Roman Mysteries Season Two

It's been exciting to see such great publicity in the run-up to the premiere of Season Two of the Roman Mysteries today.

Season Two starts on BBC1 at 4.35 with part one of The Gladiators from Capua. Part two then continues at 5.15 on CBBC. This will be the pattern every Tuesday over the next ten weeks of the series (July and August).

There have been reviews in almost all the major UK papers, including The Times, The Independent, The Sunday Times and The Mail on Sunday. Here are some excerpts:

'The Roman Mysteries is a tremendous way for younger viewers to learn about Roman history... they graft child-friendly adventure on to careful research... with the help of a strong cast and healthy-looking budget...'
The Times

'Impressively staged children's drama - a sort of Rome for pre-teens - about four friends in AD79.'
The Independent

It's the Famous Five in togas – or, given this week's plot about well-muscled gladiators hitting town, the tweenage Spartacus...'
The Sunday Times

'The adventure series set in ancient Rome returns, with some nice acting by the young cast...'
The Mail on Sunday

'... a high-quality drama series, aimed at children...'
DigiGuide

'...you certainly don't have to be a child to enjoy this adventure series set in the days of the Roman Empire and boasting some very decent production values, convincing fight scenes and crucially, good storylines.'
East Anglian Times

The July 4 edition of Radio Times did a two-page Behind the Scenes spread including an interview with producer Jane Dauncey. Francesca 'Flavia' Isherwood featured in 4Girlz (picture above) and July's issue of Groovy Girl (picture below).

Even if you don't live in the UK or Europe, you can watch clips of the new season on the re-vamped CBBC website.



If you hurry, you can also have a go at writing your own Roman Mysteries short story on the CBBC message boards.

There have been competitions to win the DVD of Season One in Aquila magazine, The Sun and also in the Young Times 2 for Monday 7 July.



Some of the TV episodes are a lot like the books; The Colossus of Rhodes and The Slave-girl from Jerusalem follow my stories closely. However, other episodes don't.

For example, today's episode - The Gladiators from Capua - is a completely different story from the book. This is because the BBC didn't quite have the budget to reproduce the opening day at the Colosseum when 50,000 people watched a tightrope-walking elephant, 4,000 animals slaughtered in the morning beast hunt, criminal executions at lunch, carefully paired gladiatorial combats in the afternoon and sea-battles in the flooded arena by night. Also, the actor who plays Titus (Nicholas Farrell) was unavailable so they decided to use the excellent Duncan Duff as Domitian instead. In spite of the changes, the characters and spirit of the books remain true.

So now all that remains is to wait for your comments and reviews. Send me your comments, or publish them below!

P.S. If you miss an episode, they will be repeated from 5.30 - 6.00pm every Sunday on CBBC

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I watched the Second Series of The Roman Mysteries yesturday, it was REALLY good. I think I preferred your original version in the book though but I don't suppose that they have time to fit everything in. I am half way through reading The Colossus of Rhodes. It's a really good, it keeps you guesing who's the traitor and who the slave dealer is - it's really good!
Daisy-Alys x

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I saw the start of the new series yesterday and it was awesome! Although, I can see what you mean about the size of the gladiators arena. =P I'm three quarters of the way through your first book and it's amazing.
Courtney x

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Hello, my name is Jack. I'm ten years old and I think your books are the most clever and puzzling books ever!! I have a thirst for history, I enjoy Ancient Greeks and Romans. Today I have finished reading The Pirates Of Pompeii. I am now reading The Assassins Of Rome. I read on the website and saw an email and you replied that your favourite character is Flavia, mine is Lupus. I think he's clever and funny! I watched The Gladiators of Capua on Tuesday, Part One and Two. It was a good program.
From Jack (10) Lincolnshire

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I watched the first episode of "The Gladiators from Capua" yesterday which obviously brought several points: why didn't the BBC stick to the book etc? However I liked how they tied in Caudex's past. Wouldn't the Gladiators have used wooden practice swords rather than real ones from a practical point of view that no one got hurt before the games? Also having a general think about the television series I've come to the conclusion that it sums up the general atmosphere of each book even if the plot isn't always as it was in the book.
Laura

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Dear Caroline Lawrence,
I would like to say the new TV series is great. Although my bus was late home from school i still managed to catch the last 15 minuets of it.
Katherine

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Salve Caroline
I am just writing to say that this weeks episode of Roman Mysteries was really good as it makes all the characters look a lot wiser and older plus the scenery was amazing as usual. i am glad that this has continued as i thought that in eposode ones scenery was very good as well. I think the use of scenery in a film or program makes or breaks it and it the Roman Mysteries programs it makes them as it makes you feel like you are in the places that it shows. I am also re reading books 1-14 at the moment as i have recently bought the Trimalchio Feast and i find that it really helps to tie up and lose ends that there are and it also helps you to find out a bit more about Lupus and the other characters. I am looking forward to the next 2 books and i am looking forwerd to find out what happens to the four of them and i hope it all turns out well for them all.
from one your biggest fans
Rory

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Roman Istanbul

Friday 16 May 2008

I always like to go to the countries where my books are set to get details about the geography, flora, fauna and cuisine. Many aspects won’t have changed since Roman times and those are the things I’m looking for. I am like a detective, trying to find the past in the present.

On our first day in Istanbul we are taken to the site of the hippodrome, the ancient chariot racecourse. Nothing much is left of it, apart from one or two columns, but there is a nice relief sculpture of important Romans watching the races.

Then our tour takes us underground, to some cisterns below an ancient church. I am in for a treat.

When I was in Alexandria last year, I wanted to see one of the many cisterns that lie below that city, but was told by our tour guide that there weren’t any! This was an Egyptian guide who didn’t even know what lay beneath the city. (Bad Kuoni Tours!) But I have found what I’m looking for here in Istanbul. As in Alexandria, these cisterns have columns and vaulted roofs. There is even an upside down head of Medusa.

Hagia Sofia church, the Blue Mosque and the Topkapi Palace are beautiful, too, but there is nothing Roman here.

I slope off early from the Topkapi Palace and I make my own way to the nearby Archeology Museum. There is a peaceful garden here among the sarcophagi and columns, shaded by pines and patrolled by feral cats. In the museum I see some of the best pieces from sites like Miletus, Ephesus and Aphrodisias. One of my favourites is a woman wearing the distinctive Flavian hairdo. (That doesn’t mean her hair is like Flavia’s, it means she lived in the time of the emperoros Vespasian, Titus or Domitian, all of whom had the nomen Flavia.)

The next day we are given an hour in the Egyptian spice market. There are all sorts of goodies for sale, including a man who sells leeches by the jar. Richard buys £30 worth of spices from a dealer who calls himself Al Pacino Turko, the Turkish Al Pacino. He has photos of himself with lots of famous people, like Julio Inglesias and Miss Denmark. So I get a photo, too! I think we could have bought the same spices for half the price in ASDA but I guess it's not every day that your grocer is Al Pacino.

After our tour of the spice market, we take a cruise on the Bosphorus. The following day we drop in on the Sunday service at the Greek orthodox church. I see women writing prayers on scraps of paper. In Roman times people scribbled prayers on paper or cloth or even metal and hung them on sacred trees or left them in the temple of the appropriate god or goddess.

Later, in another service at the Anglican church in Istanbul, the rather formal liturgy is enlivened by a cat chasing a cockroach back and forth beneath the pews.

But the highlight of my time in Istanbul is visit to a three hundred year old hammam...

A Day at the Roman Baths

Saturday 17 May 2008



OK, it’s not a real Roman bath, but it’s probably the closest thing. A hammam - or Turkish bath - is a direct descendant of the Roman bathhouse. I describe my visit to a Moroccan hammam in From Ostia to Alexandria with Flavia Gemina. And what better place to experience a Turkish bath than in Turkey? There are several here in Istanbul but our guide recommends the 18th century Cagaloglu Hammam because it is nearest to our hotel, the Yashmak Sultan.

Men have the privilege of using the main entrance. Of course. The women’s part of the baths are reached on a sidestreet called ‘Hamam’. You enter a white marble vestibule to find rubber and wooden bath slippers in a rack on one side. Ancient Romans wore wood and leather clogs in the baths, too! You take a pair and go to the admissions desk. At this point the woman will ask you what tariff you want.

I choose the super but not deluxe as I only have an hour to spare. The super includes body scrub and massage but not the bubbles. It costs 68 Turkish lira, about £25. In Morocco a similar experience can be bought for under £5. But in Morocco you don’t get your own private cubicle with couch, shelf, mirror and hairdryer. This cubicle also comes with a heavy brass key which tells the bath assistants which tariff you have opted for. In addition, the numbered keys let them know in which order to serve you. On busy days it can get quite crowded, but at 5.45pm on a Saturday afternoon it isn’t too bad.

In my cubicle I find a light towel, like a tea towel: only bigger. It’s called a peshtemal. This is to cover your modesty as you pass through the rather public camekan, or changing room (the equivalent of the Roman apodyterium). In my cubicle, I take off my clothes, keeping just my briefs on. In a plastic carrier bag I have shampoo, conditioner, body lotion, a hairbrush and a scouring mitt from the Marrakech bazaar.

With my peshtemal wrapped around me, I pass through the camekan and proceed to a warm room where I find a lots of fluffy, clean, proper towels on a table. This room is called the soglukluk and is probably the Roman equivalent of the tepidarium, the warm room. You could sit here and chat to your friends without beads of sweat dripping from the tip of your nose.

I take a warm, fluffy towel (you have to bring your own to the hammams I visited in Morocco) and head towards the hot room, but an assistant sends me back, telling me the towels are for afterwards.

I put the towel back and move cautiously across the wet marble floor into a beautiful, steamy domed room lit by beams of sunlight. This is the hararet, the equivalent of the caldarium or the sudatorium. There are columns here supporting a high dome pierced by flower-shaped holes to let in air and light. Around the walls of this room are marble benches and marble shell basins with two brass taps above each - one for hot and one for cold - so you can mix the water to your liking. Shallow tin bowls float in these basins; you use them to tip water over yourself. The bowls look just like pateras, the flat, broad bowls Romans used to pour libations.

In the centre of the hararet is a hexagonal marble plinth. This is called the gobek tashi and it is where the bath assistants give you your scrub and massage. The female bath assistants wear bathing costumes. They are mostly Rubenesque of figure so I feel sylph-like in comparison.

I find a seat by one of the marble shell-basins and pour cool water over myself as I watch the masseuses at work. In the Fes hammam I received a rough but cheerful buffeting at the hands of an old Moroccan crone. I send up a prayer that I’ll get someone gentle. After fifteen minutes in the hot steamy room, one of the women calls me over.

Her name is Phyllis, which she indicates means ‘happy’. She doesn’t speak English, but knows enough words to get me to lie down on the warm, slippery, wet marble with a rubber cushion under my head. Then she takes my own scrubber and rubs first my front and then my back. Phyllis then sits me up and takes great delight in showing me the grey worms of dead skin she is sloughing off my body. Ewww! Fifteen minutes in the hot steam room have done their work.

After scrubbing me from neck to sole, she has me get off the platform and follow her to one of the shells. She sluices me down with lukewarm water, just the right temperature. Then it is back to the slab for a massage with a banana-scented mixture of soap and oil. She does my front, back, scalp, hands, feet, arms, everything. She is firm but not rough and it’s so relaxing that I almost drift off.

Finally she moves back to the marble bench and has me sit at her feet. If I hadn’t already washed my hair, she would have done it for me now. Instead, she sluices me over and over with cool water, just the right temperature. I’m done!

I slip on my clogs, and move carefully out of the domed steam room to the warm room. Here I take two of the proper towels – one for body, one for hair – and discard my peshtemal in the bin provided. Then back to my cubicle to put on some body lotion and lie down for five minutes. You must do this. I discovered the hard way when I left the Fes hammam in too much of a hurry and nearly passed out.

Phyllis is waiting in the camekan, sipping apple tea. If I didn’t have to rush, I could enjoy one, too. I give her a nice tip and go out into the warm Istanbul evening feeling relaxed, fragrant, tingly and cool. Later, looking at the literature about these baths, I discover that the Cagaloglu Hammam is one of 1000 Places to See Before You Die!

Life in the Shade

Monday 19 May 2008

My husband Richard and I are in Turkey for ten days, researching the penultimate book in the Roman Mysteries series, The Prophet from Ephesus. This book takes place in AD 81, when St John the Evangelist was still alive, and we're travelling with a tour which aims to visit the sites of the seven churches mentioned in the book of Revelation. These churches would have been flourishing around the time my book is set.

Today Pergamum (church 3) and Thyatira (church 4) are on the itinerary...

We set off for Pergamum just after 8.00am across flat, ugly, marshy ground, with factories spewing smoke. After half an hour the landscape becomes more pleasant, with fruit and olive trees. We are skirting the coast as we travel north and pass a pretty harbour with no houses but some big ships. Must be an industrial harbour. After an hour or so we are in golden hills studded with olive trees. The sea is still to our left, to the west. This was the area the Bible calls Galatia.

We pass a shaggy donkey by the side of the road and our coach slows to avoid a tortoise. We reach the site shortly after 10.00 in the morning. In ancient times, papyrus had to be imported from Egypt. The Anatolians from this area used sheepskin, instead, and we get the word ‘parchment’ from ‘Pergamum’. It is very hot, so we shelter in the shade of a big mulberry tree. The leaf of the white mulberry was the preferred food of the silk worm, but I prefer the fruit itself, picked right off the branch, sweet and sun-warmed.

The theatre here clings precipitously to the hillside. Was this what the writer of Revelation meant when he refered to ‘Satan’s Throne’? Probably not. He meant that Pergamum was the prime center of the emperor cult.

We scurry from the shade of the mulberry to the shade of a large fig tree. I’m sure that’s what ancient Romans spent most of their time doing: scurrying from one patch of shade to the next. That’s why Cicero’s term for the luxurious life of ease in Roman times was ‘life in the shade’, vita umbratilis. I imagine the scholar sitting in a breeze-cooled shaded colonnade, sipping chilled posca as he writes poetry or letters.

We hurry to the shade of a big plane tree while our guide informs us that there was a sanctuary to Asklepios here in Pergamum. Our guide calls it a health centre. There are lots of big green lizards here that throw their feet out when they run. I also hear the thin cry of a cicada or cricket and realise it’s the first I’ve heard. This is the only time I hear them on the trip, despite the heat. We leave the shade of the plane tree for the echoing coolness of a tunnel to the Asklepion. The sound of the cheeping sparrows is very loud here.

Our itinerary says we are going to lunch at the Caravan Restaurant, which sounds lovely, but we end up at a big new restaurant by the side of a busy road. Our lunch is flavoured with diesel fumes. But at least you can choose your own food. I have the delicious pickled red cabbage (Pliny the Elder would approve), white goat’s milk cheese and cold chicken. As usual, I only eat what Flavia and her friends would have eaten. I breakfast on olives, cheese and fruit and sometimes on yogurt with honey. Yum.

On our way to Thyatira, we pass through olive groves with the occasional dark finger of a cypress tree pointing to heaven. There are poplar trees everywhere, and beautiful red poppies in the grasses by the side of the road.

We make a ‘comfort stop’ at what seems to be a dreary service station. But we discover a wonderful lush grape arbour and a Turkish woman making stuffed pastry in a little kiosk. I love it when your expectations are confounded like this.

Thyatira is a fenced off square in the middle of a town, a scattering of fallen columns shaded by a pine tree, a palm, a pomegranate and an acacia. This was the Temple of Apollo, or the basilica, or both.

We head back to Izmir, passing through fertile fields and also past neat looking buildings for battery chickens. Our guide tells us something interesting. In England or America the farmer has a house surrounded by his fields. Here in Turkey, and the rest of the Med, the farmer lives in the village and commutes to his field. This makes me think of the passage in the New Testament when Jesus tells a parable about the farmer who builds a watchtower in his vineyard, so that someone can guard the fruit when it ripens. (Matt 21:33) The farmers’ modus operandi probably hasn’t changed in two thousand years.

On our way back to Izmir we pass through Manisia and traverse a pass through mountains forested with pines, birch and cypress. Ah! Life in the shade.

Sardis, Philadelphia, Hierapolis

Tuesday 20 May 2008

This morning we say goodbye to our Izmir hotel and by 8.30 we are on our way to Sardis, the capital of ancient Lydia. We arrive an hour later and when I step down off the coach, I see our entire group surrounding something and gazing down with delight. It is a pale brown dog lying on the ground and fawning for her adoring public. Every site seems to have its mongrel and they all seem to be related. We notice she has a tag in her ear, the Turkish equivalent of a collar, I suppose.

Sardis was located at the crossroads of a trade route, but it seems an odd place to have a crossroads, surrounded by strange hills, one of which has a rock formation which looks like a giant pointing to heaven. There are also a few standing columns from a Temple to Athena here – one of the biggest temples in the ancient world – and a building which might or might not be a synagogue.

What I never realised was what a big Jewish population Asia Minor had in Hellenistic and Roman times. Apparently, Alexander the Great sent 2000 Jewish families from Babylon and Mesopotamia to this part of the world. These Jews flourished here. This might explain why Christianity caught on so quickly here, in the first century AD it was little more than another sect of Judaism.

The day is overcast with a medium high scum of clouds, but it is still very hot and sultry. A congregation of sparrows are having an excited conference in a pine tree and in a mulberry a dove is cooing what sounds to me like ‘Chicago’. The Greeks thought she was saying ‘dekaocto’: eighteen. In Gerald Durrell's delightful book Birds, Beasts and Relatives, Theodore tells Gerry why the collared dove is called ‘the eighteener’:

‘The story goes that when Christ was carrying the cross to Calvary, a Roman soldier seeing that he was exhausted took pity on him. By the side of the road there was an old woman selling milk and so the Roman Soldier went to her and asked her how much a cupful would cost. She replied it would cost eighteen coins. But the soldier had only seventeen. He pleaded with the woman... but the woman avariciously stuck out for eighteen...the old woman was turned into a collared dove and condemned to go about repeating dekaocto...’

Philadelphia is a small collection of Graedo-Roman rubble in a town called Aleshehir. The ruins are so tiny they aren’t even marked on the map, but someone has planted lots of roses here, and it’s very pretty.

We leave Philadelphia and set out for one of the most extraordinary places on earth, the calcium cascades of Pamukkale, known in ancient times as Hierapolis. Warm calcium-rich water bubbles from a mysterious spring somewhere on the mountain. Over thousands of years it has left semi circular pools of steaming water, framed by chalk white crystalline mineral deposits. Pamukkale means 'cotton castle', because it looks like white cotton but also because this area now produces cotton. At the top of the sparkling cliff was an ancient city, Hierapolis, which means ‘holy city’: it was originally a shrine which grew up to be a city. The cascades are going to be the setting for the climax of my next book, The Prophet from Ephesus, so I want to get details of the topography right.

We are heading east with the sea somewhere behind us and dramatic mountains ahead. We cross and re-cross the Meander River. From this distance, perhaps ten miles, the cascades look like a horizontal chalk cliff or perhaps the white gash of a marble quarry. It is quite low compared to the mountains behind. As we get closer, the cascades drop out of sight behind the trees which grow in this fertile soil. Everywhere are pomegranate trees with their red-orange trumpet-shaped blossoms. By late summer these blossoms will be pomegranates.

Now we are climbing a winding road through gorse dotted scrubby brown hills. I can see the Meander Valley to my left and pine woods to the right of the cascades. The coach lets us out into the heat of the day, the hottest yet. We pass through the barriers and into a long necropolis, tombs lining the northern approach to the city. The heat is ferocious and some of the older members of our party have taken a mini-bus. We pass between tombs and finally arrive in the delicious cool shade of a row of tall, dark, flame-shaped cypress trees. I notice that no birds perch in these trees. But there are hundreds of them excitedly chirping in the pine trees nearby.

Now we are passing through a gate built by Domitian, and wishing there was still a colonnade here and a monumental fountain there. How nice it must have been in Roman times to pass through the arch of the city gate and find a cool, shady colonnade and splashing fountains right by the side of the road.

We visit the Antique Pool, where bathers can still swim in warm sulphur-scented waters among ancient columns. Then we take off shoes and socks and wade in some of the pools along with a couple of hundred other tourists. The water is warm and the ‘floor’ quite rough. If you were pursuing a criminal mastermind and slipped and fell here, you could hurt yourself.

Finally our bus takes us on to our hotel. I’d hoped the hotel was within walking distance of the cascades, so I could go back at sunset, but it isn’t. It’s one of a group of four big hotels a couple of miles from the cascades. It has an outdoor swimming pool and an indoor thermal pool.

Once we’ve checked in we check out the pools. I love the thermal pool. It's like a big hot smelly bath with geese spouting water. You have to put on little plastic shower caps but it’s still delicious. I have a good soak, and a dip in the outdoor pool, then get dressed and hire a taxi to take me back to the cascades in time for sunset. Only about a dozen people are up here now and it’s worth the extra expense. I can hear the sound of rushing waters and feel the warm breeze. The sky blushes pink, orange and apricot. The scallop-shaped pools mirror its beauty. Dusk lasts a long time and it’s nearly an hour after sunset before the first stars appear.

Laodicea and Aphrodisias

Wednesday 21 May 2008

Laodicea is a sun-baked site with no shade, located in the valley below Pamukkale. Recently, archaeologists from the University of Denizli have uncovered a colonnaded road. But the ruins of Laodicea are similar to many other sites and our group latches onto the living: a little owl sitting on a column watching us with wide eyes, the site mongrel and a giant dandelion. Some workmen are clearing grasses from the site with sickles, just like ones from Roman times.

This was the site of one of the churches mentioned in the Book of Revelation. God, speaking through his prophet John, says ‘Because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I am about to spit you out of my mouth.’ This is fitting because by the time the hot water from Hierapolis/Pamukkale got down here, it was only lukewarm. God also says through his prophet: ‘I counsel you to buy white garments…’ This region, near modern Denizli, used to be famous for woolen garments and is now famous for cotton. Finally this is the church to which God says: ‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door I will come in to him and dine with him…’ Rev 3:20

We leave Laodicea and drive through Denizli. When I stayed here fifteen years ago, it was a charming if scruffy town, despite its open sewers. I remember a bread seller coming by with a tray of warm rolls balanced on his head. Now it is a big ugly sprawling town that takes us ten minutes to drive through.

We drive on towards Aphrodisias. It was a large town off the main roads and it therefore enjoyed some safety. The land here is green and fertile, with vineyards, olive groves and pomegranates. Some of the houses have red-tiled roofs and you could easily be in Tuscany. In a field I see a farmer with his big three-pronged rake resting over his shoulder as he goes home for siesta.

It is the beginning of National Tourism Day and some schoolchildren have come in traditional clothes to do a dance. The girls pose for some tourists and other fans.


The famous Turkish archaeologist Kenan Erim spent 30 years of his life excavating here and his grave is in a patch of green near an impressive tetrapylon gate.

In the Museum I find a wonderful character. He is Flavius Palmatus, a governor of the province of Asia. He has effeminate curly hair and a look of great disapproval on his face, as if he had just smelled a bad smell and was trying to puzzle out what caused it. He is four centuries too late for my story but I can use his face for one of my minor characters.

I remember the last time I came to Aphrodisias. We got a taxi to drive us and when we came back out of the site our driver was lying on the back seat in the shade of a tree. As we got closer we saw his sightless eyes staring up into the leaves. He was dead! But no, it turned out he was one of those rare people who sleep with their eyes open. I used that idea in my fifth book, The Dolphins of Laurentum, when Lupus goes to the baths to hire a killer and finds the bath attendant apparently dead.

We go to lunch at a restaurant called Anatolia. I buy a little clay bird whistle from a lady who lives in a tree house. I tip a man whose parrot dances to the tune of his mandolin. Best of all are the loos. You go through a bead curtain into a room with a skylight above a tiny lush patch of green. Coming out of the dim cubicle into the cook green brightness of this little garden courtyard must have been very like living in a small Pompeian townhouse. Only without the flushing cisterns, of course. Despite the fact that it caters for busloads of tourists we have one of the best meals here. This is one of the highlights of the trip for me.

We drive on towards the coast, through fertile undulating hills. We pass an olive oil factory, testimony to the groves and groves of olives here. But we also pass pomegranate, fig and peach. I’m not sure what the crops in the fields are, but my faithful Blue Guide says ‘the Meander Valley has long been famous for the production of liquorice from the roots of Glycyrrhiza glabra [lit. ‘smooth sweet root’] a hardy shrub which grows wild here and on the slopes of the surrounding hills.’ Maybe Floppy can give up mastic gum in favour of liquorice root.

Around 4.00 in the afternoon we stop at the Turkmen carpet factory near Selçuk, which is the modern town near Ephesus. My favourite bit is seeing some of the natural dyes that were used and a kind of Kurdish tent they have pitched behind the sales room.

Finally we arrive at our final stopping point on this tour, the Korumar hotel in Kusadasi. It is very big but beautiful, especially if you are blessed with a sea view.

PMD

Thursday 22 May 2008

Today we’re visiting three ancient sites: Priene, Miletus and Didyma. On the excursions board in Kusadasi they call this PMD. *hee*

We set out fairly early, heading south along the winding coastal road with the blue sea on the right. This is the reverse route Flavia and her friends will take when they go from Halicarnassus to Ephesus. There is a row of charcoal-sellers beside the road, something I have never seen before. The hills are clothed with pine, gorse, grasses, red poppies and silver-green olive trees. Straight ahead is a dramatic range of mountains, the Taurus range. Flavia et al will have to cross that from Halicarnassus.

We pass a horse standing in a river up to the knees of his forlegs; he’s drinking water and tearing the lush grasses there. Two shaggy brown goats are tied to stakes by the roadside.

Priene lies at the end of a spur of smaller hills. It’s up in the hills, away from the malarial river plain, and there are pine trees everywhere. It has a lovely little theatre, a bouleterion and two lofty columns marking the Temple of Athena. There is a lovely cool breeze up here among the scented pines, and birdsong everywhere. No wonder it’s many people’s favourite site.

Now we’re going down into the Meander valley. We get the word meander - to wander sinuously back and forth - from this famous river, which Herodotus called ‘The Great Labourer’. The part we are driving on used to be the sea. Like the Tiber, the Meander lays down silt every year, causing the coastline to advance. This was even a problem in ancient times. Ephesus was a port town but is now a few miles from the coast. Just like Ostia Antica.

We pass Miletus, saving it for our return trip, and press on to Didyma, which didn’t used to be by the sea but is now. There is a massive sanctuary to Apollo here complete with tunnels for his priestesses, and the famous Medusa reliefs which you often see in guide books. I discover an interesting tree on the site with fat bright green seed pods. I ask our Turkish guide what it is. She only knows the Turkish name: keçi boynuzu or ‘goats’ horns’. I later find out it is a carob tree. The pods are also called St John’s bread because John the Baptist may have eaten them when he lived in the wilderness. The Greek word 'akridas' either means carob pods or locusts. I think I’d prefer carob pods. They are used as a chocolate substitute today.

After lunch at a place with long tables which caters to coach parties we go on to Miletus. It’s now the hottest part of the day. Even the chickens have enough sense to stay under the shade of the bushy pine trees.

We’re the only party here and I look longingly at the little cafés set out in the shade of a strand of rustling eucalyptus trees. Swallows are swooping over the bleached grasses and the theatre. This one also has lions’ feet decorations, but it has an interesting inscription on one of the seats: ‘For Jews and God-fearers.’ St Paul came here to Miletus to say farewell to his Ephesian friends. They wept when he said they would probably never meet again. Our guide takes us up to a vantage point and I can see there is virtually nothing from the first century still standing. She gives us free time to explore the ruins, but Richard and I head for the outdoor cafés.

Sipping our cold drinks in the breezy shade on a hot afternoon, we look out at the ancient theatre and enjoy the complicated and joyful song of a swallow above us. This is one of my best memories of the whole trip. It’s the bits between the ruins I love most.

When people ask me what I enjoyed most about Turkey, I tell them the hamams and the comfort stops.

Big Ephesus Day

Friday 23 May 2008

Today is our big Ephesus Day. It dawns pearly blue and pink. From the hotel balcony, I watch a white liner cruise languorously into Kusadasi. It is soon followed by another. We were warned that thousands of tourists come off these liners with the explicit purpose of visiting Ephesus.

Ephesus is Turkey’s Pompeii. Twenty years ago you could have the site to yourself. Ten years ago you could still have visited in relative comfort, if you timed it right. Today the big cruise ships come into nearby Kusadasi and the coaches are out of the starting gates at 7.30 to get to the site when it opens at 8.00am. There is very little chance of having the site to yourself.

We get to the site at 8.10 and there are already three parties ahead of us. Unlike Pompeii, Ephesus was not frozen in Flavian times, but kept on growing. I have to be careful not to have Flavia and her friends visit buildings that weren’t there in the first century AD. That means no ‘Library of Celsus’. I can have the theatre, the Harbour Agora and lots of fountains and baths. And I can have the Arcadian Way, leading from the harbour, lit by torches at night.

Visiting the site gives me a feel for how big the mountains are, how flat the plain, where the harbour would have been. I also note the types of trees found there: pines, figs, olives, mulberry, and I think those are oak trees on the hills. A famous Christian hermit lived on acorns not far from here, so there must be some oaks about.

But Ephesus is just another sun-baked collection pretty columns and rubble, only bigger and crowded with tourists. This experience is no longer fun. In fact, when was it ever fun to visit one pile of ruins after another? Few people have the imagination to reconstruct what the original town or city would have looked like. Once you have seen one Greek odeon or Roman theatre, you’ve pretty much seen them all. This is why we latch onto a lizard or a wildflower or an interesting bird so eagerly. It’s a sign of life in what is not much more than a pretty rock quarry.

The part I enjoyed most about Ephesus were the Terrace Houses. Although the frescoes are not as bright and well-preserved as those in Campania, there were some nice ones. I particularly liked a plump pigeon. And on another frescoed wall, someone had scratched a record of the day’s spending:
hazelnuts 10 ½ asses
small figs 2 ½ asses
barley 12 denarii
wood 3 asses
onions 3 asses
caraway ½ ass
entrance to thermal baths 12 asses

Leaving the site we come across what seems at first glance to be a life-sized stuffed camel. A plump lady tourist is attempting to climb onto its back. Then its nostrils flare and several of us jump back in alarm. It's alive! It proves this by peeing into a bucket held by its owner. Hmmn. I wonder what use the Romans might have found for camel urine?

After lunch we visit the site of Meryemana, the site where Mary the mother of Jesus was supposed to have lived out her life. The first time I came here fifteen years ago, I did so on the suggestion of some people we were traveling with. I stepped out of a taxi into the gold-green light of late afternoon my eyes suddenly filled with tears... and I hardly ever cry. The place was soaked in an almost tangible sense of poignancy and beauty. What the Romans called the numinous. I’ve only felt it once or twice before. Whether Mary lived here or not, it is a very spiritual place.

We stop at a Turkish Delight factory, really just another chance to spend money on Turkish goods of all descriptions, but even so are back at the hotel by 5.00pm. I decide to visit the hammam now, rather than break up our free day. Some of the other women on our tour agree to go with me. We get a taxi into town for only 10 Turkish lira, about £1 each. It is Friday evening and the Kaleici Hammam is empty. The domed steam room is far too cool, but the English ladies are happy with this, not being used to intense heat and steam of a proper bath. Our biggest shock is that a burly Turk named Osman is going to give us our body scrubs and bubble massage. Are we prepared for this? We decide what the heck. You only live once. Osman does a great job; he is always discreet and never too rough. We come back feeling squeaky clean and surprisingly virtuous.

Fun Things about Turkey

Saturday 24 May 2008

It’s our last day in Turkey - and my birthday! - and we are enjoying a day off after a grueling schedule of ancient sites. We have been upgraded to the five-star Korumar Hotel overlooking the bay of Kusadasi. Once Kusadasi was a collection of little white houses on a brown hillside overlooking a blue harbour. Now it’s a major centre of tourism, with luxury hotels stretching out along the coast on either side. In the tourist season, between May and October, it is visited by up to seven massive cruise liners every day. They come in at dawn, disgorge tourists on coaches to Ephesus then depart in the late afternoon. A few months ago one got stuck in the harbour and it took the efforts of several hard-working tug-boats to dislodge it. Just as well it wasn’t high season.

Originally I had intended hiring a taxi to retrace Flavia’s route from Halicarnassus to Ephesus, but I am just too tired. Instead I go into town early to take some photos. I get a nice one of a collared dove at an old caravanserai, now a hotel. But it’s too early and only a few shops are open. There are even fewer tourists about, making me easy prey. ‘Hello, Lady,’ say the shopkeepers. ‘Where you from?’ ‘You alone?’ ‘You want jewelry? Turkish delight? Minaret?’

I smile and try to politely rebuff them but they have answers for everything. They employ a very sophisticated blend of ironic honesty and humour, and they capitalize on the British hatred of being impolite.

Shopkeeper 1: ‘Come here, Lady. I need your money.’

Shopkeeper 2: ‘Look, Lady. I sell genuine fake watches.’

Shopkeeper 3: ‘You want carpet? Very nice carpets here.’
Me: ‘I don’t have room.’
Shopkeeper 3: ‘I give you free suitcase.’
Me: ‘I mean I don’t have room in my apartment.’
Shopkeeper 3: ‘I give you new apartment. Free with carpet.’

Shopkeeper 4: ‘Hello, Lady. You want to buy something?’
Me (smiling): ‘Just looking.’
Shopkeeper 4 (smiling): ‘Just selling.’

Shopkeeper 5: ‘Hello, Lady. You alone? You married? You want nice husband?’
Me: ‘No, no, no.’
Shopkeeper 5: ‘Yes, yes, yes.’

Shopkeeper 6: ‘Hello, Lady. You from ship? Hello! Lady! LADY! Why are you being rude to ignore me?’

At least they are not as bad as the Egyptian shopkeepers, who physically grab hold of you and practically wrench the wallet from your hands.

I return to the hotel for their wonderful buffet breakfast and have yogurt with honeycomb so fresh that you can eat every bit of it.

Later Richard and I go back into the old part and he does some water colour sketches as an excuse to sit and have a Turkish coffee (before noon) or an Efes Bira (after noon). Kusadasi is still pretty empty. The six massive cruise boats must have sent all their passengers to Ephesus today. We buy Richard a couple of shirts made from Denizli cotton and I get a small shoulder bag with camels on it.

We walk up to the fort on Pigeon Island and find most of the people from our tour have had the same idea. In the fort there is a crafts market and the skeleton of a whale that once beached itself here.

At a café Richard does a watercolour and I watch a beautiful young Turkish couple eat lunch. They seem very much in love. I ask if I can take a photo and they tell me they are engaged.

I also observe an interesting difference between the Turks and the British. The local cat gang is watching a Turkish family eat. The family is not happy. They hiss at the cats, trying to shoo them away. The handsome fiancé from the next table gets up and chivalrously throws some of his bottled water at the cats. The gang of cats flee. If the group having lunch were British they’d be feeding and petting the flea-bitten creatures.

That evening I we have our final dinner on the terrace of the Korumar as the sun sets. The tour group leader has organized a birthday baklava for me and it’s the perfect end to a great trip.

Here are some fun things I learned about Turkey:
1. The toilets have a little spigot at the back so you can wash your bottom after you’ve been...
2. But you have to put used toilet paper in the bin next to the loo. You are not allowed to flush paper down the toilet.
3. The famous Apple Tea (Elma Chai) is just apple juice with hot water added, served in pretty glasses.
4. You get covered with warm puffy bubbles in the hammam (Turkish Baths).
5. In olden times a man in the female part of the hammam would be executed.
6. Today, chances are a burly Turk will give a woman her puffy bubble massage in the hammam!
7. They splash you with lemon cologne on the buses.
8. Children only go to school for half a day, either morning or afternoon.
9. The Turks love a sour cherry drink called 'vishne'; it is delicious
10. Turkish spelling of English words is very efficient. Group is ‘grup’ and toast is ‘tost.’ Who needs those extra vowels anyway? My favourite is ‘oto’ for auto.

Ideas from the Turkey notebook

Those who have read From Ostia to Alexandria with Flavia Gemina know I take a notebook with me on all my research trips.

Here are some of the ideas I jotted in my notebook this past week. I probably won’t use all of them, but some will definitely appear in The Prophet from Ephesus

Idea: As Flavia and her friends pass vineyards, they pull grapes right off the vine and eat them: sun-warmed and sweet, with a slight tannic tang.

Idea: Flavia gets an upset tummy from eating salad.

Idea: Jonathan eats cheese with little maggots in it.

Idea: Nubia is always feeding the feral cats even though Flavia warns her they are flea-bitten.

Idea: Lupus likes the salted yogurt drink you can get in Turkey.

Idea: one morning at the hospitium, everyone shares their dreams from the night before.

Idea: on entering a new city, the first thing Flavia does is ask for the public latrines.

Idea: Flavia and her friends eat traditional Turkish breakfast: olives, goat's cheese, hard-boiled egg, sour cherry jam on a sesame-seed ring and apple tea.

Nubia: ‘What is meander?’

Birds I saw: cinnamon-coloured collared doves, swallows, storks, sparrows, magpies, and a little wide-eyed owl on a column.

Plants I saw that would have been there in Roman times: vineyards, olives, palms, pines, figs, cypress, poplars, pomegranate, peach, ash, oak, birch, beech, white mulberry, plane trees, gorse, and grape arbours. Also white and pink-blossomed oleanders.

Things they have now that they might have had in Roman times: the hamam or Turkish Bath, hot thermal pools, shady colonnaded walkways, carpet workshops, pushy shopkeepers, sesame-seed-covered bread rings, salted yogurt drink, sour cherry juice, clay bird whistle, farmer with three-pronged hoe, worker with scythe, roadside charcoal-sellers, beehives, chickens pecking in dust, cocks crowing, donkeys, goats, sheep, horses, mongrels, feral cats, lizards, geckos, centipedes, snakes, grasshoppers, tortoise crossing the road, a farmer digging in his field...

In the Roman Mysteries Travel Guide, From Ostia to Alexandria with Flavia Gemina, Detective Assignment IX is to find as many smells as possible while travelling in another country. Here are some of the smells I encountered in Turkey:
1. Spicy smell of hot pine trees
2. Sickly-sweet smell of latrines
3. Pungent incense in a church service
4. Steamy sulphur smell of thermal pool
5. Salty sea breeze
6. Banana scent of soapy oil used in the Cagaloglu Hammam
7. Fishy smell of grilled sea-bass served at lunch
8. Pleasant smell of apple peel tea
9. Heady aroma of jasmine
10. Sharp scent of Turkish lemon cologne

Clue for a Mini-Mystery

In March 2008, I gave a talk at the Museum of London (MOL), asking fans to help me find a Roman artefact which could be a clue for new Mini-Mystery in a forthcoming collection, The Legionary from Londinium and Other Mini-Mysteries.

I particularly asked for artefacts or objects which could stand in for orange seeds in a Roman Mystery adaptation of The Five Orange Pips by Arthur Conan Doyle, a Sherlock Holmes mystery. (see my previous blog, below) I said I would look favourably on objects from the MOL and objects relating to Boudicca's revolt in AD 60.

I already had two ideas of my own in mind. First, pomegranate seeds: because in the myth of Persephone they represent death. Second, copper scales from a soldier's armour currently on display at the MOL. These would have been perfect: light and easy to send, found in Roman Londinium and dating to the revolt of Boudicca. But nobody suggested either pomegranate seeds or scales from a legionary's armour.

However, there were over thirty entries, all of them good some of them very inventive. Where people sent me more than one idea, I chose the one I liked best.

Here were some suggestions for objects which could be substituted for orange pips in my adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes mystery:

Aisling: five grape seeds from grapes used to make wine
Clare: gold coin of Fortuna holding a rudder (like one in the MOL) which was paradoxically cursed!
Clement: blue glass beads, once belonging to Boudicca
Emily: five exotically coloured fish scales from a poisonous African fish that only Nubia recognizes
Otana: five barley grains (barley was sometimes used as a punishment for soldiers)
Sanne: five mosaic pieces, each with a letter which makes a secret message
Sarah: part of a jewelry set, the letters on the jewels spell Boudicca
Sebastian: five human teeth from a murder victim
Vera: a strand of Boudicca's hair which point to her murderer
Victoria: five scraps of papyrus (the mystery comes in the form of a letter from Britannia)

Some ideas for artefacts which could be clues to a different sort of crime included:

Alexia: gladiator's trident, a murder weapon
Alice: leather bikini bottom, found under Titus' mattress, from a murdered acrobat
Connie: iron strigil, used to cut off Lupus' ear from behind
Connor: a Roman spoon with traces of poison on it
David: coin broken in half each half given to twins separated at birth
Elizabeth: green glass bottle, which held deadly poison
Emilie: a statue, when you turn its hand a trap door opens, leading to captured children
Gigi: a goblet, with traces of dried blood showing it was used as a weapon
Harry: ten hairpins, found in the river Thames: murder weapon (ouch!)
Helen: forged Roman coins forging currency was a serious crime in Roman times
Helena: iron brooch of a dog, stolen from the Emperor Titus
Jonathan: jewel, the only clue left from a murder/robbery
Joshua: a mosaic, from a burned villa
Libby: pieces of lead waste (mined in the Mendip Hills) used as a blunt instrument
Roberta: a leather bikini bottoms from the body of a female acrobat who slandered the Emperor
Rosa: iron slave chain and shackle, the murderer strangled someone with it
Susie: brooch of hunting dog, which means 'I'm hunting you, murderer'
Tatiana: theatrical mask, it comes alive in Flavia's nightmare and is Pluto
Theo: a ring, which says 'Curse your riches, Titus'
Zachary: a hammer, dry blood on it, attempted murder weapon for Publius Pollius Felix because he kissed lots of girls

I love all the suggestions, especially five-year-old Rosa's idea of slave shackles used to strangle someone. (It made me think of the first murder in No Country for Old Men.) I also loved Helen's idea about counterfeiting coins, and may use that in a future mystery. And I was very tempted to use Zachary's bloodstained hammer to give that naughty Felix a well-deserved scare!

But in the end I went for Otana's Five Barley Grains. Although barley grains aren't strictly an artefact, there are some ancient Roman barley grains in the Roman exhibition at the MOL. Also, Otana didn't just suggest the barley grains and leave it there. She gave me two pages of back-up research, citing Roman authors, telling me why barley grains would be good. She taught me some things I didn't know about Roman legionaries. For example:

Soldiers who were bad or clumsy at drill were often punished by having their allowance given in barley rather than wheat.
Vegetius, De Re Militari book I

If a cohort exhibited misconduct or cowardice they were often 'decimated'. This means that every tenth man was beaten or killed. The remaining men received rations of barley instead of wheat and were ordered to encamp outside the camp on an unprotected spot... It was a public disgrace for a soldier to receive barley rations.
Polybius, Histories fragment of book VI

Barley bread was much used in earlier days but has been condemned by experience, and barley is now mostly fed to animals.
Pliny the Elder, Nat Hist

Barley Grains could therefore be a perfect substitute for Orange Pips in The Legionary from Londinium. To an ordinary person they would seem harmless and inoffensive, but to a soldier they would mean disgrace and punishment and could easily tie in with Boudicca's revolt. So I am going to use Otana's idea.

Thanks to all the entrants, who will each get a signed copy of The Code of Romulus.

Well done to the three honorable mentions - Rosa, Helen and Zachary - who will each get a signed version of The Legionary from Londinium when it comes out next year.

Contratulations to Otana! She will get a Roman Mysteries tee-shirt, a signed copy of The Legionary from Londinium and of course her idea will appear in the book itself, with a credit to her.

Thanks also to Sandra Hedblad and the MOL for hosting this event.

And thanks to all who attended! Keep reading and writing!

How to Write a Mystery

How to Write a Mystery

right: Roman spoons. Could one be a clue to a mystery?

On Sunday 16 March I did a workshop at the Museum of London, asking fans to help me find some clues for my next collection of mini-mysteries. The new collection of Roman Mysteries short stories is going to be called The Legionary from Londinium. At least two stories will be set in Roman Britain. Here is the essence of my talk:

My name is Caroline Lawrence. I am the author of a series of books set in first century Rome. They are history/mystery novels for children aged 8 – 12.

My main character is Flavia Gemina, a highborn Roman girl whose mother died in childbirth and whose father is often away at sea. Flavia is the leader of the group. She is extremely bright and confident. She is a truth-seeker and hates injustice. Flavia is also bossy and impulsive. These two qualities often get her into trouble. But deep down she is kind-hearted and just wants everyone to be happy.

Flavia’s best friend is her slave-girl Nubia. She is the faithful sidekick. Most slaves in Roman times weren’t from Africa, but Nubia is. Whereas Flavia is good with her head, Nubia is good with her heart. She is good at sensing when people are good or evil. She is also very gifted with animals. And she is musical. Like the mythological hero Orpheus, she can sometimes calm wild animals with her music.

Jonathan is Flavia’s Jewish next door neighbour. He is the funny one. He speaks four languages and can recite all the psalms. He is good at hunting and also at inventing things. But Jonathan is a pessimist and often looks on the dark side of life. He also suffers from asthma, which means he can’t always keep up with the others.

Lupus is a mute beggar-boy whom they first see in the necropolis outside the walls of Ostia. He is an orphan, and mute, for his tongue was cut out when he was only six years old. Once he learns to trust the other three, he becomes a valuable ally in their investigations. Lupus is good at being sneaky. He can follow people and eavesdrop on them. He is also good at disguising himself and hiding in small places. He is the wild one.

My original idea was to write a story where the four friends are in Pompeii, trying to solve a mystery, when Vesuvius erupts. Then I decided to write another book first, one which would introduce the characters and their world. And because it was to be a series of mystery stories, I started out The Thieves of Ostia with a mini-mystery at the beginning to introduce Flavia the Detective.

'Flavia Gemina solved her first mystery on the Ides of June in the tenth year of the Emperor Vespasian.'

So begins The Thieves of Ostia. Flavia’s father has lost his precious signet ring. He is a sea captain, and needs it to seal important documents and letters. It also has sentimental value because it was a gift from his dead wife, Flavia’s mother.

Flavia is determined to find his ring. She sees a bird's inky footprint on a sheet of papyrus and then spots a magpie in the fig tree. From these clues, she deduces that the bird is the thief. She devises a clever plan: she will leave something shiny on the desk. If the bird takes the bait, she will follow him to his nest and retrieve any other objects he might have stolen. The magpie takes the silver chain she has left and flies off. Flavia follows him out of the safety of her house into the necropolis, the city of the dead. She almost loses sight of the magpie, but finally sees him popping up out of an old oak tree. Flavia waits for him to fly off again, then scrambles up the tree. Sure enough, there is his stash. And not only does she find her father’s missing signet ring. She finds a beautiful gold earring worth a small fortune.

The real mystery of the book is introduced a few chapters later when Jonathan’s dog Bobas is murdered. Again Flavia must rely on clues like a quartz dice, drops of blood and the portrait of a man etched on a wax tablet. She and her friends interview witnesses and follow culprits. Eventually Flavia uses her deductive powers to solve the case.

In the seven years since The Thieves of Ostia was first published, I have written fourteen more full length mysteries and seven short mysteries. People often ask me how I come up with so many ideas and in such a short time.

I have lots of good writing secrets and am going to share two of my best with you today. And in return, you are going to help me, because I have a problem.

Before I tell you my problem, let me tell you two of my best secrets to writing a good story.

Anybody who has children of reading age - or has taught children - knows they won’t abide a boring plot. That’s why I like children’s books, too. The best ones are lean and fast and carry you breathlessly along.

When I first started writing, I couldn’t create a good plot to save my life. I took writing courses, read books, talked to other writers... Then one day a friend told me about a Hollywood screenwriter named John Trubywho offered an audio course on plot structure. As soon as I heard the first tape of his Story Structure course, I knew it was exactly what I needed. John Truby lists 22 plot steps which can make up a good story and 7 basic steps which make up every good story. Here is my version of his basic steps or ‘plot beats’:

Secret One - Good Plot Structure

1. Problem – your main character (X) has a problem
2. Desire – X wants something which will solve his problem
3. The Opponent – someone else (Y) wants something which will bring him into conflict with X
4. The Plan – X devises a plan to overcome Y, get the object of his desire and solve his problem
5. The Battle – X and Y fight over the desired object
6. Knowledge – whether X wins or loses the battle, he learns something important
7. New Level – X has either solved his problem or is worse off than before, i.e. either happy or sad ending.

This is all very simplified, but you can see how useful and effective such a structure could be. Structure this simple keeps you on track but allows plenty of scope for creativity. And you don’t have to stick to it slavishly. Like a road map, it merely points you in the right direction. It's up to you which detours and side roads you take.

Here is the 7-beat Plot Structure in a detective novel:
1. Problem – someone brings a mystery to the detective
2. Desire – the detective wants to solve the mystery
3. The Opponent – is hidden in a detective story
4. The Plan – investigation and surveillance, looking for clues
5. The Battle – the detective confronts the suspect, or sets a trap
6. Knowledge – the truth is revealed
7. New Level – the detective solves the crime or fails to solve it

In a mystery story, there has usually been a crime and there is a usually hidden opponent. These steps apply to him, too. If you are writing a detective story or mystery, you have to think of them.

Opponent’s plan
1. Someone has a problem
2. They want something
3. Their opponent is usually the law or an authority figure
4. Their plan usually involves breaking the law
5. They commit the crime
6. They usually do not learn anything
7. They are happy if they succeed but…

...something usually goes wrong. Then the steps are:
1. problem - someone is onto them!
2. desire - they have to keep their identity and/or crime hidden
3. opponent - the detective and/or the person who suspects them
4. plan - they often try to eliminate those who suspect them
5. battle - they confront the detective
6. knowledge - they usually learn they haven’t got away with it
7. new level – usually a lower level, as those who break the law should be

So you the author have to come up with the opponent’s original plan and crime and also work out the detective’s plan to uncover the crime and the opponent. Part of the detective’s plan, as I mentioned, is looking for clues which point to the identity of the culprit. The detective looks for objects which are out of place or being used in a strange way. He relies on sight, touch, taste, smell and symmetry, or lack of it.

Some artefacts I’ve used in my books include real Roman artefacts: a signet ring, quartz dice, volcanic rock, oil lamp, wax tablet, sponge stick, strigil and bottle, chariot beaker, lead curse tablets, etc…

Some I haven’t used yet can be seen in the Roman galleries of the Museum of London: key ring, coins, green glass bottle for fish sauce, iron slave shackles, bone pipe, gaming pieces, little votive figures of animals or gods and a leather bikini bottom for a girl acrobat (left)

My other secret for coming up with plot lines or scenes is this: I steal.

Secret Two – Steal ideas

My favourite artist, Pablo Picasso, said ‘Good artists copy. Great artists steal.’

In the beginning of The Thieves of Ostia, I got the idea for the thieving magpie from Postman Pat.

In The Assassins of Rome, I adapted a Garfield cartoon in the opening scene about whether a cup is 'half full or half empty'.

In The Enemies of Jupiter, I got the idea for the culprit from reading an Agatha Christie mystery called The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

Of course by taking these ideas and setting them in Roman times with Flavia, Jonathan, Nubia and Lupus, they become very different. This is how most writers work, more or less. They take a good idea and adapt it to their own story.

I often steal ideas from the Greek myths and from Latin authors. For that reason some of the things that happen in my books really happened. Like a rabbit facing a lion in the arena. Or the plague and fire in Rome a month or two before the grand opening of the Colosseum.

The trick is never to steal whole chunks of a story, but just the ideas. Then modify the ideas a little to fit your own story. If you steal word for word then you can be sued. But if you steal ideas from lots of dif