By Paul Carrier
Gordianus the Finder, the protagonist in Steven Saylor’s popular Roma Sub Rosa mystery series set in Ancient Rome, is a skilled but fictional detective whose work over a period of years brings him into contact with such real-life giants as Cicero, Pompey and Julius Caesar.
But even the famed Gordianus was naive and inexperienced at the outset of his career, and it is that somewhat callow youth whom readers meet in Raiders of the Nile, which is set in Egypt in 88 BC.
The book opens with the normally law-abiding Gordianus helping a criminal gang steal the golden sarcophagus of Alexander the Great from his tomb in Alexandria. Saylor then backtracks to explain how this event came about, before concluding with a look at the highly dramatic consequences of the theft.
Published in 2014, Raiders of the Nile is a prequel to Roman Blood (1991), the first novel in the Roma Sub Rosa series. In this entry, Gordianus and Bethesda, his Egyptian-born slave and lover, are celebrating his 22th birthday in Alexandria when bandits led by a man dubbed the Cuckoo’s Child mistake Bethesda for the supposed mistress of Tafhapy, a wealthy shipping magnate.
The culprits kidnap Bethesda; ransom notes follow. But the haughty Tafhapy feels no obligation to buy the release of a woman he doesn’t even know, especially because the intended kidnapping victim is safe and sound in his fortress-like home.
Tafhapy does tell Gordianus what has happened to Bethesda, however. The merchant lends Gordianus a young slave boy named Djet, who accompanies Gordianus into the Nile Delta, where Tafhapy believes the Cuckoo’s Child probably has Bethesda holed up.
So much for what had been Gordianus’ “aimless but amiable existence in the teeming city of Alexandria.”
As the travels and travails of Gordianus and Djet unfold in Gordianus’ quest to find and rescue Bethesda, the wisecracking and resourceful Djet provides a welcome dose of comic relief, putting Gordianus and everyone else he meets in their place with a cocky demeanor that belies his status as a child and a slave.
In fact, the cast of characters in Raiders of the Nile is appealingly varied. It includes two likable eunuchs, a theater troupe, a reptilian tavern keeper at the Inn of the Hungry Crocodile, a powerful sorceress and even a tame lion cleverly disguised as a fierce monster.
Their interwoven adventures play themselves out against a backdrop of clashing political ambitions. King Ptolemy’s hold on Egypt is disintegrating amid rumors of an invasion by his brother, Soter; and the Roman Republic has locked horns with the powerful empire of King Mithridates.
Although Raiders of the Nile is a prequel to the Roma Sub Rosa series, it’s also a sequel to The Seven Wonders (2013), in which the 18-year-old Gordianus encountered various mysteries while visiting the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
Anyone wishing to read the series in chronological order, rather than the order in which the books were published, should start with the two most recent books: The Seven Wonders, followed by Raiders of the Nile. Then you can jump to Roman Blood, and join Gordianus on his subsequent escapades.
