Book Review: "Dominus: A Novel of the Roman Empire"

The concluding volume in Steven Saylor's trilogy about the Pinarii family follows the fading fortunes of the Roman Empire.

I distinctly remember the first time I encountered the historical fiction of Steven Saylor. I was browsing through a Dollar General near my hometown, and I happened to notice a lovely little book called Catilina’s Riddle nestled on the wire rack of discount paperbacks that are a key part of every Dollar General. When I read the back cover and realized that it was a murder mystery set in ancient Rome, I knew that I had to buy it. In short order, I discovered Saylor’s skill as both a historical fiction and a mystery writer, and I was soon making my way through the numerous other novels starring his detective, Gordianus the Finder. A year or two after that, I saw that he’d just published a generational novel called Roma, which followed the fortunes of a pair of families as they navigated the rise and fall of the Roman Republic. Saylor continued the story in Empire, in which the Pinarius family had to swim in the same treacherous waters as the likes of Caligula, Nero, and Domitian, concluding with the reign of Hadrian. 

Now, we finally have the concluding volume of the trilogy, Dominus, which continues the saga of the Pinarii as they live through the golden reign of Marcus Aurelius, his demented and dangerous son Commodus, the troubled rule of the Severan Dynastay, the tumult of the Crisis of the Third Century and, finally, the rise of Constnatine and the victory of Christianity. Through it all, they hold tightly to the ancient traditions of their family, including the talisman known as the fascinus, a piece of gold shaped like a winged phallus. 

As has been the case since Roma, it’s a pleasure to spend more time with the Pinarii. By this point, having accompanied them through two other books, you almost feel as if these are people that you know and, just as importantly, whose ancestors you also know, so that when they encounter the vicissitudes of history--whether that be the great plague that sweeps the Empire during the reign of Marcus Aurelius or the fire that destroys large parts of the city--you feel with them. It’s precisely because you know how much their family has endured through the centuries that you more richly appreciate their ability to survive and, sometimes, to thrive. 

Through the eyes of the various members of this family we also see the changes in the city itself. As generation succeeds generation, the past continues to recede, and while we as readers can remember what life was like under Marcus Aurelius, the characters can only access it through either family tradition or through the buildings that remain. Unfortunately, later generations don’t have nearly as much respect for the past as they probably should, a dynamic that shows itself most clearly when Constantine, a rather boorish and brutal man, mocks Marcus as a buffoon and orders that the statuary of the past be repurposed for his own vanity. 

Indeed, it’s rather wrenching to see the city of Rome endure so much tragedy, particularly since these events often adversely affect the Pinarii. Several times, we watch them skirt disaster, and there are even moments when the family comes perilously close to complete collapse. At one point, their patriarch perishes in a deadly fire while the family workshop goes up in flames around him, leaving his descendants to do their best to rebuild the family fortunes. Dominus, however, is very much a novel of survival against all odds, and somehow the family manages to endure through even the worst events and the most inept emperors. 

And boy are there some inept emperors here. Some, like Commodus, are truly deranged, men who can’t seem to help themselves as they are driven to greater and greater follies by their own megalomania. Others, like the unfortunate Antoninus (known to history as Elagabalus, after the god that he worshiped) are more tragic, young men lifted to the pinnacle of political power by their scheming relatives, with no real ability to run the Roman state. Through the eyes of the Pinarii, we see Antoninus as an unfortunate young man, manipulated by his family and utterly unsuited to ruling. His execution by the Praetorians is a grisly scene, made all the more so because we know that, despite his flamboyance and his odd behavior, Antoninus was a sensitive young man.

For me, one of the most pleasurable aspects of Dominus was seeing members of the Pinarii encountering the women of the Severan Dynasty. For some years now I’ve been fascinated with these women and the role that they played in the dynastic politics of the age, and we get to meet all four of them here: Julia Domna (wife of Emperor Septimius Severus); her elder sister Julia Maesa (who schemed to bring not one but two of her grandsons to the throne); and Maesa’s daughters Soaemias (mother of Elagabalus/Antoninus) and Mamaea (mother of Alexander Severus). In Saylor’s capable hands they’re more than just stereotypes; they’re women doing the best that they can in a world in which their gender bars them from actual political power. 

There’s a lot here for Roman history buffs, including some lesser-known historical figures. Philip the Arab, the emperor who reigned over the one-thousandth anniversary of the founding of the city of Rome, emerges here as a figure who almost managed to avert the unfolding crisis before he was himself overthrown by a usurper. Most startling, and exciting, we also get to see the great Zenobia, the woman who defied Rome and came close to ruling a breakaway kingdom before being defeated by the Emperor Aurelian. Saylor takes advantage of the fact that her later life is largely undocumented to posit that she married a member of the Pinarii, thus saving the family from extinction. She’s an enigmatic character to the end, and that’s precisely what makes her so compelling. 

Ultimately, it falls to Constantine to avert the empire’s headlong tumble into destruction. Of all of the emperors that populate Dominus, Constantine is in some ways the most contradictory, for while he was undoubtedly a skilled general and an effective emperor, he was also brutal and unforgiving to those who betrayed him, including his son and his second wife. He grows to detest the city of Rome, and so he chooses to create a brand new capital in the east, and he gives the Pinarii a choice: follow him and keep their family fortunes, or stay in the backwater that is the old city and face ruin and oblivion. Though it pains them, they ultimately take his offer, leaving behind the city that gave birth to them, along with the fascinum. There is, I think, something poignant and melancholy about the final scenes of the novel, in which the Pinarii leave their precious family relic in a secret chamber beneath a temple. It’s been so key to the family fortunes that it feels like a betrayal to leave it behind. Fortunately, there’s a faint hint that some subsequent Pinarius extracts it, and it’s nice to think that somewhere, in the fictional present, a descendant of the family still has it, tucked away in a corner or a chest in an attic.

As he did with Roma and Empire, Saylor allows us to see the unfolding of history, how the great structural events of an age impact the lives of actual people. Just as importantly, he also allows us to see how those events are remembered and distorted by subsequent generations. The Pinarii have the (mis)fortune to live through some tumultuous and dangerous times, and their senatorial status and proximity to the imperial family means that they have a part to play in numerous historical events, and a member of their family even gives Constantine the key he needs to execute his wife Fausta in a particularly gruesome fashion (suffocated in an extremely hot bath). As readers, we encounter the sweep of historical change, at once both exhilarating and terrifying. 

Given that, with a few exceptions, the Pinarii are strong believers in the traditional religion of Rome, one senses in this novel a great deal of hostility toward Christianity and its impact on the Empire. Long shunned and often persecuted by the state, the Christians finally find their savior in Constantine, who sees in the faith a means of uniting the Empire under one dominion. Before long, they’ve begun to rewrite history itself, so that incidents like the Rain Miracle, at first seen as an intervention by the Roman gods, becomes instead a parable about the power of the Christian God. Though some members of the family do end up converting, for the most part they insist on the old ways, and Saylor excels at showing us just how traumatic it was for many old-fashioned Romans to see their Empire taken over by what was at first a renegade cult.

All in all, I absolutely loved Dominus. As he always does, Saylor immerses us in the world of ancient Rome, allowing us to feel as if we’re witnessing and feeling history itself unfold. My only complaint is that it seems as if this is going to be the end of the line for the Pinarii. While I’m satisfied with the conclusion, I can’t help but wish that we’d see how the family fares in the fledgling Byzantine Empire. One can well imagine Saylor bringing Byzantium to glittering life with as much skill as he did ancient Rome. For now, though, I’m happy that the Pinarii are alive and well, poised to attain the success they so richly deserve.