Ancient Rome in the English novel: a study in English historical fiction

by Randolph Faries

D. TWO PEDANTIC NOVELS OF ROMAN LIFE

Few novelists have made the mistake of attempting to include in a novel such work as appears in Becker’s Gallus. But in one or two instances, novelists have tried to crowd their pages with antiquarian knowledge, putting into their narratives matters which Becker would have placed in his Excursus. This pedantic display of knowledge is in itself a defect, and we shall consider separately two novelists who proved to be guilty of it. Miles Gerald Keon, British Colonial Secretary to Bermuda, wrote, in 1866, a novel called Dion and the Sibyls. This was published in London. In spite of its pedanticism, it contains some interesting similarities to the much greater work of General Lew Wallace in Ben Hur (1880). Like Ben Hur it deals with the time of Christ, and a further similarity is seen in the fact that the author does not make the mistake of portraying Christ as one of the central figures, and does not lay much of the scene in Jerusalem. Keon’s hero, Dion, also, like Ben Hur, is not too closely identified with Christianity, though he is invited to expound its doctrines before the Emperor. Scenes in Judea in Dion and the Sibyls include the banquet at which John the Baptist is beheaded, and a pedantic display of knowledge is made in repeating things told of Herod Agrippa, Herodias, Berenice, and the high priest Caiphas. This display of pedantic knowledge is further seen in the part of the narrative which tells of Dion’s meeting with Dionysius the Areopagite, who becomes St. Denis, and brings Christianity to Gaul. But most of the scene of Keon’s novel is laid in Rome, and in this part of the story the characters of Tiberius, his brutal eunuch Lygdus, and the wily Sejanus, are portrayed in such a way as to show the author’s indefatigable search for details. The only really good scene in the novel is that in which the young Paulus, of the Æmelian family, subdues the famous “Sejan horse” in the amphitheatre. The story of this vicious horse became a tradition, so that Mr. E. L. White would have done well to give the name “Sejanus” to a similar animal in Andivius Hedulio (1921), a novel of the time of Commodus; (instead he turns the name into Selinus). In Keon’s novel Paulus was directed how to overcome the horse by the sibyl of Cumæ, and as the title suggests, the magic spells of such witches appear prominently in the story; the use of a “love-philtre” suggests The Last Days of Pompeii (1834). The mention of a famous acrostic, whose initial letters spell the Greek word for fish, remind one of the use made of this symbol of the early Christians, which appears in later novels of Roman life, notably in Darkness and Dawn (1892), and Quo Vadis. But Dion and the Sibyls is mentioned at this point as an example of pedanticism in the novel of Roman life.

Another example of pedanticism in the novel of Roman life is seen in The Money God; or The Empire and the Papacy (1873). It is needless to mention the various matters of detail which the author, M. A. Quinton, mentions in order to display his pedantic knowledge; but it is sufficient to say that he is very learned indeed, and has read extensively in the works of the Latin authors.[27] In some instances he is very inaccurate in the deductions which he makes from his reading, and there are some notable mistakes in topography. The one redeeming feature of the novel is its remarkable handling of a chariot-race scene; the details of this scene are so similar to the details of a scene in Ben Hur (1880), that it seems possible that Lew Wallace may have known of Quinton’s work. While the scene of the Money God is partly laid in Rome, it does not portray Roman life, but rather presents certain details of Roman life in an arbitrary manner, and in confused order. A Roman marriage ceremony is described, and the methods of Roman money-lenders are explained in this arbitrary way. Quinton also wrote Aurelia: or the Jews of Capena Gate, a few years before The Money God, but I have been unable to obtain this book. In Dion and the Sibyls, and in The Money God we have two very pedantic novels, which, nevertheless, mention some of the things which are mentioned in Ben Hur. But before considering Ben Hur itself, let us retrace our steps to the year 1843, and from that time follow the course of the popular melodramatic novel of Roman life. This kind of novel represents the class in which Ben Hur more properly belongs.