Lindsey Davis

• Born: 1949
• Place of Birth: Birmingham, England

Lindsey Davis is the award-winning author of the Didius Falco detective series and its spin-off, the Flavia Alba mystery series.

TYPE OF PLOT: Historical

PRINCIPAL SERIES: Didius Falco, 1989-

Contribution

In the Didius Falco series, Lindsey Davis renders tangible the history and daily life of first-century CE Rome and its empire but does it in the wisecracking style of twentieth-century detective fiction. Falco treads through Roman society's dregs and gems as he solves bizarre murders and other strange puzzles. Davis’s humorous and sympathetic hero wanders the ancient Roman world in pursuit of his cases, from Britain to Syria, from Germany to North Africa.

In 1995, the Crime Writers’ Association gave Davis a Dagger in the Library Award to the author who has given the most pleasure to library users. In 1999, she received the same association’s first Ellis Peters Historical Dagger (renamed the Ellis Peters Award in 2006) for Two for the Lions (1998). In 2000, Didius Falco was recognized as Best Comic Detective by Sherlock magazine.

Several of the Didius Falco novels have been produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation as drama serials on Radio 4, with Anton Lesser starring as Falco. These serials were adapted for radio by Mary Cutler, Davis’s schoolmate and one of the author’s oldest friends. Falco novels have been published in more than sixteen languages and are widely acclaimed not only by lovers of detective fiction but also by those fond of the ancient Roman world.

In addition to the Didius Falco series, Davis is the author of several short stories, mostly detective in genre. Of particular note because of their characters based on ancient Roman and Greek personages are “Investigating the Silvius Boys” (1995), about the death of Romulus, founder of Rome, and “Abstain from Beans” (1996), in which the death of the philosopher Pythagoras is solved by the boxer Milo of Croton. Davis has also written introductions to several volumes, including Is Skin Deep, Is Fatal by H. R. F. Keating (1995), Sharpe’s Tiger by Bernard Cornwell (1997), Green for Danger by Christianna Brand (1999), and Life in Ancient Rome by Simon Adams (2005). She served as chair of the Crime Writers’ Association and was honorary United Kingdom Classical Association president from 1997 to 1998.

In 2013, Davis began the Flavia Albia mystery series, a spin-off of the Didius Falco series, with The Ides of April. Falco's adopted daughter, Flavia Albia, investigates murders and continues the family's work. The series is set in Rome in the time of Domitian rule. Novels in the series include Deadly Election (2015), Pandora's Boy (2018), The Grove of the Caesars (2020), Desperate Undertaking (2022), and Death on the Tiber (2024), among others.

Biography

Lindsey Davis grew up in Birmingham, England, and attended Oxford University, where she read English as a Lady Margaret Hall College member. She was employed for several years in the Property Services Agency, where her responsibilities included arranging contracts related to ancient monuments and London Museums and serving as a committee secretary and assistant to a deputy secretary.

After resigning from her position in the civil service, Davis survived for several years on a modest government stipend as she struggled to become a successful writer. Her romantic novel about the British Civil War was runner-up for the 1985 Georgette Heyer Historical Novel Prize. Davis became intrigued by the story of the Roman emperor Vespasian and his mistress Antonia Caenis and produced the novel The Course of Honour (not published until 1997). As she gathered information about first-century Rome for this project, Davis conceived of the fictional Didius Falco, whose first adventure was The Silver Pigs (1989). Davis received the 1989 Author’s Club Best First Novel Award for this novel.

Davis has attributed her interest in first-century Rome to the Roman occupation of her native Britain, where much of the action in The Silver Pigs takes place. Davis brings her hero back to Britain twice, in A Body in the Bath House (2001), which features references to the famous archaeological site known as the Fishbourne Roman Palace, and in The Jupiter Myth (2002), set in Londinium (London). Davis’s career as a British civil servant also helps explain her fascination with the imperial civil service that Falco deals with throughout the series.

After producing Falco novels annually for seventeen years, Davis slowed her pace following the completion of See Delphi and Die (2005). Davis, a corneal transplant recipient, became a staunch advocate of organ donor programs.

Analysis

Some fiction writers who depict the Roman world, like Steven Saylor, tend to set their work during the traumatic time of Julius Caesar and M. Tullius Cicero in the late first century BCE. Others, like Robert Graves, set their works amid the ruthless intrigues of the Julio-Claudian dynasty in the early first century CE. Lindsey Davis’s Didius Falco detective series, however, is unusual among Roman historical novels in its focus on the period surrounding the relatively peaceful reign of the emperor Vespasian (69-79 CE). The emperor, his sons, and his staff appear occasionally in Davis’s novels. Falco faces imperial summons, commissions, and, less frequently, service rewards. Even in absentia, the novels often feel the powerful imperial presence.

In her first novel, The Silver Pigs, Davis introduced her tough hero Falco in 70 CE, early in the reign of Vespasian. Only six years had passed by her seventeenth novel, See Delphi or Die (2005). Because of the relative political stability of Vespasian’s reign, Davis could send her hero around the Roman world, from Britain in The Silver Pigs to Greece in See Delphi or Die, and every place in between.

Several major historical events underlie Davis’s plots. Falco’s older brother M. Didius Festus lost his life fighting in the Fifteenth Legion in Judaea in 68 CE during the First Jewish Revolt, famously described by the historian Josephus (37-c. 100). From about 59 to 66, Falco and his friend Petronius served in Britain in the infamous Second Legion (Augusta), which was disgraced following the uprising of Queen Boudicca in 60/61. Neither man speaks much about the nightmare events of this war, but their military experiences and training prepare them well for their careers as imperial informers and captains of the urban vigiles (or firefighters) in Rome. Inevitably, any Falco adventure calls on the hero to demonstrate hand-to-hand fighting and even fighting dirty, skills acquired growing up on the streets of Rome and honed in the army. As Falco wanders through his beloved Rome during the eighth decade of the first century, he watches the construction of the huge Flavian Amphitheatre, known today as the Colosseum. Vespasian’s great census of 73 CE sets the scene for another Falco adventure in Two for the Lions.

Except for members of the Roman imperial family, all the characters in Davis’s novels are fictional. Many of their names are intentionally humorous and reinforce the satirical tone of the series. The name of Nux, Falco’s pet dog, for example, means “worthless” in Latin and is a commentary on the animal’s usefulness and reliability. The name of Ventriculus, the plumber in Shadows in Bronze (1990), means “Little Pipe.” Davis has said that Leonidas and Draco, the title characters in Two for the Lions, bear the Latin names for herbs, but much more transparent are the references in these names to famous ancient Greeks. Although the name sounds Latin, the name of Smaractus, a greedy husband in Two for the Lions, is humorous because it sounds like “smart act.” Another character in the same novel, Fidelis, acts just the opposite of what his name would suggest.

Davis draws modern parallels throughout the series as she makes fun of various ancient Roman trades, including construction, banking, antiques, and tourism. She uses this Roman backdrop to draw her readers into Falco's ongoing and often intertwined professional and personal adventures. Each Falco mystery is an excuse for the next installment in Falco’s life and family history. The eldest surviving son of a large family, Falco often finds himself involved in complicated transactions with various shrewish sisters and their neglected children and delinquent spouses, as well as his sharp-tongued mother, roguish father, and mysterious uncles. Throughout the series, the reader follows plebeian Falco’s romance with the patrician Helena, from their first encounter in The Silver Pigs to their decision to share a household and eventually to the birth of their daughters Julia Junilla Laeitana (in 73) and Sosia Favonia (in 75). As these events unfold, Falco is transformed from a die-hard bachelor and ladies’ man to a devoted husband and father. Meanwhile, his common-law wife, Helena, is a confidant and partner in many of his adventures.

The striking contrast between Falco’s working-class family and Helena’s wealthy, aristocratic clan occasions frequent awkwardness and humor in the novels. Falco struggles to maintain his dignity and independence in the face of Helena’s powerful family and the foibles of his relatives. Davis’s hero is especially appealing because of his ability to laugh at his own embarrassments and inadequacies, financial and otherwise. The well-educated and sophisticated Helena is an excellent foil to the earthy wiseacre Falco, as she smiles at her lover’s weaknesses and affectionately aids him in his work. Their unlikely union is the glue that holds the reader's attention through the series.

The Silver Pigs

The title of the first Falco novel, The Silver Pigs, includes a metal, as do the titles of the next four novels in the series: Shadows in Bronze, Venus in Copper (1991), The Iron Hand of Mars (1992), and Poseidon’s Gold (1993). The silver pigs are valuable ingots that disappear in apparent connection with the death of a young girl named Sosia Camilla. The complex plot takes Falco from Rome to Britain and eventually into the arms of the recently divorced Helena. To solve the mystery of the missing silver ingots, Falco disguises himself as a miscreant enslaved person condemned to work in the silver mines of Britain, where, near death, he is eventually rescued by Helena. Besides Falco and Helena, Davis introduces several other principal characters of the series, including Falco’s mother, his friend Petronius, Helena’s parents, and the emperor Vespasian and his sons.

Two for the Lions

Two for the Lions is the second of three novels in the Partners trilogy, in which Falco works with a series of potential partners. Falco is appointed as a tax auditor by Vespasian and reluctantly takes on his nemesis Anacrites as a partner as the two pursue imperial tax dodgers. Their investigations lead them to Tripolitania (modern Libya) in North Africa and to murder and intrigue in a gladiatorial school. Justinus, Helena’s younger brother, has run off to Africa with his fiancé in search of a valuable but extinct herb called silphium. As is typical of Falco’s adventures, personal and professional matters merge as Falco travels to Africa with Helena and their infant daughter to deal simultaneously with his wayward brother-in-law and with tax evasion and murder. Antonia Caenis, Vespasian’s mistress, the main character of The Course of Honour (Davis’s only major work of fiction not in the Didius Falco series), makes a brief appearance in this novel.

See Delphi and Die

Helena’s other wayward brother, Aulus, catalyzes the adventures in See Delphi and Die. Sent by his parents to study in Athens, Aulus is diverted by the disappearance of a recent bride. Falco and his wife are sent by her parents to Greece to set Aulus on the right track, but, at Aulus's insistence, they join a party of tourists traveling through Greece to solve the mystery. The Greek setting limits Falco’s encounters with his complex family as he and Helena set out on this adventure without their daughters. Luckily, however, they take along their faithful dog, Nux.

Principal Series Character:

• Marcus Didius Falco, a proud Roman citizen of plebeian rank, was born in 41 CE. After an army career in Britain (59-69 CE), he became a professional informer in his beloved Rome. He led the rough and roguish life of a bachelor and professional informer in his native city of Rome until he met the high-ranking Helena, who became first his girlfriend, then his common-law wife, adviser, partner, and eventually mother of his children. Although an avid supporter of anachronistic Roman Republican principles, Falco often finds himself employed on commission by the imperial bureaucracy or the emperor Vespasian. Falco’s work takes him on dangerous assignments around the Roman world, often accompanied by Helena or her troublesome brothers.

Bibliography

"Books." Lindsey Davis, lindseydavis.co.uk/publications. Accessed 20 July 2024.

Buller, Jeffrey. Historical Novels in the Classroom. American Classical League, 1989.

Davis, Lindsey. “I’m Supposed to Be Famous for My Smells.” Interview by Hannah Stephenson. The Press and Journal, 24 February 2007, p. 10.

Dubose, Martha Hailey, with Margaret Caldwell Thomas. Women of Mystery: The Lives and Works of Notable Women Crime Novelists. St. Martin’s Minotaur, 2000.

"Flavia Albia Series." Macmillan Publishers, us.macmillan.com/series/flaviaalbiaseries. Accessed 20 July 2024.

Hawking, James E. “Roman History Through a Hundred Novels.” Solander, the Magazine of the Historical Novel Society, vol. 1, 1997.

Mench, Fred. “Historical Novels in the Classroom.” Classical World, vol. 87, 1993, pp. 49-54.