Interview with LJ Trafford

     This month, I interview British author LJ Trafford. LJ is about to launch her fourth and final entry in her 11 year-long project of writing about AD 69, the infamous Year of the Four Emperors.

15) LJ, you’d joined quite an august group of extremely talented novelists who have also written fiction almost exclusively about ancient Rome. Among them are Steven Saylor (Gordianus the Finder), Lindsey Davis (Falco), Ruth Downie (Ruso the Medicus) and Zara Altair (Argolicus). Were you mindful of their long shadows while writing your Four Emperors series?

     I am very aware that Roman historical fiction is a crowded field with some truly excellent writers, such as those mentioned above.

     But I don’t think you can worry about what other people are writing.

     I write what I find interesting and hopefully my readers do too. I like to think I have carved out my own niche in the subgenre of gossipy palace intrigue.

14) About a year and a half ago, you were profiled in a local newspaper about your series and you mentioned your interest in Roman history but not why. What is it about ancient Rome that fascinated you so much that you’d studied it in college?

     My interest in Roman history began when I was 17 whilst studying for my A Level in English Literature. One of my set texts was Antony and Cleopatra and being somewhat swotty I decided to read round the subject. I was shocked to discover that the villain of Antony and Cleopatra, Octavius Caesar, became the good emperor Augustus. I love a mystery and I wanted to understand this transformation. So I began a quest. I started off reading historical fiction like I, Claudius and Allan Massie’s books. When I’d exhausted the limited range of Roman histfic available in the UK in the 90s I moved onto primary sources like Tacitus and Suetonius.

     The moment I could draw a family tree of the notoriously interbreeding Julio Claudian Dynasty from memory it became clear I should perhaps consider studying Roman history. That way I could obsess over Romans in an official and acceptable way. Having dropped history as a subject at aged 13 I talked my way onto a degree course by sheer passion, enthusiasm and dedicated fangirling over Augustus.

     What I like is how different a society Ancient Rome is. We like to think we know the Romans, that they are a bit like us. But you don’t have to dig very deep to discover some very odd and strange aspects to their culture and society. I like that gap between their world and ours. I find it fascinating.

     That and all the scandal: the murders, the weird sex games, the endless plotting.

     Being an Emperor is hard and dangerous. You had a whopping 64% chance of having an unnatural death. I am fascinated by how different men successfully, or not, handle this lucrative but often fatal job.

13) One of the central characters in your Four Emperor series is Epaphroditus, the slave who’d eventually killed Nero when the legions were closing in and Nero hadn’t the nerve to kill himself. How challenging was it for you to convincingly recreate someone who lived nearly 2000 years ago?

     In the case of Epaphroditus his personality, his family, his life are all my own invention. This was by necessity for we know precious little about the historical Epaphroditus. He pops up in the historical record in 65AD as the freedman who informs Nero of the Piso plot against him. He next turns up as one of only three people who accompanied Nero on his escape from Rome. A huge stone with his name on it was excavated on the Esquiline Hill, so we know the location of his house. But that is it.

     We have no idea if he was married, if he had children, what positions he’d held previously in his career, when he was born or what he looked like. In forming his character I took some clues from what we do know and importantly, what we don’t. He’s Nero's secretary. One of his few trusted advisers. So why do we know so little about him in comparison to Claudius’ freedmen Narcissus and Pallas? He had a large estate on the fashionable Esquiline Hill, yet he escapes mention in Tacitus as one of those rich, greedy, grasping freedmen the historian frequently heaps scorn upon.

     That got me to thinking, along with the extraordinary fact that he pops up in the mid 90s AD,, that Epaphroditus is the ultimate survivor. Growing up in the palace he has seen and learnt from the rise and fall of senior Imperial freedmen. He’s learnt not to be too flashy. Not to stick out. He knows the importance of choosing the right side at the right time and then knowing the key moment to swoop. That is how he survives the fall of Nero, when  plenty of Nero’s aides did not. It is how he makes it through the year of the four emperors unscathed when other freedmen were facing crucifixion. It’s how he makes it all the way to the 90s AD.

     Nero is the complete opposite. Our sources describe his appearance, his clothing (hilariously he was fond of wandering about the palace in a long robe, slippers and with a handkerchief dandily tied round his neck) his actions and his life from birth. So my job here is to take these facts and use them to create my Nero. He’s going to be different to other writers’ Nero because we are all going to concentrate on  different aspects of him to form our portrait.

12) To return for a minute to that newspaper profile, you’d stated you wished to know what slaves were thinking during the Year of the Four Emperors. Slaves were rarely literate back then and had left behind few if any records of their thoughts even though they were privy to conversations held by their masters because few noticed them. How difficult was it for you to know what their thoughts were or did you have to fill in the gaps?

     I’ll admit I made a lot of it up. But I’d call that educated speculation, For example I recently got pulled up in a Roman history Facebook group for mentioning a slave breeding programme at the palace. The poster wanted to know if I had any evidence for it. The answer is no, no I don’t. In the scant information on slaves lives there is no specific mention of breeding programmes. But given slaves are often discussed as animals or instruments in Roman literature. That home bred slaves were considered more docile than captured slaves. That exotic slaves were highly  prized. It didn’t seem too much of a stretch of imagination .

     We may have no writings from slaves but we do have their tomb inscriptions. These give us some insight into their lives. For instance they often mention their place of origin even when they’ve been in Rome for decades, which shows they held onto their ethnic identity despite everything. They mention  work much more frequently than the tombs of free persons, showing that it how they valued themselves. They often share tombs or set up tombs on behalf of fellow slaves in the same household. So we know they formed friendship groups in households. This is all information I incorporated.

11) You’d said to the newspaper that you’d written a single 500,000 word book over a year and a half, which translates to almost 1000 words a day. How did you manage a workload like that and the requisite research that must have entailed while juggling a family and a full time job as a data analyst?

     I’m afraid that’s fake news! I was grievously misreported! I told the reporter I had written 500,000 ON 18 months. Not IN 18 months. Pah! That is a crazy number. I write one 100,000 book a year. That is quite enough thank you. And frankly it surprises me I somehow manage to produce a book a year.  I write on my commute to work. Or sometimes I ponder the plot staring out the window as the countryside whizzes by. Or I go index sticker mad all over a primary source. Basically I try to do something writing related every day. A small amount each day soon builds up.

10) Assassination and outright murder in ancient Rome seemed to be legitimate methods of political succession. Yet aside from that, how is ancient Roman politics similar and different to you as compared to our age?

     I’m going to be controversial and say it’s not similar at all. There is a sometimes an irresistible urge to compare modern political figures to Roman emperors but resist!

     We are so familiar with terms like ‘Senate’ and knowing that their officials are elected we imagine Roman politics is like ours. It’s not. It’s a court. The closer you are to the emperor the more power you have. Take a look at Nero's last two Praetorian Prefects: Tigellinus and Nymphidius Sabinus.  Tigellinus is a former horse trader, Nero was a massive fan of chariot rating. Nymphidius Sabinus is the grandson of Caligila's secretary, Callistus (a former slave) and the son of a palace prostitute.

     The Senate is there to perform the will of the emperor. Thankfully we live in an age where an opposition is part of our system of government. In the time I write about opposing the emperor could see you forced into suicide. You can be executed due to a rumor, a suspicion. Being related to the emperor is no protection at all. Nero trumped up adultery charges against his first wife Octavia and had her killed. He famously ordered the murder of his own mother, Agrippina because she annoyed him. He had his step brother Britannicus poisoned in front of everyone at an imperial banquet.

     There was no restraint on Imperial power, legal or otherwise.

9) To write about a half a million words about a single but tumultuous year in Roman history must have involved a staggering amount of research. Were you able to travel to extant Roman sites within London or were you restricted to libraries, buying books and perusing academic sites on the internet?

     I did several research trips to Rome back when I was writing the first two books. I took many, many photos from every angle on the Palatine hill. These I consult whenever I need to know what a character can see at a certain position. I also walked the distances between key sites and timed them. Obviously I have lots of maps of ancient Rome which I use to work out the walking routes of characters.  Handily I have Twitter friends based in Rome, one of whom is a tour guide. For Vitellius’ Feast I pinged off a tweet to her asking if you could see the Imperial palace from the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill. You can.

     I work near the British Museum so I sometimes nip in there in my lunch hour and look at Roman jewelry or utensils that I might use in a story.

     Other than that I have a large library of classical books at home. Some histories and biographies, but also picture books of mosaics and frescoes.

8) Of the four emperors and would be emperors you’d profiled in each book, which ones, if any, did you admire most and which ones, of any, did you grow to despise?

     I have a soft spot for Nero. He really got the majesty of being emperor, that it’s about putting on a show. What a show it was!

     On the other hand, by the time we meet him in Palatine he’s somewhat lost touch with reality. Mainly because his staff around him are creating his own reality for him.

     Galba is fascinating in that on paper he should have been a great emperor. He has military experience, plenty of governmental experience, is respected highly by all. Yet within 3 months of arriving in Rome he’s decapitated in the Forum, I had great fun in Galba's Men unpicking quite what goes so wrong so quickly for poor Galba.

     Otho was an interesting one. He does something heinous in organising a very bloody coup against Galba. But once emperor he surprises even Tacitus by his good actions and noble end. I decided that my Otho would be generous, kind, well meaning, but fatally flawed with a reckless charm that inadvertently endangers everyone around him.

     The emperor I really didn’t like was Vitellius. *shudder* He has no redeeming features whatsoever.

7) At the end of Vita Brevis, Ruth Downie pointed out that, unlike Roman Britain, Rome itself was more of a challenge because of the paucity of knowledge about the former (which required more invention) and surfeit of knowledge about the latter. Which aspect of Roman history was most difficult for you to research, which was easiest and what rubric did you use for assimilating that information or not?

     I loathe researching and writing about the Roman army,

     There are so many books on it. So many enthusiasts. Also primary sources are bloody rubbish at describing battles, I almost cried trying to work out what the blooming heck happened in the Battle of Cremona. I hate looking at arrows depicting troop movements. I just don’t understand them. I managed to avoid writing about the Roman army until my third book, Otho’s Regret and then I really had no choice.

     In terms of there being so much information, the benefits of writing fiction is that I can pick what I want to write about. The story is the important thing. It's not my job to educate readers in every aspect of Roman life. It’s my job to entertain them.

6) For those of us who aren’t experts in AD 69 (and I readily plead my own ignorance as my research, like Downie’s, is largely confined to early 2^nd century Britannia), did you find it necessary to change certain facts in the historical record or did you weave your fictional narrative around an unalterable framework of Roman history?

     I am extraordinarily lucky in that Tacitus dutifully recorded the events of 69ad in his Histories. He was a teenager in 69 but many of the players in that year were still alive when he was writing his Histories. He interviewed people who were actually there. Similarly the biographer  Suetonius’ father served under Otho and could report on that emperor's final days. The Greek writer Plutarch had friends who had taken part in the key battle of Cremona. It is probably the best recorded year in Roman history. This is all very unusual for ancient history where  historians can be writing hundreds of years after the events they are  describing.

     Tacitus provided the structure and the set pieces of the book. Though sometimes Tacitus and I differed on what is important. I left out most of the happenings in the provinces that the great historian devotes many chapters on. I also felt the narrative needed more sex and swearing. Tacitus as a Roman feels great national shame at certain events that are clearly bloody hilarious. Such as the siege of Placentia where the Romans got so drunk that they turned up to besiege the town having forgotten to bring any siege equipment. Or when Otho's coup was due to take place on 11^th January but everyone was too drunk to organise. So it happened on 15th January instead. Booze plays a big role in many of the dramatic turns during the year.

     I changed very little in writing about the events. When it came to characters I did some inventing. For instance I made Epaphroditus and Otho friends when there is nothing in the record to say they had ever met (Though surely given both were members of Nero's inner circle they would at least have been aware of each other). Anyone given a solitary line or two in the historical record is fair game to a writer and I took full advantage that nobody could prove me wrong!

5) Plotter or pantser?

     A bit of both. I have a timeline of what needs to happen to keep to the historical record. I have vague ideas of soapy subplots for my character. But that's it. The rest is made up on the fly. I tried not to read too far ahead in the sources because my characters have no foreknowledge of what is coming and I thought it would be easier to write that if it came as a surprise to me, too.

4) Describe your average writing day. Do you use notebooks, laptops or a combination of both?

     Due to limited time my commute into work is my writing time. I used to write in notebooks. But as I don't write chronologically it was a nightmare remembering what scene was in which notebook. It made things way more difficult than they needed to be. These days I write on my smart phone. It is quicker and as I have Parkinson’s Disease my right hand has limited mobility some days, so it is much easier to type than write by hand.

     I try to avoid working in the evenings. I’ll use a day off to power on with a book. Whenever I’m approaching a deadline I sacrifice my lunchtime walk and hole up in a library near my work place.

3) What advice would you give to any novice considering or beginning to write a historical novel?

     Read, read, read. You’ll absorb a good background knowledge of your era that’ll save you loads of time having to look up the basics.

     Always have at least one unobservant character that you can blame any inaccuracies on. That was how I got over my fear of writing about the Roman army. I put my character Philo in the action. He knows even less about the Roman army than I do. So if there’s a mistake on the shape of the army helmets, it’s Philo’s fault not mine. He’s an idiot.

     The undescribed soup/stew ingredients is a great way round the pain of working out which food was available in which part of the year.

     But most of all write about what you find interesting.

2) Did you ever stop to think about what you admired most about ancient Rome and what aspects you’d found the most deplorable? And if so, what were they?

     The obvious answer is slavery. It was absolutely engrained in Roman society. Though there is much hand ringing by Roman authors about the treatment of slaves, at no point do any of them even consider abolition. It never enters their thought process.

     Also the complete lack of mercy in warfare. There is no distinction given to civilian populations from fighting soldiers. Civilians are raped, killed or enslaved as a matter of course.

     In terms of what I admire about the Romans I guess it’s their ability to get stuff done. Huge building projects, a road network, aqueducts and viaducts. Their ability to create infrastructure both in physical form and in administrative systems is quite brilliant. 

1)      What’s next for LJ Trafford? The Year of the Five Emperors? The Year of the Six Emperors? Or something more contemporary?

     I’m writing How to Survive in Ancient Rome for Pen and Sword books. It’s non fiction so very different to what I’ve written before. But it should be just as fun as my fiction books.

Linda Trafford's books can be found here on her Amazon page.