Falco: The Official Companion (A Marcus Didius Falco Mystery)

by Lindsey Davis

  Julia Justa has the habits of a conventional, well-placed matron; she attends Bona Dea ceremonies and is friendly with a Vestal Virgin (possibly her cousin). This works to advantage in Saturnalia for resolving the Veleda problem. Although Julia’s influence is subtle, it is unclear what she wants for her daughter. Would it grieve Julia, if Helena escaped the establishment, or would she envy her daughter’s freedom? Maybe even Julia cannot make up her mind.

  Aulus Camillus Aelianus

  We hear of Aelianus, the elder Camillus son, in The Iron Hand of Mars where he writes a letter to Helena in wrath at her association with Falco; she is deeply upset. By Time to Depart he is still furious: He looked much like his father – sprouting straight hair and slightly sloped shoulders. More chunky than Justinus and Helena and heavier-featured, he was less good-looking as a result. His abysmal manners were a patrician cliché … Aelianus had completed his military service rather dully, then a year as a governor’s unpaid aide-de-camp in Baetica had failed to give him lustre. On the other hand, none of that had been his fault, says Falco, already hoping for good in this unpromising material. Rough edges are a social and political handicap, however: He was of a slightly grumpy disposition, a little too self-centred and lacking the fake warmth to ingratiate him with the smelly old senators he needed to flatter. [OVTM] Aulus admits he always rather liked his Uncle Publius, which causes concern: Aelianus might lose patience with the rules and seek out his own solutions, unless he was handled just right in the next few years. An outsider. Latent trouble. [OVTM] In A Dying Light in Corduba, Aelianus lets an important dispatch fall into the wrong hands and seems open to overtures from Anacrites. He is generally secretive about his wild time in Baetica.

  His personality has contradictions: Aelianus told this tale with rakish fluency. He could be a prude over women, but I knew that as a young tribune in Baetica he was one of the crowd. Even in Rome, with his fond parents watching, he had been known to roll home at dawn, uncertain of how he had spent the previous night … [BBH] Soon he can’t decide: he starts a doom-laden friendship with Albia, although Falco says he was now determined only to cast his big brown eyes on a gilt-edged virgin with a line of pickled ancestors and moneybags to match. [STH]

  We may feel a glimmer of sympathy when Claudia Rufina jilts him and wrecks his chance of standing for the Senate. Then in One Virgin Too Many, I decided it would be more fun to write about an abrasive, untrained assistant for Falco than a competent, congenial one, so I let Aulus supplant his brother. He learns. He develops.

  ‘Now we have to find some completely uninterested buyer then try to fib him into believing he needs a set of dancing nymphs worked by hot air, whose costumes fall off …’

  ‘Next thing you’ll have one of Philo of Tyres dip-me-in-all-ways inkwells.’

  ‘Gimbals!’ snarled Aulus. This proving that he had heard all about Philon’s magic octagon, the executive toy every scribe wants … [BBH]

  Athletic, a good rider, able to draw a plan or list suspects colourfully, Aelianus starts showing promise when he organises a rescue of Falco from jail after his offence at the Vestals’ House. From Ode to a Banker on, Falco successfully teaches him social interaction and investigative techniques. In Britain, he is disguised as a statue-seller’s assistant – bitterly complaining, yet acquitting himself well. By See Delphi and Die he can’t resist the mystery he stumbles upon at Olympia. On tour with the travel company, he shows compassion for a bereaved husband and selflessly sits with a dying man at Epidaurus. He is genuinely upset when his new young friend Heras dies in Alexandria.

  He was arrogant, crass and snobbish, and had hurt Helena very much by criticising us. Now he stood in the street, a hot, bothered, stocky young figure, trying to bluff it out … [THF]

  From The Accusers, his yen for law seems genuine. Study takes him away from Rome (partly to thin out characters). Falco is initially sceptical: the unmarried son of a senator, with money in his pocket and a carefree outlook, I could not see him gravely attending jurisprudence lectures under a fig tree at an ancient university. [STH] Aelianus sticks with his choice in Greece and Alexandria, then seems reformed, until – oops! – he lets himself be pushed by his terrible tutor Minas into reversion to type socially, causing heartache for Albia. I shall punish him for that!

  Quintus Camillus Justinus

  The younger Camillus brother, Quintus is briefly glimpsed as a good sort in The Silver Pigs. Still serving in Germany, but now making his mark, in The Iron Hand of Mars, Falco begins to get to know him well. Their first great shared mission in Germania Libera shows his potential. Quintus acquits himself with distinction; he is brave, adaptable, popular with subordinates. He has what will clearly be the adventure of his life with Veleda.

  Justinus returns to Rome marked for rapid advancement – only to be stopped by the backlash from his uncle’s treason. His frustration and his lovelorn state first lead him to defy convention and work with Falco, then precipitate his elopement with his brother’s fiancée. By now he is familiar: a tall spare figure with neat, short hair, dark eyes and a striking grin. He managed to combine an apparently unassuming air with a hint of inner strength. I knew he was confident, a linguist, a man-manager, courageous and inventive in a crisis. [TFL]

  Falco never doubts his good qualities, though cynically aware that life will be hard for the young man: Quintus has a warm personality and a fine intellect. People like him, and he’s interested in everything – naturally such a man stands no chance in public life! [TTD] Working with Falco, Quintus is winningly aware of his deficiencies: I don’t know how to live rough. I can’t talk to the right sort of people. I have no experience to judge situations, no authority – in fact, no hope. [TFL] His resistance to sharing the position with his brother is fairly short-lived.

  He was too young to get married; she was much too keen on the idea. [SA]

  Does he ever think he loves Claudia? Yes, though his lust for adventure blinds him to the miseries he puts her through in Libya. The poor girl will always take second place to his romantic vision of Veleda. Reluctantly, Justinus opts for Claudia’s fortune and settles down to family life. He becomes a proud father. When Veleda arrives in Rome, it is tragic all round (despite the hilarious turnip incident). Justinus submits to duty; it is realistic, but terrible to watch. He had lost the love of his life not once but twice. He had never got over it the first time; he probably imagined it would be even harder now … [SA]

  Claudia Rufina

  We meet Claudia in her home province of Hispania Baetica, a neat, smart, shy, very serious orphan, courted for her money even before she becomes a major heiress after her brother Rufius Constans is killed. She is tall and has a big nose, on which Falco comments a little too much in my opinion. Helena takes her to Rome as a potential rich bride for Aelianus, but Claudia falls for his handsomer brother. Justinus seems much more fun – until the Libyan desert sours their relationship. Cobbled together in marriage, they reach an uneasy accommodation. Her husband retains affection for her; they have first one and then a second child.

  She is a good young woman with a fine character. She has been well brought up. She is honest, direct, serious, and loyal to those she loves. [DLC]

  I perceive Claudia as more than a victim. She stands up for herself (she insults Veleda with spirit). There was a spark to her sometimes that I know made Helena think the girl deserved more. Part of the spark, the only hope of redeeming her, was that Claudia did want better for herself. [TFL] She understands her position with cruel clarity. She and Quintus commit themselves too eagerly, then they are both trapped. But as a foreign bride in Rome, Claudia is isolated and vulnerable, her only status and power residing in her dowry.

  Claudia was a delicately reared young lady from a pampered home. Basic training for an heiress consists only of assaults on Greek novels and a gruelling small talk course. [TFL]

  Consoled by her children and her material wealth, Claudia remains thoroughly good-natured. From the moment she inherits, she wants to
make endowments and benefit the community, specifically in Corduba, her birthplace – to which she can always threaten to return if Justinus upsets her fatally. But in Nemesis, she acquires a seniority that helps her feel reconciled to her lot.

  She was wearing a necklace of extremely large emeralds with the air of a girl who thinks she may as well flaunt the one aspect of her personality that her husband truly admires. [AC]

  Gaius Camillus Rufius Constantinus

  The centre of his parents’ world – though he hasn’t actually appeared. At least he has a name, unlike his even more invisible little brother.

  Aelia Camilla

  Youngest and favourite sister of Camillus Verus, Aelia Camilla may be a prototype for Helena Justina. In The Silver Pigs, Falco meets a slender, rather ordinary woman, slightly uneasy within her elegant attire, whom he mentally dismisses as a good, plain woman who could serve sweetmeats to the governor from the proper shape of dish, or be polite to a tribal king for three hours at a time, then remove the royal paw from her knee without giving offence. [SP] Immediately, he realises his mistake. She had vividly eloquent eyes. It would be a brave king – or governor – who took liberties with her. He takes to her, smitten by her good sense and tact, before her easygoing, comfortable household upends his deep prejudice against the middle class. This, without him knowing it, starts his own grumpy progress towards joining that rank.

  Aelia Camilla has a sparky side; she had a fondness for her rebellious brother Publius, who taught her to drive – too fast. (A feat she passes on to Helena). But even when he knows her better, she has the mastery of Falco: Her great dark eyes were impossible to avoid. I had always found it difficult to play the hard man in her presence. While seeming gentle and bashful, she screwed all kinds of answers out of me … [JM]

  Gaius Flavius Hilaris

  I wanted Gaius to represent a good civil servant. I knew if I ever got to write a series, I would spend a lot of time satirising bureaucracy, but Roman bureaucracy clearly worked; the Empire ran smoothly under good emperors and even under bad ones, thanks to their staff. I left my own civil service job with happy memories of good colleagues I admired, people who had taught me much, people whose affection for me I appreciated, people I still see twenty years later.

  Gaius is an equestrian, son of a Roman tax collector, born in Narona (a one-ox town in Dalmatia); he came to Britain with the Second Augusta when the legion was commanded by the young Vespasian (which gives him unexpected influence). Unusually, he never left. He has knowledge of mining but we see him as the influential Procurator of Finance, living in London, with a ‘second home’ in Dorchester, to which he may retire. A winsome, vigorous man … He had crisp brown hair cut to outline a neat head, and lean, firm hands with straight-cut clean fingernails … from the start I thought the man was excellent. His mistake was that he did a thorough job and saw the funny side. People liked him, but to conventional judges, these were not the signs of a ‘good mind’ … [SP]

  He is as efficient as he is ethical, a single-minded type who burrowed into business as soon as he trapped an audience. [SP] Falco, despite initial suspicion, warms to him: Of all the men I met on this business, I liked him the most. I never told him that. (I know he realised.) I did tell him, no one but me could have found a case where only the civil servants were straight …

  When Falco returns to Britain for A Body in the Bath House, Gaius is a benign background presence; The Jupiter Myth places him centrally, working with Falco to their mutual enjoyment as they tackle gangland crime in Roman London. He looked a quiet, clerkish, slightly innocent fellow, but I wouldn’t take him on at draughts, says Falco as they inspect a murder victim. He was dealing with the situation in his usual way: curious, thorough, and unexpectedly assertive. Gaius is now older, greyer and more haggard; Falco suspects his health is poor. But Gaius and his wife remain the best kind of diplomat: They were wise; they were fair. They embodied noble Roman qualities. Though as Falco remarks, That did not make them popular with colleagues … They did not seem to notice and never complained. Under a different emperor they might well have dwindled into oblivion. Under Vespasian, they flourished surprisingly. [JM]

  Publius Camillus Meto

  Though he dies in the first book, the senator’s younger brother has a lasting impact.

  A bland unremarkable face and a bland unremarkable head. In my experience, men who sit in corners are the ones to watch … [SP] At Sosia’s funeral Falco notices more detail: He left a faint trace of myrrh, and he wore a gold intaglio ring with a substantial emerald, slight touches of bachelor vanity which I had missed before … [SP] The emerald ring features significantly in Shadows in Bronze.

  Falco presciently smells danger immediately. Publius had a wild life as a youth in Bithynia, then left Mauretania under a cloud: political speculation, social scandal, riot, shady business deals, women … [SP] We first see him in unpleasant company, with Pertinax. We learn that Sosia resulted from an affair with the married wife of an absent VIP. Publius had to acknowledge the child but dumped her on Decimus and Julia, who brought her up. However, as he presides over Sosia’s funeral, Publius seems genuinely in shock. When he angrily blames Falco, the informer spots ambiguity: It jarred, because Publius Camillus Meto looked like someone whom grief steers into rigid self-control; like a man who would break, but not yet; break, but not in public; not today, not here. He had previously been so persuasive – this loss had shaken him. [SP] Of course Publius realises the plot is unravelling, due to this annoying man, Falco.

  Publius is motivated by resentment; his family lacked money to put him in the Senate, unlike his elder brother, whom he thinks second-rate. Conspiring with Domitian, this hard, manipulative, jealous, striving man will force Falco to take a great step in personal and social development. Fallout from the failed plot will permanently hamper the Camillus family. His young daughter dies. His brother has to commit a terrible, uncharacteristic act. His nephews’ promising careers will be blighted. The ghastly disposal of Meto’s corpse will haunt Falco, because it is horrific to accomplish and because he dreads Helena and her father learning he was involved. Perhaps one day, they will …

  Sosia Camillina

  Sosia – sweet, clever, courageous – has a brief presence but a lasting position as the spark that fires the series.

  She takes the heroine’s role but is savagely destroyed without warning. It was a conscious decision to shake the conventions of gumshoe stories. At sixteen, Sosia is too young for Falco, but she raises important questions about his morality. She develops a crush on him and he falls for her enough to be distraught when she is killed. Maybe we all feel a similar pang. The scene where the vigiles find Sosia’s body will always be to me one of the saddest and hardest I have written. But it is crucial for Falco. He grows up that day.

  Sosia’s life has jolted Falco and her death takes him to Britain. There he meets Helena Justina – who blames him almost as much as Falco blames himself for her young cousin’s death. Sosia’s murder has given him his part-time career as an imperial agent. He names his second daughter after her.

  Like her father, Sosia remains important in the personal stories of other characters, a melancholy motif.

  Historical Characters

  I have scruples over writing about real people. Suetonius gives us detailed portraits of emperors (his view), but other Romans are barely documented; I am reluctant to impose characteristics they may not have had.

  I also hate ‘Hello, Chopin, have you met George Sand – oh look, there’s supersleuth Napoleon, with criminologist Jane Austen!’

  Pliny the Younger? I don’t like the cut of his jib. Why should I give him publicity? He’s so good at it himself.

  So, very few historical figures appear in the Falco series – though there are more than I thought.

  The imperial family

  Since The Course of Honour, I had clear ideas about the Flavians, primarily based on Suetonius’ The Twelve Caesars.

  I like to stress ambiguity.
Yes, compared with the previous crazy lot, these are ‘good’ emperors’, but Falco and I ask questions about whether Rome should have emperors at all and the possible abuses of power. The Flavian attitude to informers and Falco’s republicanism give me ample scope.

  With such a mighty reputation – he had now been decreed a triumph over the Jews – Vespasian added eight more consulships to the one he had already earned. He also assumed the office of Censor, and throughout his reign made it his principal business first to shore up the State, which was virtually in a state of prostration and collapse, and then to proceed to its artistic embellishment … SUETONIUS

  Emperor Vespasian (Titus Flavius Vespasianus Augustus, many times consul, with tribunician power, Father of his Country and Pontifex Maximus)

  Finally he took a bath and went to dinner, when he would be in such a cheerful mood that members of his household usually chose this time to ask favours of him. SUETONIUS

  Once I began the Falco books, I always had a sly retrospective glance at Vespasian’s character in The Course of Honour. When he first meets Falco – a cheery old cove came out in his slippers [SP] – this is a character I know. I had to avoid repetition; that generally solves itself because the Emperor is now seen through Falco’s grudging eyes.

  He was a big, easygoing, competent character. An organiser, he had the direct glance of a blacksmith, with the country-born arrogance that reminded me of my grandfather. He knew what he believed. He said what he thought. People acted on what he said. They did it nowadays because they had to, but people had been jumping when Vespasian barked since long before he was emperor … He had held all the civil magistracies and the highest military ranks. Every post in his career through the cursus honorum had been screwed out on merit and in the face of Establishment prejudice. Now he held the final post available. The Establishment was still prejudiced against him, but he need not care. [TTD] That prejudice was to dog Vespasian and even his sons. Falco observes: The Curtius brothers owned a family tree so ancient that Romulus and Remus carved their names in its moss. To them, Vespasian was a nobody. His good generalship meant nothing; nor the forty years of service he had already given Rome. He had no money and no famous ancestors. You cannot let people who own nothing but talent rise into the highest positions. What chance is there then for the upper-crust bunglers and fools? [SB]