 'what if' stories coming into fashion?

A recent post in The Economist magazine congratulated Francis Spufford whose Cahokia Jazz won this year’s long-form class of the Sidewise Awards for Alternate History. The Economist went on to state: “The what-if genre of fiction is growing fast, with work of startling quality and originality. [Cahokia Jazz is] A noir thriller that takes place in the 1920s, it imagines an America in which the native population had not been nearly wiped out by smallpox.”

I read on: “Tweaking history is surely as much fun as a novelist can have: losers become winners, and not quite everything changes.”

Well, we know this: Robert Harris paved the way for me with Fatherland, published 1992. Consider also Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America published in 2004; Kingsley Amis’s The Alteration came out in 1976; Keith Roberts’ Pavane in 1968; Philip K Dick’s The Man in the High Castle in 1962.

And it goes back further…

In 1490, Joanot Martorell wrote Tirant lo Blanch about a knight who succeeds in fighting off the invading Ottoman armies of Mehmet II and saves Constantinople from Islamic conquest. He wrote this when the Fall of Constantinople in 1453 was still a traumatic memory for Christian Europe.

Roman historian Livy speculated that the Romans would have eventually beaten Alexander the Great if he’d lived longer and turned west to attack them (Book IX, sections 17-19 Ab urbe condita libri (The History of Rome, Titus Livius).

So what’s the attraction?

Imagining a changed moment in the past can spur the imagination like nothing else. What if the Spanish Armada successfully invaded and conquered England? What if William of Normandy had failed in 1066? What if Napoleon had won at Waterloo in 1815? What if President X had been elected instead of President Y? We could go on for ever… And if we’re worried about the present, how comforting is it to escape to a different present? Of course, it could be a worse one. 🙁

Similar to any story written in any genre, there must be a purpose to an alternative history story. It can’t be “Look at this new world I’ve invented, aren’t I clever?” It needs a strong story. As a reader of fiction I want a story to entertain, inform me and encourage me to think. That’s what writers are supposed to deliver to the reader.

As with any genre there are ‘da rulz’ when writing althist stories:

– the event that turned history from the path we know – the point of divergence – must be in the past.

– the new timeline follows a different path forever – there is no going back (Sorry, no time travel 🙂 )

– stories should show the ramifications of the divergence and how the new reality functions.

Building a different, plausible and consistent world that functions is challenging, but also rewarding. From my experience of writing the Roma Nova series, there is as much heavy research to be carried out as for any historical novel. Yes, you can imagine a new world, but you need to show the path how it developed from when it split from the timeline we know. A good general knowledge of history and the way societies develop is essential.

The other key is good characterisation. The people in the story should be as clever, fallible, scared or motivated in the same ways we are. However, they’re living in a different environment and the two should be woven together. We’re all products of the world we grew up in and so are they.

And the world of Roma Nova?

I’ve loved developing Karen into Carina on her path to self-discovery where she plays an integral part in the Roma Nova story through four books. Writing her grandmother Aurelia as a younger woman in the 1960s and 1980s (also in four books) gave me a wonderful research challenge, but also the opportunity to give a backstory to such a complex character.

When I first started the series with INCEPTIO published in 2013, I had worked out a historically logical progression from AD 395 to the present. Well, in my head at least. 😉 I knew what Roma Nova looked like, worked out its economy, laws and social set-up. Ten years and eight books later, my fans demanded I write the origin story so I had to double down and go back to the 4th century. JULIA PRIMA and EXSILIUM are the result. I obviously had to enhance the sketchy stories lurking in the back of my head – each of these latest two novels is over 90,000 words – but it was both challenging and fascinating.

I’m always pleased when alternative history fiction is highlighted as in The Economist article as it tends to be the Cinderella of historical fiction. Yet good alternative history stories give us a rich environment in which to develop our storytelling and let our imaginations soar in a historical and futuristic framework. Bliss!

Like all speculative fiction and a fair bit of historical fiction, “althist” may well reflect concerns of the time when it’s written. But above all it allows us to explore unthinkable, frightening or utopian worlds from the safety of our favourite reading chair.

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.

What is it about writing Romans?

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