Down the Research Rabbit Hole by KM Rockwood

I love reading stories that transport me to another time and place. If a historical mystery is good, I’m either reading it or hurrying with necessary tasks to get back to it.

These are such fun to read. All writing takes a lot of hard work, but would writing historical be fun? So many authors offer polished, enthralling stories. They manage to incorporate vivid details, outdated mores, and characters who would not make it in the modern world even if they were to exist.

Could I write a story like that? Would I enjoy it?

Uh, not likely.

I should have learned my lesson a few years ago when I wrote a story about the Catoctin Iron Furnace just after the Civil War. The hours I spent reading old newspapers, some of them still on microfiche (remember that?) Visits to the ruins of the Catoctin furnace and museum. Then on to the Cornwall Furnace, another iron furnace that had been restored as historic site. Delving into the internet, only to realize hours later that I had wandered off my immediate research path. I didn’t really have to know what kinds of trees make the best charcoal to use in the furnace.

I spent a good month on the research, and even then wasn’t quite sure I had enough of a handle on the people and the times. I wrote the story, but never got over the queasy feeling that I’d made glaring omissions and errors.

Won’t do that again, I decided. People who write historical fiction obviously have an ability to absorb the feel for a different time and place. They have acquired specialized knowledge, which they put to good use to create believable characters, locations, and plots. I admire their talents. But they aren’t my talents.

Then I ran across a submission call for crimes in antiquity. Stories set in ancient times. Sounded like a great idea. I often use anthology calls for inspiration.

Intriguing. I took Latin in high school, and the instruction of the language was interspersed with culture. I also excelled in my world history classes (really, I now know, European, not world, history.) Besides, I saw movies like Ben Hur. Surely I knew enough about the ancient Roman Empire to write a short story. And with the internet, I could do most of the research without traipsing around to other locales.

I just have to have enough self-discipline to stick to information I need.

The main character will be a slave stableboy in a Roman outpost on the eastern edges of the empire.

Okay. What did slaves wear? Tunics? I guess I’ll have to look it up.

Did they have shoes? Slaves did not wear shoes. Not even slaves who worked with horses, with their stomping hooves and the piles of manure they produced.

I’m envisioning a scene in the rough wilderness adjacent to the steppes where a wheel comes off a chariot.

Wait a minute. We all know the Romans raced chariots, but did they use them for reconnaissance and fighting? No. Chariots didn’t hold up well to off-road use. Their wheels might come off.

But they did use chariots for parades and other ceremonial purposes.

Okay, we’re dealing with a ceremonial chariot. Who kept it in good repair? Probably an enslaved wheelwright.

And if the wheel comes off, how was it attached in the first place? They didn’t use any suspension system. Just a straight axle with decorative hubs on the wheels slotted into naves and held in place by pins.

Now the horses. The favored chariot horses were Berbers from North Africa. That brings up references to Carthage.

Numerous records report that the Carthaginians, or the Poeni as the Romans called them, sacrificed children to the goddess Tantit by burning them alive. Did that regularly happen on a ritual basis? We know that history is recorded by the victors, who often show the people conquered in the worst possible light, often highly exaggerated. I ran across a study trying to extract DNA from burials of children in sacred cemeteries. What would that show?

Wait a minute. I’m placing this story on the Eastern fringes of the Roman Empire, not North Africa. Let’s not dive down that irrelevant rabbit hole, no matter how interesting.

What’s beyond the outpost to the east? The steppes? Who inhabits them?

I’ve heard of Scythians. I’ve even been to a museum exhibit on them. Fascinating, warlike nomads. Skilled horsemen and horsewomen.

Possibly one source of the Amazon myth. Excavated burials showed finely-crafted artifacts, often of gold. They were reported to have red hair and blue eyes. Would they have approached and possibly raided my Roman outpost?

No. By the time of my story, the Sarmatians had replaced the Scythians. Darker complexions, possibly from farther east in Asia. But many similarities. Women were not permitted to marry until they had killed someone in battle. Their possessions were not nearly so finely crafted as the those possessed by the Scythians.

Maybe I have enough background to at least start my story, although I know I will be looking up one detail after another as I write. Thank goodness for the internet.

Let me start with those chariot horses imported from North Africa. See if they were transported on ships or what. Did the cursus publicus, the Roman postal system of roads, extend to North Africa? It was used for general transport as well as sending messengers. Would horses be driven along those roads?

Back to North Africa. There’s something on that study of DNA from infant burials in Carthage. Maybe I could take just a quick look at what they’re finding. It should only take a minute…