When Historical “Facts” Aren’t So Factual

Vicky Alvear Shecter is far too modest. Vicky's a regular commenter on this blog, but I'm sure lots of people don't realize she's the author of two fantastic biographies. Alexander the Great Rocks the World and, only recently, Cleopatra Rules! The Amazing Life of the Original Teen Queen. Her first young adult novel, Cleopatra's Moon, is out in summer 2011. When it comes to ancient history she knows what she's talking about. Vicky's a docent at the Michael C. Carlos Museum of Antiquities at Emory University in Atlanta. So I imposed on her to do a guest post, and here it is.

Speaking to high school kids at a Junior Classical League conference last year, I offered a word association game. When I got to “Cleopatra,” I got:

“Queen”
“Egypt”
“Slut”
“Whore”

“Wow,” I remember thinking. “They went from queenly to unseemly in a matter of seconds!” The spirit of Augustus Caesar must have danced a little jig of victory because 2,000 years after his propaganda war against the queen, we are still maligning her with insults related to her ultimately unknowable (and irrelevant) sex life.

What’s worse, little has changed since Augustus worked up Romans into a frenzy of outrage, fear and loathing for a powerful woman.

“Tell me,” I asked the teens. “What’s the first word you use to disparage a girl you don’t like or that you find threatening.”

“Slut,” they admitted a bit sheepishly. “Whore.”

Augustus’ model for taking a strong woman down, it seems, went deeper than we could even imagine. We are still acting it out today.

And yet, when it comes to Cleopatra, the facts don’t jibe. Most modern scholars now believe that the queen had only two relationships her whole life—both with Roman leaders with whom she politically aligned for the preservation of her crown and kingdom: Julius Caesar and Marc Antony.

All agree that Augustus masterminded a smear campaign against the queen of Egypt so thorough, we still automatically accept it today. We picture her as a seductress instead of as a brilliant politician who kept her kingdom from being eaten alive by Rome for twenty years. We imagine her as a femme fatale instead of the devoted mother of four children. That’s right., four.

In writing Cleopatra Rules! The Amazing Life of the Original Teen Queen—I’ve learned two important lessons:

1) Don’t automatically accept ancient “facts” as facts, and

2) Do not, under any circumstances, ask teens to play a word association game!

A note on names

Most modern names come from the Bible, a book which had yet to be written when my hero Nico walked the mean streets of Classical Athens. Quite a few people have asked me what's the "right" way to say the ancient names. I'll be getting hate mail from classical linguists for this, but the truth is, there is no right way. I hope you'll pick whatever sounds happiest to you, and have fun reading the story.

For those who'd like a little more guidance, try this.

The Greeks had only a single name each, which we would think of as a first name. Greek names were usually two everyday words stuck together to form a meaning. A lot of the trick to saying them is to spot the word boundary, then say and think of them as two words.

Let me use as an example someone you've heard of: Cleopatra.

Cleopatra may have been Queen of Egypt, but her name was very typically Greek. If you can cope with Cleopatra, you can cope with any Greek name. Cleopatra is cleo + patra. Cleo means glory, and patra means of the father. Glory of the father. The ending in –a makes it a feminine name.

Boy names end in –os, –us, –es, –is, or –on. Girl names end in –a, –ia, or –ache. You can switch the sex of any name by switching the ending.

With that in mind, here are two of my major characters with interesting names:

Nicolaos is nico + laos. Nico is a variant of Nike, which means victory. Laos is of the people. Victory of the people. Nicolaos is a common name in Greece to this day, and is quite obviously the origin of the western Nicholas. There was a St Nicolaos who is better known as Santa Claus. The Claus part comes from the –colaos of Nicolaos. Nico is our modern Nick.

Diotima is dios + tima. The Greek Dios is the Latin Deus, which if you've ever heard a Latin prayer in church you will know means God. Tima means honored. Diotima is honored by God. A suitable name for any priestess.

As a graduation exercise, here's a random name that looks tough but is amazingly simple:

Archeptolis. Archeptolis is almost the same as Architect, a very common English word. Say Architect. Now take off the tect and add on a tolis. Done!

The pt in Greek always sounds like a plain old English t. Every modern child knows the flying reptile called a pterodactyl. It's the same thing.

The Greek ch can always be said like an Engish k (as in architect). But if you want to go for slightly more authenticity, try saying it like the ch in Scottish or German, which is to say like a k while choking on a fishbone.

Author notes in historical mysteries, and the spoiler problem

I love writing author notes. In fact I love it so much that I wrote 33 pages for The Ionia Sanction and had to do some extreme cutting to get it back to a mere 17 pages. Don't panic, the author note for The Pericles Commission comes in at a svelte 8 pages.

But there's a slight problem with the author note for any historical mystery. Because it's, you know, a mystery, where someone got killed, and someone did it, and it's pretty much impossible to write about the history behind a real murder without giving away some plot.

It never occurred to me, the editor, the executive editor, or anyone else, that the author note might need a spoiler alert, because it's right at the back of the book. Until no less than Steven Saylor himself pointed it out when he read the ARC. It turns out he and others like to turn to the back and read the author note first.

So at the last minute we inserted an alert in the first paragraph of the author note (at least, I hope we did...I myself haven't seen the final book yet). But the ARC doesn't have an alert, so if you're holding the ARC, don't read the author note until you've read the book!

A lovely review by Irene Hahn

Irene runs the Roman History Reading Group. It's a group of like-minded people who gather online every two weeks to talk about modern books set in ancient Rome, and also ancient Roman books. They let me hang out with them even though I come from the Greek end of town. Anyone interested in this stuff would be very welcome to join in.

Irene's become a minor history celebrity since she started the reading group, to the point that publishers are sending her books to review. One of them, at my slight prodding, was The Pericles Commission.

Here is Irene's review of The Pericles Commission.

Gary at Bouchercon: and on a panel

Bouchercon is a huge mystery fan conference held each year in a different city. This year it's in San Francisco, from the 14th to the 17th October.

If you're at Bouchercon, or anywhere nearby, then I would really, really, really like to catch up. (No, really!)

If you're attending Bouchercon, then you get the added bonus of watching me make a total fool of myself in front of the fans. I'm on one of the panel discussions.

My Bouchercon panel consists of Keith Kahla (moderator), Steven Saylor, Lindsey Davis, John Maddox Roberts, and little debut-author me.

I'll be a dwarf among giants, but I'm looking forward to this!