The Beggar of Volubilis

‘“You know,” said Flavia thoughtfully. “Almost everyone we’ve met on this trip was pretending to be someone they weren’t.”’

The well-worn theme of appearance versus reality dominates the latest – the fourteenth! – of Caroline Lawrence’s ‘Roman Mysteries’ series of ancient world adventure stories. Set on this occasion in Roman Africa in the first century A.D., the novel sees our four young friends – Flavia, Jonathan, Nubia and Lupus – embark on a journey which will take them from their native Ostia to the deserts of North Africa, a journey focused on at least two searches. One has as its goal the finding of a disappeared uncle, the other the locating of a valuable gem known as ‘Nero’s eye’. Lawrence skilfully combines these in a sequence of events which involves encounters with, among many others, a troupe of travelling players, slave children skeletons, an assortment of animal hunters and a possible descendant of Cleopatra. It is all good colourful fun – Flavia’s moments of discomfiture following an overdose of senna pods are particularly well handled – but, at the same time, it touches quite provocatively on important questions of power and responsibility. A 14-page glossary explaining ‘ancient Roman’ words and phrases evinces the author’s intention, often quite conscious throughout the novel, to educate as well as to entertain.