Medicus

I just finished a marvelously entertaining book called Medicus: A novel of the Roman Empire, by Ruth Downie. The part of the Roman Empire it's concerned with is Britain, circa 117 A.D. The emperor Trajan has just died, and it looks like Hadrian will replace him – that fellow who, as we all know, went on to have a huge wall built between England and Scotland, in an effort to keep the marauding Picts and Scots out. So that gives you an indication of the time period.

It's a period, and a place, about which relatively little is actually known, as the author frankly admits in a Note at the end of the book. Nonetheless, Downie does an impressive job of conveying a believable world in which slavery is taken for granted, in which all bathing is done in public baths – and is done frequently! in sharp contrast to, oh, about the next 1800 years – in which the conquering Romans have been on the scene long enough to be accepted by the local populace – that part of it that hasn't escaped to the mountains of Wales, and will never accept – but is still resented.

There's a lot of humor in the book. A good deal of that humor comes from the fact that the hero is a put-upon doctor for the Roman army (the "Medicus") who can never seem to avoid doing the decent thing, even when it seems to run counter to his own interests, and who is in endless battle with Roman bureaucracy. Indeed, one of the more interesting of the author's touches is showing how ancient bureaucracy could be as ubiquitous and as much of an irritant to those under its thumb as in the modern world. It's also interesting to see how advanced ancient medicine was in many ways, especially when compared with the medical practices of the Dark Ages and medieval period that followed. They did cataract surgery!

At any rate, the often-grouchy Gais Petreius Ruso makes the book, as he tries to concentrate on the guide to first aid in the field that he's trying to write (in warm wax, with a stylus) while the puppies his house mate has inflicted on the household run riot, as he sadly wishes the slave he bought in the street to keep her from being abused could cook better, as he keeps insisting "No, I'm not!," every time somebody says, "Oh, you must be the doctor who's looking into these killings."

I'll admit to being a big fan of historical mysteries, and the further back in time, the better, mainly because the more ancient the history, the more interesting I find it. I have very much enjoyed the Brother Cadfael mysteries of Ellis Peters, the Catherine Levendeur mysteries of Sharan Newman – both of these series being set in the 1130s and 40s, when Stephen and Matilda were fighting over who got to be ruler of England (and think how different history might have been, if Matilda had won), although the Cadfael books are set in England, and the Levendeur ones in France – and I've also enjoyed the Justin de Quincy mysteries of Sharon Kay Penman, which are set at the very end of the 12th century, when Eleanor of Aquitaine's son John is continuously plotting to replace his brother, Richard the Lion Heart, as king of England (Justin de Quincy serves Eleanor – the first book in the series is called The Queen's Man – and he solves mysteries along the way).

In all of these I am as interested in learning about how people lived in these times and places, as I am in following a story, and having a mystery solved. And all of these books do a splendid job of giving one a real sense of what it might have been like to live then, and there.

Obviously Medicus describes a world much more ancient, and about which much less is known, but we still get a good sense of what it might have been like, then, and there.