But the one who most often haunted his dreams had not been a man at all. He would wake in the dead of night, thinking of an old eunuch and a young boy in a tall tower on a remote mountain crag. Sometimes he woke sweating as the old eunuch was hunted through the marshes by the Caspian Sea.
Tell us about the Castle of Silence, his children had often asked, as had his grandchildren in their turn.
His reticence had only encouraged them.
Tell us about the Castle of Silence.
AD337
HISTORICAL AFTERWORD
The Castle of Silence
‘FOR IF ANYONE IS CAST into it, the law permits no mention of him to be made thereafter, but death is the penalty for the man who speaks his name.’ Many years ago, when I first read Procopius (1.5.7–6.10), I knew the castle of silence had to be the basis of a novel.
The only specific modern study of which I am aware is G. Traina, ‘La forteresse de l’oubli’, Muséon 115 (2002), 399–422.
The historical fortress-prison was not in the Elburz Mountains. The events of this novel suggest why the King of Kings was wise not to locate it near a frontier, although in Procopius a fugitive manages to make his escape to the Steppe.
Sassanid Persia
Good places to begin to learn about Sassanid Persia are: J. WiesehÖfer, Ancient Persia from 550 BC to 650 AD (London and New York, 1996); M. Brosius, The Persians: An Introduction (London and New York, 2006); and T. Daryaee, Sasanian Persia: The Rise and Fall of an Empire (London and New York, 2009).
The translated documents and commentary in B. Dignas and E. Winter, Rome and Persia in Late Antiquity (Eng. tr., Cambridge, 2007), offers a stimulating and different approach.
On the Sassanid army, see: M. Whitby, ‘The Persian King at War’, in E. Dabrowa (ed.), The Roman and Byzantine Army in the East (Cracow, 1994), 227–63; and two articles in B. Campbell and L. A. Trittle (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Warfare in the Classical World (Oxford, 2013) – S. McDonough, ‘Military and Society in Sasanian Iran’ (601–20) and A. D. Lee, ‘Roman Warfare with Sasanian Persia’ (708–25). A splendidly illustrated guide for the non-specialist is D. Nicolle, Sassanian Armies (Stockport, 1996). Some of Nicolle’s attribution of images are corrected by St. J. Simpson in a review in Antiquity 71 (1997), 242–5.
The Frumentarii
The frumentarii were the closest thing the Roman Emperor had to a secret service. Soldiers seconded from other units, with a base on the Caelian Hill in Rome, they were his confidential messengers, spies and assassins. Their obscurity in scholarship is so profound that they lack an entry in the fourth edition of The Oxford Classical Dictionary (2012), but since the publication of my novel Fire in the East (2008), they seem to have become almost ubiquitous in Roman historical fiction. A cautious introduction to the historical frumentarii is C. J. Fuhrmann, Policing the Roman Empire (Oxford, 2012), 152–5.
Mesopotamia and the Roman East
F. Millar, The Roman Near East 31 BC–AD 337 (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1993) remains the best one-volume study.
The Walls of Alexander
The dating of these defensive structures, the longest of which stretches for over 120 miles, has long been controversial. For the purposes of this story I have blithely ignored the recent archaeological study that dates them to the fifth century AD: E. Sauer et al., ‘Linear Barriers of Northern Iran: The Great Wall of Gorgan and the Wall of Tammishe’, Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies 44 (2006), 121–73; available online at https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/portal/files/.../Linear_Barriers_of_Northern_Iran.pdf
Manichaeism
Ancient Manichaeism was a pacificist religion, and does not seem to have encouraged even its elect to follow the prophet Mani into the spirit-world. These apart, the bizarre religious views of Iudex in this novel are authentic.
An enjoyable way into the religion is via its most famous sometime follower, as analysed by Robin Lane Fox in Augustine: Conversions and Confessions (London, 2015). More conventional, and harder going, is N. J. Baker-Brian, Manichaeism: An Ancient Faith Rediscovered (London and New York, 2011).
The Heruli
A short essay on this obscure but fascinating and extraordinary tribe can be found in the Historical Afterword to my novel The Wolves of the North (2012).
Quotes
The poem that ends Chapter 8 is an extract from an anonymous epigram in The Greek Anthology (Harmondsworth, revised edition, 1981), no. 772 (10.118), translated by Peter Jay.
The conversation between Narses and the customs official in Chapter 12 is adapted from The Life of Apollonius by Philostratus (1.21; and 27).
The two poems recited in Chapter 12 are by Asklepiades and Palladas, and can be found in The Greek Anthology: no. 61 (5.210); and Appendix 2 (11.381); both translations are by K. Rexroth, although the latter is from M. Grant (ed.), Greek Literature (Harmondsworth, 1976), 310.
In Chapter 19, when Valens recalls Book 9 of the Odyssey, I have used the translation of Robert Fagles (London, 1997), here and there slightly altered.
When Narses justifies Persian exposure of the dead and ill in Chapter 24 he is echoing Agathias, as translated by Averil Cameron in Dumbarton Oaks Papers 23/24 (1969/1970), 67–183.
The famous lines of the Iliad (6.447–8) in Chapter 30 are from the translation by Richmond Lattimore (Chicago and London, 1951).
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In every novel the cast of characters changes, but those who are thanked remains much the same. Without the encouragement and support, as well as the criticism and forbearance, of the following this novel would not have been written or published.
Family: my wife Lisa, my sons Tom and Jack, my mother Frances and my aunt Terry.
Professionals and friends: Kate Parkin, James Horobin, Stephen Dumughn, Francesca Russell, Clare Kelly, and Claire Johnson-Creek at Bonnier Zaffre; and James Gill at United Agents.
Friends: in Oxfordshire Peter and Rachel Cosgrove, Jeremy Tinton, and Maria Stamatopoulou; in Suffolk Jack Ringer and Sandra Haines, Fiona and Michael Dunne. This novel is dedicated to the latter.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Harry Sidebottom was brought up in racing stables in Newmarket where his father was a trainer. He took his Doctorate in Ancient History at Oxford University and has taught at various universities, including Oxford. His career as a novelist began with his Warrior of Rome series.
Also by Harry Sidebottom
Fiction
Fire in the East
King of Kings
Lion of the Sun
The Caspian Gates
The Wolves of the North
The Amber Road
Iron & Rust
Blood & Steel
Fire & Sword
The Last Hour
Non-Fiction
Ancient Warfare
The Encyclopedia of Ancient Battles
(With Michael Whitby)
Dear Reader,
Thank you very much for reading The Lost Ten. I very much hope that you enjoyed it. This is a story that I have wanted to tell for a long time. Reading the Byzantine historian Procopius many years ago, I first came across the sinister and exotic Persian prison-fortress called The Castle of Silence. Straight away I knew it had to form the basis of a novel. It would be the goal of a desperate rescue mission far behind enemy lines.
In The Lost Ten I set out to recreate the excitement and suspense of the classic thrillers of John Buchan and Alastair MacLean that I loved in my youth and still reread for pure pleasure. But I also wanted to introduce the tougher, hard-edged realities of contemporary tales of adventure such as Bravo Two Zero.
While the plot of The Lost Ten is fiction, the historical background is as accurate as the ancient sources and modern scholarship allow. Historical novelists owe it to their readers to do the research, and to get things right. The reader of The Lost Ten is taken on a journey across the Euphrates to the Tigris and beyond, far outside the settled frontiers of the Roman empire. Mesopotamia in the Third Century was
a war ravaged borderland between Rome and Persia. The ‘Land between the Rivers’ was a melting pot of competing cultures and religions, where a Roman from the west would find some things familiar, but others as alien as does a modern reader. The Lost Ten aims to bring to life this fascinating and unsettling region.
If you enjoyed The Lost Ten, please do look out for my next novel, as yet untitled, which will be out in 2020. A soldier returns home from the sack of Corinth to find a killer stalking the hills of his native Calabria. The veteran has to unmask the culprit, and free his isolated community from the reign of terror. But suspicion soon falls upon himself, and he is haunted by some terrible secret from the destruction of the city. I’m thinking to blend together the fear and darkness of Scandi noir with the explosive action of my Warrior of Rome novels.
If you would like to hear more from me about this and my other future books, you can get in touch with me at www.bit.ly/HarrySidebottom where you can join the HARRY SIDEBOTTOM READERS’ CLUB. It only takes a few minutes, there is no catch and new members will automatically receive an exclusive e-book short story. Your data is private and confidential and will never be passed on to a third party, and I promise that I will only be in touch now and again with book news. If you want to unsubscribe, you can of course do that at any time.
You can also get in touch by following me on Facebook, where I frequently post about forthcoming books: https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Writer/Harry-Sidebottom-608697059226497/
I’m always grateful, however, to readers who spread the word. If you have enjoyed The Lost Ten, I would love you to leave a review on Amazon or GoodReads, on any other e-store, on your own blogs and social media accounts – or even tell another human being directly! You’ll help other readers if you share your thoughts, and you’ll help me too: I love hearing what people think about my books – and I always read any comments.
But for now, thank you again for travelling with The Lost Ten across the deserts of the East – I’m glad you came along for the ride.
Best wishes,
Harry
First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Zaffre
This ebook edition published in 2019 by
ZAFFRE
80-81 Wimpole St, London, W1G 9RE
Copyright © Harry Sidebottom, 2019
Cover design and illustration by www.mulcaheydesign.com
Cover photographs © shutterstock.com
Author photograph © jameshawkinsphotography.com
The moral right of Harry Sidebottom to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978–1–78576–790–6
Hardback ISBN: 978–1–78576–560–7
This ebook was produced by IDSUK (Data Connection) Ltd
Zaffre is an imprint of Bonnier Books UK
www.bonnierbooks.co.uk
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