Digest urth.v004.n021

Alice Turner16 Sep 1997, 14:45original as archived

↰ answers m.driussi · by quotation

1 quoted line

His real name is Lucius; he is a Latin; he was cursed by the Great Mother Goddess for messing up her temple during a battle; "Latro" means both "mercenary" and "pawn" (game piece), and Lucius is definitely both; and, in the interview words of Gene Wolfe, Lucius has a truly magic sword--"It cuts things." <g>

Plus, there are a lot of real people and real events in the books. Latro's nearest and dearest are fictional, of course, but the "important" periphal characters, politicians, royalty and such (as opposed to farmers and the like), are not. Latro gets caught up with these people, never quite understanding his role. The gods are the Greek versions; though Latro is Roman, this is early enough so that the Romans had not yet adopted (and adapted) the Greek pantheon---and of course the gods would necessarily be local, anyway. Eheu fugaces! -alga-

Derek Bell16 Sep 1997, 19:33original as archived

↳ follows Alice Turner · by subject

In message <199709161849.LAA13496 at lists1.best.com>, Alice Turner writes:

1 quoted line

Plus, there are a lot of real people and real events in the books. Latro's nearest and dearest are fictional, of course, but the "important" periphal characters, politicians, royalty and such (as opposed to farmers and the like), are not.

I think I remember one scene sparked off a memory and I realised that Latro was fighting Ulysses in hand to hand combat. (Maybe with knives too?) Tercel

Michael Straight16 Sep 1997, 15:52original as archived

↳ follows Derek Bell · by subject

Spoilers for Soldier Series...

3 quoted lines · 1–2 deep

On Tue, 16 Sep 1997, Alice Turner wrote: His real name is Lucius; he is a Latin; he was cursed by the Great Mother Goddess for messing up her temple during a battle; "Latro" means both "mercenary" and "pawn" (game piece), and Lucius is definitely both; and, in the interview words of Gene Wolfe, Lucius has a truly magic sword--"It cuts things." <g>

Plus, there are a lot of real people and real events in the books. Latro's nearest and dearest are fictional, of course, but the "important" periphal characters, politicians, royalty and such (as opposed to farmers and the like), are not. Latro gets caught up with these people, never quite understanding his role. The gods are the Greek versions; though Latro is Roman, this is early enough so that the Romans had not yet adopted (and adapted) the Greek pantheon---and of course the gods would necessarily be local, anyway.

I have a friend who is a Classics professor who specializes in this time period. I thought he might enjoy these books, but when I described it to him, he said that Latro's chronology doesn't work. At the time of the events of the novel, the closest thing to Latin in the world was a dialect spoken only by a few farmers in a ten-mile radius somewhere near what is now Rome, and even then, who knows how close it was to what we know as Latin. The best I could think of to make it work is that Latro is somehow one of those farmers impressed into military service or gone off to seek his fortune as a mercenary, except isn't it implied that the language of the people Latro rescues at the end (Phonecians?) is the same Latin he's been writing? -Rostrum