Roman blood

But there is no need, on the other hand, to have any scruples about defending a person who is guilty — provided that he is not really a depraved or wicked character. For popular sentiment requires this; it is sanctioned by custom and conforms with human decency. The judges' business, in every trial, is to discover the truth. As for the counsel, however, he may on occasion have to base his advocacy on points which look like the truth, even if they do not correspond with it exactly. But I confess I should not have the nerve to be saying such things, especially in a philosophical treatise, unless Panaetius, the most authoritative of Stoics, had spoken to the same effect. The greatest renown, the profoundest gratitude, is won by speeches defending people. These considerations particularly apply when, as sometimes happens, the defendant is evidently the victim of oppression and persecution at the hands of some powerful and formidable personage. That is the sort of case I have often taken on. For example, when I was young, I spoke up for Sextus Roscius of Ameria against the tyra

Cicero is best read between the lines, especially when he hammers hardest upon his own boldness and sincerity.

As for the high-level intrigue behind the trial, I have taken some cues from ideas in Arthur D. Kahn's monumentally detailed The Education of Julius Caesar (Schocken Books, 1986), a radically revisionist view of political wheeling and dealing in the late Roman Republic as seen from.the perspective of a citizen-survivor ofthe Republic of McCarthy, Nixon, Reagan, et alia. I should also mention the prolific Michal Grant, whose translation of Cicero's Murder Trials (Penguin Books, 1975) first set me on the trail of Sextus Roscius.

Metrobius's song in chapter 26 is original. The anonymous ditty about sundials (chapter 9) and the passage from Euripides (chapter 33) are my own adaptations.

'Every detective story writer makes mistakes, of course, and none will ever know so much as he should.' Raymond Chandler's dictum is doubly true when the setting is historical. I want to thank all those who helped to eliminate anachronisms from the original manuscript, including my brother Ronald Saylor, an expert on ancient glassware; a certain classicist who prefers to be anonymous; and the attentive copy editors at St Martin's Press. My thanks also to Pat Urquhart, who gave technical advice on the map; Scott Wi

A final acknowledgment: to my friend Pe

About the author

Steven Saylor's fascination with Ancient Rome began at the age of eight, when he saw a censored print of Cleopatra at a drive-in theatre outside Goldthwaite, Texas. He studied history at the University of Texas at Austin before becoming a newspaper and magazine editor in San Francisco. His stories and essays have appeared in The Threepe