The Strange Case of the Growth of Roman Historical Mysteries

The Strange Case of the Growth of Roman Historical Mysteries

     One of the more unexpected and  seemingly unlikely aspects in the growth of mystery stories set in historical times is that of the popularity of Roman historical mysteries.  This is a mystery in and of itself since there was no such ting as a Roman police force, to say nothing of a Roman Imperial Bureau of Investigation.  There is no mention in the writings of any ancient Roman historians of real life mysteries or of investigators into these mysteries. There would seem to be but little basis for mystery stories set in Roman times.

     And yet, these mystery novels and original anthologies of mystery stories set in Roman times do exist.  This is especially striking since so many of these stories seem to have little basis in historical reality.  For instance, in any mystery novel set from the far ancient past to the Enlightenment, there is little or no mention of torture.  And yet in real life, torture was the means most used to solve mysteries.  How historical is to have a mystery novel set tin times when torture was the preferred method, if not in fact the  only method really used to "solve" cases and the very word torture does not even come up?

     One wonders why the popularity of what appears to be non-reality based mystery stories that seem more like fantasies than anything even remotely historical.  And we have not even come to what is the central problem of so many historical mystery works in general.   Namely, that so many of these stories all too often have nothing more than a thin veneer of history to them and often fudge whatever historical facts make their way in those works.  These works may be great as mysteries, but often they are poor from a purely historical standpoint.

     Its a mystery all right.