I sometimes wonder if Romans looked at their December babies the same way we look at ours: “Aw, poor thing! Sucks for them to be born so close to Saturnalia!” And if Roman parents were adamant about not letting little Septimus’s birthday get lost in the celebrations. “We’re not putting the decorations up until after lunch so he still gets a proper birthday.”
But, you know, probably not. Birthdays, unless you’re super important, are more of a modern celebration.
You know who was super important though? Nero. It was his birthday yesterday, December 15, and he sure as heck had some big birthday parties. One of the biggest was his Juvenalia, which was a celebration of poetry, song and dance to commemorate him shaving his first beard and officially entering adulthood.
What's the perfect gift to get the guy who had literally everything?
Juvenalia, I guess!
The ebook is out now, with the paperback and audiobook to follow very soon. You can grab your copy at your store of choice here: https://books2read.com/Valerius2
In Juvenalia, you'll meet Nero for the first time. And he's not the Nero you know from history. That guy is right around the corner though, and pretty soon all of Rome is going to know it.
Rome, 58 AD.
Aemilius Valerius is on the up and up. His reputation has been rehabilitated, he has established a fledgling career, and he has new friends in very powerful places. When one of those new friends, the poet Lucan, is attacked, Valerius is given an offer he can’t refuse: find the culprits before they strike again. But when every man in Lucan’s circle of poets and playwrights and artists is potentially a suspect, each one of them competing for the emperor’s favour, how is Valerius supposed to tell the difference between petty jealousy and murderous rage?
Meanwhile, the Vigile Junius Atreus has his own violent crime to investigate, and the more he and Valerius dig around, the murkier and more dangerous things become.
Can Valerius and Atreus solve the crimes and save their reputations—and their lives—before the Juvenalia, Nero’s birthday extravaganza of poetry, plays, musical performances and dance? On the plus side, if they get murdered, at least they won’t have to sit through that.
Commentaires