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The Colossus of Rhodes (novel)
Encyclopedia
The Colossus of Rhodes is a children's historical novel
by Caroline Lawrence
, published in 2005
. The ninth book of the Roman Mysteries
series, it is set in spring AD 80, partly aboard ship in the Mediterranean, partly on the Greek islands of Symi
and Rhodes
(in this, it is noteworthy for being the first of the series to be set outside Italy
, and is the first of two volumes to be set in Greece).
, the giant statue
of the sun god Helios
at Rhodes harbour. By the time of this novel, it had been lying broken on the ground for three hundred years but was still regarded as worth seeing. "The Colossus" is also one of the nicknames of Magnus, the powerful slave-dealer based in Rhodes.
join Flavia and her friends to hunt him down and rescue the missing children. Lupus has an additional mission of his own: to find his mother.
At the last minute, Marcus Artorius Bato joins the ship as a passenger, anxious to follow a recently-departed Greek ship connected with fresh cases of kidnapping in Ostia. Other passengers are the children’s tutor Aristo, the patrician poet Gaius Valerius Flaccus
and his slave-boy, Zetes. Crew members include Atticus the cook, the good-looking Silvanus, and Zosimus, who keeps homing pigeons. During the voyage many things go wrong, and they begin to suspect there is a traitor on board.
They drop Aristo off at Corinth
to visit his family, and call at Symi to find Lupus's mother. He discovers she has gone to Rhodes to dedicate herself to the temple. On the way to the island, they discover that Zosimus is the traitor, who has been sending messages ahead via his pigeons. Bato and Flaccus tie Zosimus up and interrogate him about the gang’s activities, but Flaccus is shaken to learn that Zetes, his own slave boy, is one of the gang’s freeborn abductees.
In Rhodes they learn about the mysterious slave overlord Magnus who has everyone dancing to his tune. Captain Geminus, Bato, and Flaccus leave the ship to investigate the slave vessel Medea
. What they don’t know is that they are being lured into a trap: the Medea is brimming with Magnus's thugs, while other men of his sneak aboard the Delphina and take Flavia, Nubia and Jonathan prisoner.
Over the fallen Colossus, Lupus corners Magnus, who tells him that his friends have been captured and forces him to make a terrible choice: according to Magnus, Lupus’s mother has pledged to sacrifice her life to Apollo in exchange for her son’s safety; if Lupus runs to the temple, he might be able to save her, but in the meantime, the Delphina will set sail with Flavia and the others, and all the kidnapped children aboard.
Lupus remembers that, despite the vow he made to find his mother, he made another vow to always stand by his friends. He runs to the local authorities and brings the local police to the Medea in time to save Geminus and the others from the trap. They then return to the Delphina in full force, rescuing Flavia and the others. As soon as they are safe, Lupus runs to the temple, but is told he is too late.
However, Magnus was lying, or at least bending the truth: Lupus’s mother, Melissa, is not dead; she has become a priestess of Apollo
, as she swore to do if she received word that her son was still alive, which she did a month earlier. She has already left for another temple in Greece. Lupus is saddened, but understands that his mother, like himself, made a vow which she cannot break.
The day is saved, though Magnus has managed to escape Rhodes. On the pretext of continuing his tour of Asia, Flaccus swears to hunt him down and find all the children he sold as slaves, impressing Flavia.
The Delphina sets sail for her next port, laden with valuable cargoes, and carrying the four now-inseparable friends.
is still a very real problem in the modern world, and directs him or her to a website on the subject maintained by National Geographic (see External Links, below)
.
Historical novel
According to Encyclopædia Britannica, a historical novel is-Development:An early example of historical prose fiction is Luó Guànzhōng's 14th century Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which covers one of the most important periods of Chinese history and left a lasting impact on Chinese culture.The...
by Caroline Lawrence
Caroline Lawrence
Caroline Lawrence is an English American author, best known for The Roman Mysteries series of historical novels for children. The series is about a Roman girl called Flavia and her three friends: Nubia , Jonathan and Lupus...
, published in 2005
2005 in literature
The year 2005 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*February 25 - Canada Reads selects Rockbound by Frank Parker Day as the novel to be read across the nation....
. The ninth book of the Roman Mysteries
The Roman Mysteries
The Roman Mysteries is a series of historical novels for children by Caroline Lawrence. The first book, The Thieves of Ostia, was published in 2001, finishing with The Man from Pomegranate Street, published in 2009, and 17 more novels were planned, plus a number of "mini-mysteries" and companion...
series, it is set in spring AD 80, partly aboard ship in the Mediterranean, partly on the Greek islands of Symi
Symi
Symi also transliterated Syme or Simi is a Greek island and municipality. It is mountainous and includes the harbor town of Symi and its adjacent upper town Ano Symi, as well as several smaller localities, beaches, and areas of significance in history and mythology...
and Rhodes
Rhodes
Rhodes is an island in Greece, located in the eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007, and also the island group's historical capital. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within...
(in this, it is noteworthy for being the first of the series to be set outside Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, and is the first of two volumes to be set in Greece).
Title
The title refers to one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient WorldSeven Wonders of the Ancient World
The Seven Wonders of the World refers to remarkable constructions of classical antiquity listed by various authors in guidebooks popular among the ancient Hellenic tourists, particularly in the 1st and 2nd centuries BC...
, the giant statue
Colossus of Rhodes
The Colossus of Rhodes was a statue of the Greek Titan Helios, erected in the city of Rhodes on the Greek island of Rhodes by Chares of Lindos between 292 and 280 BC. It is considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It was constructed to celebrate Rhodes' victory over the ruler of...
of the sun god Helios
Helios
Helios was the personification of the Sun in Greek mythology. Homer often calls him simply Titan or Hyperion, while Hesiod and the Homeric Hymn separate him as a son of the Titans Hyperion and Theia or Euryphaessa and brother of the goddesses Selene, the moon, and Eos, the dawn...
at Rhodes harbour. By the time of this novel, it had been lying broken on the ground for three hundred years but was still regarded as worth seeing. "The Colossus" is also one of the nicknames of Magnus, the powerful slave-dealer based in Rhodes.
Plot introduction
The ship Delphina sets forth on a voyage to the Greek islands to find a mysterious slave-dealer behind the kidnapping of Roman children. The former magistrate Bato and the poet FlaccusGaius Valerius Flaccus
Gaius Valerius Flaccus was a Roman poet who flourished in the "Silver Age" under the emperors Vespasian and Titus and wrote a Latin Argonautica that owes a great deal to Apollonius of Rhodes' more famous epic....
join Flavia and her friends to hunt him down and rescue the missing children. Lupus has an additional mission of his own: to find his mother.
Plot summary
It is April, and the beginning of the sailing season. The book opens on the marina pier at Ostia as the newly-fitted Delphina (formerly the slave ship Vespa) prepares to sail. Passengers and crew are saying goodbye to their loved ones, making Lupus keenly feel the absence of his family. Though the purpose of the voyage is to rescue the freeborn children sold as slaves by Venalicius (the ship’s former owner), Lupus secretly intends to find his mother and not return to Ostia. Several bad omens make Captain Geminus consider postponing the trip, but Lupus, as the ship's owner, insists on sailing immediately.At the last minute, Marcus Artorius Bato joins the ship as a passenger, anxious to follow a recently-departed Greek ship connected with fresh cases of kidnapping in Ostia. Other passengers are the children’s tutor Aristo, the patrician poet Gaius Valerius Flaccus
Gaius Valerius Flaccus
Gaius Valerius Flaccus was a Roman poet who flourished in the "Silver Age" under the emperors Vespasian and Titus and wrote a Latin Argonautica that owes a great deal to Apollonius of Rhodes' more famous epic....
and his slave-boy, Zetes. Crew members include Atticus the cook, the good-looking Silvanus, and Zosimus, who keeps homing pigeons. During the voyage many things go wrong, and they begin to suspect there is a traitor on board.
They drop Aristo off at Corinth
Corinth
Corinth is a city and former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Corinth, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit...
to visit his family, and call at Symi to find Lupus's mother. He discovers she has gone to Rhodes to dedicate herself to the temple. On the way to the island, they discover that Zosimus is the traitor, who has been sending messages ahead via his pigeons. Bato and Flaccus tie Zosimus up and interrogate him about the gang’s activities, but Flaccus is shaken to learn that Zetes, his own slave boy, is one of the gang’s freeborn abductees.
In Rhodes they learn about the mysterious slave overlord Magnus who has everyone dancing to his tune. Captain Geminus, Bato, and Flaccus leave the ship to investigate the slave vessel Medea
Medea
Medea is a woman in Greek mythology. She was the daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis, niece of Circe, granddaughter of the sun god Helios, and later wife to the hero Jason, with whom she had two children, Mermeros and Pheres. In Euripides's play Medea, Jason leaves Medea when Creon, king of...
. What they don’t know is that they are being lured into a trap: the Medea is brimming with Magnus's thugs, while other men of his sneak aboard the Delphina and take Flavia, Nubia and Jonathan prisoner.
Over the fallen Colossus, Lupus corners Magnus, who tells him that his friends have been captured and forces him to make a terrible choice: according to Magnus, Lupus’s mother has pledged to sacrifice her life to Apollo in exchange for her son’s safety; if Lupus runs to the temple, he might be able to save her, but in the meantime, the Delphina will set sail with Flavia and the others, and all the kidnapped children aboard.
Lupus remembers that, despite the vow he made to find his mother, he made another vow to always stand by his friends. He runs to the local authorities and brings the local police to the Medea in time to save Geminus and the others from the trap. They then return to the Delphina in full force, rescuing Flavia and the others. As soon as they are safe, Lupus runs to the temple, but is told he is too late.
However, Magnus was lying, or at least bending the truth: Lupus’s mother, Melissa, is not dead; she has become a priestess of Apollo
Apollo
Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...
, as she swore to do if she received word that her son was still alive, which she did a month earlier. She has already left for another temple in Greece. Lupus is saddened, but understands that his mother, like himself, made a vow which she cannot break.
The day is saved, though Magnus has managed to escape Rhodes. On the pretext of continuing his tour of Asia, Flaccus swears to hunt him down and find all the children he sold as slaves, impressing Flavia.
The Delphina sets sail for her next port, laden with valuable cargoes, and carrying the four now-inseparable friends.
Continuity
- Lupus reflects on the events of the previous novel, The Gladiators of Capua, when he prayed to Jonathan's GodYahwehYahweh is the name of God in the Bible, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jews and Christians.The word Yahweh is a modern scholarly convention for the Hebrew , transcribed into Roman letters as YHWH and known as the Tetragrammaton, for which the original pronunciation is unknown...
to spare his friend’s life, deciding that this vow takes precedence over his later one. - Lupus does meet his mother in the next novel.
- This is the first appearance of Flaccus in the series; he appears in later novels as a love interest of Flavia's.
Allusions to other literary works
- Flavia compares the people on the ship to the ArgonautsArgonautsThe Argonauts ) were a band of heroes in Greek mythology who, in the years before the Trojan War, accompanied Jason to Colchis in his quest to find the Golden Fleece. Their name comes from their ship, the Argo, which was named after its builder, Argus. "Argonauts", therefore, literally means...
of Greek mythology, written about by Apollonius of RhodesApollonius of RhodesApollonius Rhodius, also known as Apollonius of Rhodes , early 3rd century BCE – after 246 BCE, was a poet, and a librarian at the Library of Alexandria...
. - A version of the Argonautica would later be written by FlaccusGaius Valerius FlaccusGaius Valerius Flaccus was a Roman poet who flourished in the "Silver Age" under the emperors Vespasian and Titus and wrote a Latin Argonautica that owes a great deal to Apollonius of Rhodes' more famous epic....
, who was a real person. - A poem quoted by Flaccus in Scroll VI and printed in the front of the book is actually "Ithaca" by modern Greek poet Constantine Cavafy.
- Flaccus also recites passages from HomerHomerIn the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...
's IliadIliadThe Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...
and particularly his own version of the OdysseyOdysseyThe Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second—the Iliad being the first—extant work of Western literature...
, about another voyage.
Allusions to history and science
- The book gives many details of sailingSailingSailing is the propulsion of a vehicle and the control of its movement with large foils called sails. By changing the rigging, rudder, and sometimes the keel or centre board, a sailor manages the force of the wind on the sails in order to move the boat relative to its surrounding medium and...
in Roman times, including the superstitions of sailors, and has an annotated sketch of a Roman ship. - During a storm at sea, Lupus and the others see the ship's mast illuminated by the atmospheric phenomenon known today as St. Elmo's FireSt. Elmo's fireSt. Elmo's fire is a weather phenomenon in which luminous plasma is created by a coronal discharge from a grounded object in an electric field in the atmosphere St. Elmo's fire is named after St. Erasmus of Formiae St. Elmo's fire (also St. Elmo's light) is a weather phenomenon in which luminous...
, which was called Castor and PolluxCastor and PolluxIn Greek and Roman mythology, Castor and Pollux or Polydeuces were twin brothers, together known as the Dioscuri . Their mother was Leda, but Castor was the mortal son of Tyndareus, king of Sparta, and Pollux the divine son of Zeus, who visited Leda in the guise of a swan...
(after the mythological eternal twins) in the ancient world. Castor and Pollux were the patron deities of sailors, and St. Elmo's fire was named for them because it often appeared on both sides of a ship's hull.
Child Slavery in the present day
In her afterword, Caroline Lawrence urges the reader to be aware that child slaveryChild slavery
-History:In the past, many children have been sold into slavery in order for their family to repay debts or for crimes. Sometimes this is also to give the children a better life than what they had with their family....
is still a very real problem in the modern world, and directs him or her to a website on the subject maintained by National Geographic (see External Links, below)
TV adaptation
The Colossus of Rhodes was one of the novels adapted for the television seriesRoman Mysteries (TV series)
Roman Mysteries is a television series based on the series of children's historical novels by Caroline Lawrence. It is reportedly the most expensive British children's TV series to date at £1 million per hour....
.