https://ancientrome.org/tags/steven-saylor/ Recent content in Steven Saylor on Ancient Rome Hugo en-us Tue, 05 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://ancientrome.org/steven-saylors-roma-sub-rosa-crime-in-the-republic/ Tue, 05 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://ancientrome.org/steven-saylors-roma-sub-rosa-crime-in-the-republic/ <p>Steven Saylor began publishing his Roma Sub Rosa mystery series in 1991 with Roman Blood, a novel centered on one of Cicero&rsquo;s actual legal cases — the defense of Sextus Roscius against a charge of parricide — and has continued through more than a dozen novels, each using a historical crime or legal proceeding as the vehicle for an exploration of late Republican Rome. The series&rsquo; detective, Gordianus the Finder, operates as an investigator for hire in a society that had no professional police force, appearing at the margins of the major political events of the period and providing a ground-level perspective on the world that the official historical record&rsquo;s focus on senators and generals does not supply.</p>