...a thief, a slayer, a weaver...

I have to wonder if there is such a thing as doing just enough research for a simple adventure -- when the period you want to write about isn't in the shallow end of the reference pool. The late bronze age Aegean isn't exactly the setting you can throw a "Centurion" and "Gladius" at it and call it a day. I am starting to feel that by the time I've collected what I need to sword-and-sandal in the Hittite Empire, I'll be significantly on the way towards a proper historical novel.




Alas, I've gone far North of that question. I've become...intrigued. By historical questions, by the kinds of questions that people write papers about. I'm reading quite heavily now into not just the technology of garment-making but the status and social mobility, living conditions and arrangements of the weavers in the palatial societies of Mycenae. Not exactly Conan stuff here.

Yet, I can totally see my Cretan mountain girl as the main protagonist of a novel. And that brings up so many interesting plotting questions and opportunities. Her conflict on Crete is of course with the Mycenae majority (I'm simplifying, of course...Crete is home to a hybrid and unique polyglot blend of multiple cultures both from mainland Greece and looking back towards the Minoans).

And the Mycenae are tentatively identified as part of the Sea Peoples who fought against Ramses III (and were most certainly involved in raids and conquest in Anatolia...Wilusa most definitely included.) Which means her conflicts as she tries to understand and make way in their society are echoed in the larger movements that will shake the known world.

Does this mean my Mycenaean mercenary is not the best viewpoint character? I'm already quite annoyed that my outlines have so far not included any Hittite voices, and out of the three preeminent empires of the Bronze Age Collapse, it is the one that most assuredly, you know, collapsed.

It's a toss-up; I lose all that lovely stuff about the Homeric musings on honor, and the chance to crib from Xenephon, but I gain...not having to read quite so much Classical literature to get it all "right."

 (I had another of those "coming together" moments whilst listening to a commentary on The Anabasis; Xenephon had gone to Delphi and his tutor complained he asked the wrong question of the oracle. Leading me to remember said tutor was Socrates, who unlike Plato had no problem with the concept of divination. Or at least the commentators tell us; we don't even have a Boswell for Socrates; mostly philosophers and playwrights with their own axes to grind.)

(And Xenephon didn't even test his oracles first with a turtle and a goat in a bathtub...or however that one goes. Not that it did Croesus any good. Oracles; the original GIGO. Xenephon probably knew that story. Yes, it happened before him...Croesus lost his empire to Cyrus the Great, and it was Cyrus the Not-So-Nearly-As-Great who thought he deserved to inherit the Persian Empire of his illustrious ancestor and was willing to enlist Greek mercenaries to help him establish his position. Pity he got himself killed just as they were winning, stranding Xenophon and his friends....and what was I saying about not wanting to go too far into the Classical Age?)

And, yeah, if my characters end up at Wilusa at any point I'm right back in the shadow of Homer again. Like Herodotus, you may hate him, but he's also the source for so very much you just can't get from anywhere else.




Still, I want my characters to do something besides being flotsam on the tides of war (or is that jetsam...) Assuming I don't want to go the full alternate history route (I've just started reading a trilogy in which the Library of Alexandria is saved from burning by some of the mechanisms of Herron...basically it's Steam Punk Romans) then a tempting fall-back position is "yes, but we saved the world from a greater evil."

I'm backing off a bit from gods. Again, depends on the culture, but take your classical Greek Gods. You can fight them, sure. Slaves revolted against the Roman Empire, often enough that they started numbering their "Servile Wars." And always lost. Like the Romans, the Greek Gods would make sure to punish the transgressor horribly to serve as an example to others. This conceit of beating the gods themselves is a peculiarity of our own age.

There's a bit late in The Iliad when Athena gives an ordinary soldier to power to blacken Aphrodite's eye. Ares jumps up in her defense and the soldier gives him a smack, too. At which point basically all of the gods (Athena, certainly) step in with a "Too much, boy. Back off, now." (No more is said about Aphrodite getting driven from the field...at this point all the gods have had it with her.)

(There's something here too about how the Cthulhu Mythos is often misunderstood. The sight of Elder Gods doesn't drive one mad because they are so ugly. It is instead a cold rational glimpse into the reality of an enormous ancient and very much uncaring universe that does it. We, according to the Mythos, don't do well with our protective illusions stripped away.)



And that's even assuming the gods are real. Obviously they are real to my characters. It is hard for someone from a blue state to really understand the absolute permeation of gods and spirits of this time (or so many others...really, more the rule than not). It just isn't a question that occurs to most to ask...and even a strong agnostic is probably going to play Pascal's Wager anyhow.

The most certain thing I can say is after months of research...I am further from actually writing than I was when I started.