The Seven Wonders: A Novel Of The Ancient World, by Steven Saylor

I have a special unease about a book like this. The author wants to portray his character as sort of a detective, a solver of mysteries, while also painting the main character, one Gordianus, as a praiseworthy and cultured Roman among the decadent late republic. It is clear that the author wants the reader to think highly of his main character, and highly of themselves for being similarly cosmopolitan and open-minded and smarter than the average late republican American, more than likely, in our own corrupt age. There are several essential problems with this book, though, that keep it from being even at the usual level of escapist mystery fare like this. For one, the book is a prequel, so the author already has a character in mind that he has written about and has already talked about in detail, and is returning to an earlier, more innocent (?) time in the character’s life when he was first sexually exploiting the slaves of others to lose his virginity in Ephesus and exploring his enjoyment of bisexuality for the first time (but, we may imagine, probably not the last) in Rhodes, as well as speaking out on behalf of a local transsexual who is suspected of being involved in a poisoning in Halicarnassus, all of which he does in this volume (spoiler alert). A second problem with this book is that much of it is made up of several short stories that the author has already published, giving this an episodic feeling, albeit one loosely tied together through related characters and a plot that I will get into later.

This novel is about 300 pages or so. It begins with a map of the seven wonders and ends with a chronology as well as an author’s note that discusses his own search for information about the Seven Wonders. In between there are ten chapters, some of which appear to have been independently published as short stories. The first chapter, a prelude in Rome, shows Gordianus being entrusted by his father to the care of one Greek poet Antipater who is pretending, for various reasons, to be dead and taking a false identity to travel under (1). They travel to Ephesus, where they get caught up in a murder mystery involving a corrupt high priest (2) and then hoof it to Halicarnassus where they enjoy the permissive hospitality of a heteara (upper-class courtesan) who is related to Antipater (3). After this, they travel to Olympia to see the Olympics, where they get caught up in politics involving Mithridates and where Gordianus helps a young athlete avoid ritual pollution and win two events (4). This is followed by an interlude in the ruins of Corinth where Gordianus escapes being killed as a result of his heathen piety and avoidance of greed (5). This is followed by an exploration of the Colossus of Rhodes and the author’s own unpleasant harassment from a monumental Gaul (6). More relationships between temple robbing and heathen piety find themselves explored when Gordianus and Antipater visit Babylon and ponder over how to increase tourism there (7). A trip to the Great Pyramid leads to an exploration of mummies as loan collateral and the missing Sphinx, along with an erotic experience the author has with a spirit being pretending to be Isis (8), whom Gordianus credulously believes is the goddess herself. This is followed by an exploration of the use of the mirrors of the Pharos Lighthouse for secret communication, which involves Gordianus in more skullduggery involving Mithridates and those supporting him against Rome (9). The book then ends with Gordianus hanging out in Alexandria avoiding the Social War back at home and purchasing a Hebrew slave girl bound to be exploited that he, curiously and ominously, labels as the Eighth World Wonder (10).

My biggest problem with this work, and one that is a problem only for me and for readers like me, is that this book wants to engage with the culture of Second Temple Judaism, and show that this character is engaging with such a culture, without having any respect or interest in following the rather strict moral laws of God. There is nothing in this novel that suggests that Gordianus, or the author, are at all interested in following the rigorous moral laws of God as discussed in the Bible. Not only does the author and his protagonist have the morals of the heathens that Paul condemns in Romans 1, but similarly they are both far too deeply interested in writing about pious (or perhaps not) Jews, including a Jewess whom the protagonist buys as a slave at the very end of this book, while also being far too deeply credulous and interested in the heathen worship of demons, whom the lead character appears to have some interaction with, at least one of them impersonating Isis. This is a novel of the ancient world without the joy of escapism, only the seedy immorality, casual cynicism, and deep and unpleasant interest in politics of all kinds that make our own time so unpleasant and that are transported to an equally unpleasant and repellant version of the past that only puts the evils of the present day in our face.