Historical Fiction in the Classics
Historical fiction is a wonderful genre; like many others, it offers the ability to dip into different subgenres but there is something that makes it familiar, by taking advantage of the familiarity an historical period (or an historical figure) may have on our imagination.
I have been itching to reading historical fiction that takes place in the classics era, Greek and Romans. In fact, this is inspired by two main elements: I spent a fair amount of time in this time period in high school translating Ancient Greek and Latin; and the second is a wonderful and prolific historical fiction author, Valerio Massimo Manfredi.
For many years, I did not dabble reading in this period of time. I enjoyed a few stories told in other media (like the movie 300 - and I still love that movie); and then the end of 2023 arrived and I stumbled across Santiano Posteguillo writing two (so far) compelling books in Julius Caesar.
And I went down the rabbit hole and decided to give myself a walk down memory lane and the possibility to explore new series and authors!
My goal was to regularly read, through the year, a few historical fiction books, giving myself at least 12 of them (one per month). I am hoping to do better than that, as there is so much more to explore.
The first idea I had was to compare two stories and storytellers, specifically Valerio Massimo Manfredi and his trilogy on Alexander the Great and Alfonso Goizueta and his La Sangre del Padre (a stand alone novel about Alexander the Great). And then I realized that there is another author who wrote a trilogy about Alexander the Great, Mary Renault. And so there are already plenty of books in the same space.
I also want to compare authors who wrote about Julius Caesar. I was swept off my feet when I read Santiago Posteguillo. So I want to read Andrea Frediani’s take on him with the trilogy Dictator. I also find myself intrigued by another character relevant during the same period of time - scheming mostly to oppose Julius Caesar - so I want to read the Cicero trilogy by Robert Harris (and it has been a long time since I read a book by Robert Harris).
There is another series that I want to explore, set a tad later in time, with Julia Domna by Santiago Posteguillo; I am curious to read about a woman of power during the late period of the Empire (women in Rome had a limited role, unless they were able to exert influence and I am curious to see how this story works!).
There are plenty of other stories set in the period that I like to call the Classics. Mary Renault certainly wrote plenty of stories in the Classics. There are other authors that write about the fight against the Roman Empire, such as Boudica by Manda Scott. There are other authors I like, such as Conn Iggulden (who also wrote a trilogy about Julius Caesar), Christian Cameron (and his Long War series) and Ben Kane (with Eagles of Rome). So there are plenty of authors and stories that I can keep exploring and I cannot wait to keep exploring the Classics, one of my favorite times to be in (and yes, it is huge yet this is also the time when our western civilization starts, important scientific, philosophical, political, legal, etc. “discoveries” were made and they shaped our current world). And it connects me with my younger self, so there is also a nostalgic element to it!
And there is another branch of this period that I would like to explore more and deeper: mythology retellings. Recently there has been more and more buzz around this genre (or subgenera) and I had mixed experiences with it, from meh to wonderful. So I will eventually work on a reading list dedicated to this section of historical fiction!
Do you have a favorite time period that you like to dabble into? What are your favorite authors? What are the recommendations you have for other readers? Comment down below!
