The Course of Honor [Paperback]

Lindsey Davis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2003

In a departure from her international bestselling Marcus Didius Falco mystery series, Davis creates an intriguing and suspenseful love story set during ancient Rome's most turbulent period.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The author of the popular Marcus Didius Falco mystery series reaches again into the fertile bone pile of ancient Roman history, this time to fashion an unforgettable character out of a little-known woman of the first century A.D. Caenis merits a single reference in the entry on Emperor Vespasian in the Oxford Classical Dictionary, 2nd edition: "He then lived with an earlier mistress who had been a freed-woman of Tiberius' sister-in-law Antonia." The story is set against the backdrop of particularly turbulent years of the Roman Empire, the time of the most notorious emperors (Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero) and some of the most forgettable. In Davis's imagining, the sparks fly from the first accidental meeting when Caenis is a slave and a secretary in Antonia's household and Vespasian a young rustic from Reate visiting Rome. With meticulous detail and powerful drama, Davis chronicles Vespasian's remarkable rise to power and Caenis's equally compelling success in shaping her own future. As presented in this intricate braiding of character and action, fact and imagination, these two strong characters, bound by passionate and enduring love and parted often by what Vespasian bitterly refers to as the "cursus honorum," deserve to take their place in the pantheon of the world's great lovers.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Davis, author of the Marcus Didius Falco mysteries, here transmutes a stray historical aside into a rich and compelling piece of fiction. The freedwoman Caenis was lover and mistress to the man who became the Roman Emperor Vespasian, a strong and good leader who followed the wicked excesses of Nero. The story is told from Caenis' point of view, beginning with her life as a slave and work as scribe and secretary for Antonia, grandmother of Caligula and Claudius. The full sweep of history in this turbulent period from A.D. 31 to A.D. 69 in the Mediterranean basin is the background for casual details of what was eaten, what was worn, and what daily life was like. Caenis is deeply intelligent, self-contained, and no-nonsense; her love for Vespasian (and his for her) is developed in a way that makes sense to both the head and the heart. Their trials and separations and reconciliations are the stuff of great romantic reading. Any reader of historical fiction will enjoy this one. GraceAnne A. DeCandido --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Mysterious Press (February 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446679666
• ISBN-13: 978-0446679664
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.9 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,066,647 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Lindsey Davis' Roman novels begin chronologically with The Course of Honour, the love story of the Emperor Vespasian and Antonia Caenis. Her bestselling mystery series features laid-back First Century detective Marcus Didius Falco and his partner Helena Justina, plus friends, relations, pets and bitter enemy the Chief Spy; there is a reader handboook, 'Falco: the Official Companion'. 'Master and God' set in the time of the Emperor Domitian, will be published in 2012. She has also written an epic novel of the English Civil War and Commonwelath, 'Rebels and Traitors'. Her books are translated into many languages and serialised on BBC Radio 4. Past Chair of the Crimewriters' Association and a Vice President of the Classical Association, she has won the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Dagger, the Dagger in the Library, and a Sherlock award for Falco as Best Comic Detective. She has also been awarded the Premio Colosseo for enhancing the image of Rome, and the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement as a mystery writer.
She was born in Birmingham but now lives in London.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Between history and fiction..., April 28, 2001

By 

Edward Alexander Gerster "miamibooks" (South Miami, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Course of Honor (Hardcover)

Being a fan of Lindsey Davis' series of historic mysteries of Marcus Didius Falco, and also having recently read "Vespasian" by Barbara Levick, I found this novel to be an acurate and entertaining portrayal of the long time relationship of Vespasian and Caenis. It is neither the rollicking, irreverant narrative of Falco, or the dry statement of historical footnotes in a textbook; "Course of Honor" combines the best of both in a tale that gives a wonderful perspective on the life of one of Rome's better emperors through the eyes of the woman who truly stood by his side.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A stately love in a treacherous time, January 21, 2000

By 

A. P. Larson (Tacoma, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Course of Honor (Hardcover)

Fans of Lindsey Davis' rollicking Falco novels will find here a more restrained style, as she polishes up a small lost history into a life's love. The care used to tell the tale befits the main players on the stage. We meet Caenis, an intelligent, resolute woman who happens to be a slave in Rome's Imperial household; hand in hand with that, we meet a steady, decent young soldier named Vespasian. (That name's familiar for a reason, Latin students.) The skein of attraction, duty, forsaking, and fulfillment that will drive these two apart and together over their lifetimes plays out with even pace against the nasty backdrop provided by Rome in the time of the Claudians. Vespasian's fate won't surprise the reader, but as for Caenis: will she or won't she? Loyal readers of Davis may be taken by surprise at the almost Victorian gravitas of her style in this work. I found it soothing, but I could note that she does tend to overuse a few favorite phrases. Still, I don't hesitate to recommend it; it's refreshing to read a love story in which restraint is an almost tangible third partner.

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Could have been MUCH better, November 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Course of Honor (Hardcover)

The (true) story on which this novel is based -- the decades-long love affair between the impoverished nobleman/unlikely emperor Vespasian and the freed slave Caenis -- is inherently compelling, and the author of the "Falco" mysteries seems like the perfect writer to retell it. Unfortunately, I felt that the novel fell flat. Choosing to tell the story in the third person (why?) meant that Davis spent far too much time on rather dry exposition -- in the first few chapters there were about 10 pages of background for every page of dialog. She falls into this same habit in some of the Falco novels (e.g. "The Iron Hand of Mars"), but there the expository bits are more fun because they're told in the narrator's cynical, wise-cracking voice. The historical characters are engaging enough when they're allowed to speak for themselves -- the straight-arrow Vespasian (I kept seeing John Wayne playing him), the loving but all-too-intelligent Caenis, her sorely tried royal mistress Antonia -- and even the made-up ones, such as her gold-digger friend Veronica and her manipulative mentor Narcissus, have considerable depth. Occasional scenes -- such as Vespasian's triumphal return from Britain -- came vividly alive, and the conclusion kept me up past my bedtime. But I suspect that Davis, in trying to write a "serious" novel rather than Philip Marlowe in a toga, went too far in the opposite direction. She seems to have forgotten a couple of basic principles of fiction writing: (1) A novel should be entertaining, and (2) Show, don't tell. I would have found the story much more absorbing if it had been told from Caenis' point of view; I'm sorry Davis decided to play it safe and go for Victorian omniscience and excruciating dignity.