1.Story Statement:During the Gothic Wars at the end of the Roman Empire, a renowned scientist must protect herself and her intellectually disabled adult daughter when they flee Rome.
2.Antagonist:Bishop Cassius of Narni (a real person) encounters the protagonists, Cynthia Plotina and her young adult daughter Constantia, shortly after they have fled Rome to resettle in Umbria.The Bishop falls in lust with Constantia, indifferent to her psychological issues. He rationalizes his obsession with Constantia by telling her (and himself) that a heartfelt commitment to Christian piety might heal her of her trauma.Cynthia’s protection of her daughter angers Cassius, who, after failing to gain access to Constantia, turns the town against Cynthia because of her scholarly accomplishment and religious skepticism.The Bishop also fears that Cynthia’s efforts to educate the children of the region and bring literacy to the slaves and peasants will cause social dislocation, and threaten his own authority and income.
3.Three Titles:
A.The Roman Women
B.The Illustrious Plotinii
C.The Temple of Janus
4.Comparables
A.Robert Harris’ Cicero Trilogy (Conspirata, Imperium, Dictator) – These books are set in the end days of the Roman Republic. The trilogy reflects the political concerns and lifestyles of the leaders of both the city of Rome and the empire.My novel takes place about 600 years later, at the very end of the Empire.I’ve also made many of the main characters (including the protagonist) women, slaves, soldiers and clerics, and tried to bring into more focus the material and social circumstances of daily life for middle and working class Romans in the context of siege, plague, and famine.Harris’s books are voiced in the first person of Cicero’s personal assistant; by contrast, I’ve written in third-person omniscient, to more plausibly portray the inner thoughts of characters.
B.Steven Saylor’s Roma – Roma aims to give the reader, through several historical vignettes over several hundred years, a sense of the breadth of Rome’s history (Roma appears to be a “one-off”; most of his books are “historical mystery” set in that time period).My hope is to give the same sense of breadth of time without bogging down the movement of the story (which is not discrete vignettes but a family’s history during the years 536-547).Saylor’s characters are generally upper-class and immediately adjacent to actual historical figures whose stories are being told in each chapter.Likewise, the fictional family of Senator Junius Plotinus are associates of future Pope Pelagius, Emperor Justinian, and Gothic King Totila.
C.Classic influences: Gore Vidal’s Julian; John Williams’ Augustus; George Gissing’s Veranilda and Robert Graves’ Count Belisarius (two of the few English-language novels about this time period); James Michener (master of the explicitly didactic bestseller).
5.Log line: At the end of the Roman Empire, an illustrious scholar and scientist from one of Rome’s Senatorial families and her disabled adult daughter must flee to the countryside, learn how to survive, and overcome a Catholic Bishop bent on their destruction.
6.A.Primary Conflict – Cynthia has acted as a primary caretaker for her daughter, who became intellectually disabled after a Senator attempted to rape her.When they fled for the countryside, she didn’t imagine she would have to devote any more time than usual to her daughter’s care.But Bishop Cassius has focused his sexual interest on the daughter, notwithstanding that she is engaged to marry a Goth from Rome and that the Bishop is married.The Bishop is repeatedly frustrated in his amorous pursuits by Cynthia, and his frustration vents itself in violent antipathy toward her.He publicly accuses Cynthia of being a heretic and an atheist, and attempts to drive her and Constantia from their estate.There are several scenes involving this conflict; the first comes when the Bishop and his wife visit Cynthia’s estate for a dinner in which the Bishop makes clear his romantic interest in Constantia.Cynthia is offended, angry, confused that a Bishop would be so blind to Constantia’s situation – her disability, her emotional fragility, her engagement – in order to simply satisfy his own urges.
B.Secondary Social conflict – Cynthia is a wealthy woman from the city, accustomed to a life where she is waited on by slaves.In the country, the slaves make it clear that they very much want her and her daughter to help out around the estate.She had prided herself on her egalitarian attitudes, but never thought she really would be placed in a situation where she would have to actually engage in menial labor.In order to show her good faith, she begins, slowly, to become a co-worker with the slaves and tenant farmers on the estate.In an early scene of the novel, the slaves of her estate meet with her as a group in order to ask her to start helping out. Her heart sinks as she realizes that there are many slaves and only one of her.Without the power of imperial soldiers or a city watch to enforce master-slave relations (soldiers having died in the plague or been shipped out to the battlefield), she realizes she needs to tread lightly and demonstrate her good faith.
7.Major settings in the novel:
A.The City of Rome – Primarily the Plotiniis’ villa on the Caelian Hill, the docks of Rome, the Senate Curia, St. Peter’s Church, the Lateran Palace, The Pincian Palace on Pincian Hill, headquarters of the city’s garrison of soldiers from the Eastern Roman Empire; middle class apartment buildings; a bakery, the abandoned and closed temples of the Roman Forum, and the new churches and monasteries going up in their place.My goal is to give the readers a sense of a city that once held a million people within its walls, but is now virtually abandoned, and beginning to move toward a new life as the world's spiritual capital.
B.Totila’s encampments: The Gothic general leads a force of five thousand men from a tent in the center of a large tent city,a half-mile square, not including a stabling area, a blacksmith and cobbler's tents, a surgeon's tent, a kitchen area and mess tent, hundreds of vans carrying weapons, shields arrows; vans carrying blacksmiths and armorer’s tools; and an area for camp followers (several prostitutes, and a few families).At first, the encampment is about six miles west of Rome on the Tiber; later, about a half-mile from the walls.
C.Taginae:Taginae (modern name Gualdo Tadino) is a town on the Flaminian Way, about 200 miles north of Rome in Umbria and thirty miles east of Perugia.At the time of the novel, the town has about 5,000 inhabitants, which makes it a town of moderate importance; it is a market town for the region but it is not important enough to have walls.The town is built around a central square with a fountain; on one side is a temple of Jupiter, on the other a church built in basilica style.Small shops line the Flaminian Way as it goes through the center of town.
D.Plotinii Estate:The Plotinii’s estate is about five miles north, also on the Flaminian way.The estate is about ten square miles, making it an estate of moderate size for Italy in the late Empire.Like most villas in Italy, rooms that were once opulent have been converted for other uses or left to deteriorate.The splendid atrium featuring a statuary garden with lined colonnades on either side has been converted to run-in sheds, the reflecting pool in the center being used to water the pigs and sheep. The detailed mosaics of the floors and murals on the walls are covered in dirt and grime, but still faintly visible. The fine furnishings are long gone, and have been replaced by primitive wooden furniture made by the slaves for their use; the estate manager and his wife have been living there for some time.The estate comprises blacksmith shops, grape and olive presses, wine and oil storage facilities, a small pottery and brick factory, a weaving room, three large slave barracks, stone cottages for slaves and tenant farmers, and a bathhouse for the staff next to a spring.A small aqueduct carries water from the spring to the main house.
E.Constantinople:Marcus, Constantia’s older brother, has fled to Constantinople instead of staying at Taginae with his mother and sister.Constantinople in A.D. 546 is what Rome looked like four hundred years previously – a marble-clad city teeming with life, crowded streets, people of all ages and ethnicities heading in all directions, the smell of horse dung everywhere. As in Rome, the royal palace is built adjacent to an enormous hippodrome. Marcus lives in a relatively modest apartment of only four rooms on the Third Hill.Much of the action takes place at Justinian’s palace, in the office of the Prime Minister; the opulent audience chamber; the private dining room of Justinian and Theodora; and in the equally opulent wing of Theodora’s adult daughter, Pruscilla, the daughter that the royal family doesn’t wish to speak of.Pruscilla’s wing has a beautiful outdoor patio overlooking the Mediterranean, where Pruscilla and Marcus plot and plan. In a later book, much of the action takes place at Placidia Palace, the home of the Papal apocrisariat to the Eastern Empire’s court.
New York Pitch and Algonkian Pre-event Assignments - 2022
in New York Write to Pitch 2023 and 2024
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1. Story Statement: During the Gothic Wars at the end of the Roman Empire, a renowned scientist must protect herself and her intellectually disabled adult daughter when they flee Rome.
2. Antagonist: Bishop Cassius of Narni (a real person) encounters the protagonists, Cynthia Plotina and her young adult daughter Constantia, shortly after they have fled Rome to resettle in Umbria. The Bishop falls in lust with Constantia, indifferent to her psychological issues. He rationalizes his obsession with Constantia by telling her (and himself) that a heartfelt commitment to Christian piety might heal her of her trauma. Cynthia’s protection of her daughter angers Cassius, who, after failing to gain access to Constantia, turns the town against Cynthia because of her scholarly accomplishment and religious skepticism. The Bishop also fears that Cynthia’s efforts to educate the children of the region and bring literacy to the slaves and peasants will cause social dislocation, and threaten his own authority and income.
3. Three Titles:
A. The Roman Women
B. The Illustrious Plotinii
C. The Temple of Janus
4. Comparables
A. Robert Harris’ Cicero Trilogy (Conspirata, Imperium, Dictator) – These books are set in the end days of the Roman Republic. The trilogy reflects the political concerns and lifestyles of the leaders of both the city of Rome and the empire. My novel takes place about 600 years later, at the very end of the Empire. I’ve also made many of the main characters (including the protagonist) women, slaves, soldiers and clerics, and tried to bring into more focus the material and social circumstances of daily life for middle and working class Romans in the context of siege, plague, and famine. Harris’s books are voiced in the first person of Cicero’s personal assistant; by contrast, I’ve written in third-person omniscient, to more plausibly portray the inner thoughts of characters.
B. Steven Saylor’s Roma – Roma aims to give the reader, through several historical vignettes over several hundred years, a sense of the breadth of Rome’s history (Roma appears to be a “one-off”; most of his books are “historical mystery” set in that time period). My hope is to give the same sense of breadth of time without bogging down the movement of the story (which is not discrete vignettes but a family’s history during the years 536-547). Saylor’s characters are generally upper-class and immediately adjacent to actual historical figures whose stories are being told in each chapter. Likewise, the fictional family of Senator Junius Plotinus are associates of future Pope Pelagius, Emperor Justinian, and Gothic King Totila.
C. Classic influences: Gore Vidal’s Julian; John Williams’ Augustus; George Gissing’s Veranilda and Robert Graves’ Count Belisarius (two of the few English-language novels about this time period); James Michener (master of the explicitly didactic bestseller).
5. Log line: At the end of the Roman Empire, an illustrious scholar and scientist from one of Rome’s Senatorial families and her disabled adult daughter must flee to the countryside, learn how to survive, and overcome a Catholic Bishop bent on their destruction.
6. A. Primary Conflict – Cynthia has acted as a primary caretaker for her daughter, who became intellectually disabled after a Senator attempted to rape her. When they fled for the countryside, she didn’t imagine she would have to devote any more time than usual to her daughter’s care. But Bishop Cassius has focused his sexual interest on the daughter, notwithstanding that she is engaged to marry a Goth from Rome and that the Bishop is married. The Bishop is repeatedly frustrated in his amorous pursuits by Cynthia, and his frustration vents itself in violent antipathy toward her. He publicly accuses Cynthia of being a heretic and an atheist, and attempts to drive her and Constantia from their estate. There are several scenes involving this conflict; the first comes when the Bishop and his wife visit Cynthia’s estate for a dinner in which the Bishop makes clear his romantic interest in Constantia. Cynthia is offended, angry, confused that a Bishop would be so blind to Constantia’s situation – her disability, her emotional fragility, her engagement – in order to simply satisfy his own urges.
B. Secondary Social conflict – Cynthia is a wealthy woman from the city, accustomed to a life where she is waited on by slaves. In the country, the slaves make it clear that they very much want her and her daughter to help out around the estate. She had prided herself on her egalitarian attitudes, but never thought she really would be placed in a situation where she would have to actually engage in menial labor. In order to show her good faith, she begins, slowly, to become a co-worker with the slaves and tenant farmers on the estate. In an early scene of the novel, the slaves of her estate meet with her as a group in order to ask her to start helping out. Her heart sinks as she realizes that there are many slaves and only one of her. Without the power of imperial soldiers or a city watch to enforce master-slave relations (soldiers having died in the plague or been shipped out to the battlefield), she realizes she needs to tread lightly and demonstrate her good faith.
7. Major settings in the novel:
A. The City of Rome – Primarily the Plotiniis’ villa on the Caelian Hill, the docks of Rome, the Senate Curia, St. Peter’s Church, the Lateran Palace, The Pincian Palace on Pincian Hill, headquarters of the city’s garrison of soldiers from the Eastern Roman Empire; middle class apartment buildings; a bakery, the abandoned and closed temples of the Roman Forum, and the new churches and monasteries going up in their place. My goal is to give the readers a sense of a city that once held a million people within its walls, but is now virtually abandoned, and beginning to move toward a new life as the world's spiritual capital.
B. Totila’s encampments: The Gothic general leads a force of five thousand men from a tent in the center of a large tent city, a half-mile square, not including a stabling area, a blacksmith and cobbler's tents, a surgeon's tent, a kitchen area and mess tent, hundreds of vans carrying weapons, shields arrows; vans carrying blacksmiths and armorer’s tools; and an area for camp followers (several prostitutes, and a few families). At first, the encampment is about six miles west of Rome on the Tiber; later, about a half-mile from the walls.
C. Taginae: Taginae (modern name Gualdo Tadino) is a town on the Flaminian Way, about 200 miles north of Rome in Umbria and thirty miles east of Perugia. At the time of the novel, the town has about 5,000 inhabitants, which makes it a town of moderate importance; it is a market town for the region but it is not important enough to have walls. The town is built around a central square with a fountain; on one side is a temple of Jupiter, on the other a church built in basilica style. Small shops line the Flaminian Way as it goes through the center of town.
D. Plotinii Estate: The Plotinii’s estate is about five miles north, also on the Flaminian way. The estate is about ten square miles, making it an estate of moderate size for Italy in the late Empire. Like most villas in Italy, rooms that were once opulent have been converted for other uses or left to deteriorate. The splendid atrium featuring a statuary garden with lined colonnades on either side has been converted to run-in sheds, the reflecting pool in the center being used to water the pigs and sheep. The detailed mosaics of the floors and murals on the walls are covered in dirt and grime, but still faintly visible. The fine furnishings are long gone, and have been replaced by primitive wooden furniture made by the slaves for their use; the estate manager and his wife have been living there for some time. The estate comprises blacksmith shops, grape and olive presses, wine and oil storage facilities, a small pottery and brick factory, a weaving room, three large slave barracks, stone cottages for slaves and tenant farmers, and a bathhouse for the staff next to a spring. A small aqueduct carries water from the spring to the main house.
E. Constantinople: Marcus, Constantia’s older brother, has fled to Constantinople instead of staying at Taginae with his mother and sister. Constantinople in A.D. 546 is what Rome looked like four hundred years previously – a marble-clad city teeming with life, crowded streets, people of all ages and ethnicities heading in all directions, the smell of horse dung everywhere. As in Rome, the royal palace is built adjacent to an enormous hippodrome. Marcus lives in a relatively modest apartment of only four rooms on the Third Hill. Much of the action takes place at Justinian’s palace, in the office of the Prime Minister; the opulent audience chamber; the private dining room of Justinian and Theodora; and in the equally opulent wing of Theodora’s adult daughter, Pruscilla, the daughter that the royal family doesn’t wish to speak of. Pruscilla’s wing has a beautiful outdoor patio overlooking the Mediterranean, where Pruscilla and Marcus plot and plan. In a later book, much of the action takes place at Placidia Palace, the home of the Papal apocrisariat to the Eastern Empire’s court.