The Sirens of Surrentum
Encyclopedia
The Sirens of Surrentum is a children's
historical novel
set in Roman
times by Caroline Lawrence
. The novel is the eleventh in The Roman Mysteries
series.
. Behind the invitation is a plea for help: Pulchra's mother, Polla Argentaria, seems to fall ill whenever they have houseguests, and Pulchra suspects someone is trying to poison her mother. On the pretext of a matchmaking party, Pulchra has convinced her father to invite all of Pulchra's suspects.
Romance is thick in the air: Flavia still nurses a secret love for Polla's father, the charismatic Publius Pollius Felix, despite the difference in their ages. She is flustered to find that the male guests include the young lawyer Gaius Valerius Flaccus, who shared a past adventure with them (in The Colossus of Rhodes
). Pulchra also takes a shine to Flaccus, even while growing closer to Jonathan. Flavia also meets, for the first time, the young senator's son she has been betrothed to: Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus
. The two do not make a favorable impression on each other, but gradually she is won over by his inquisitive nature and willingness to help in their investigation.
Flavia assigns each member of her new "team" to watch one of the young bachelors or widows, but no obvious suspect turns up. However, their surveillance does reveal the disquieting fact that Felix regularly cheats
on his wife, with the female houseguests, the young slave girls, and several women from the nearby town of Baiae
(whilst there are no explicit depictions of sexual activity in the novel, there is certain implicit material which might surprise in a children's novel). They consider whether one of the young widows (or even Felix himself) is trying to poison Polla to make way for a new marriage.
Tranquillus has the idea of consulting a poisoning expert in Baiae, Locusta (purportedly the daughter of the famous poisoner
employed by Nero
). Locusta says Polla's symptoms are consistent with poisoning by hemlock
, which shows that the poisoner must be an amateur: hemlock is only lethal if used in the correct dose, and when it is fresh.
Flavia has the idea of laying a trap: she lets the adults overhear her angrily scolding Tranquillus for bringing back a packet of incredibly lethal poison from Locusta for "research purposes," and tells him to hide it in an isolated part of the villa. They lie in wait to see who steals it, and the poisoner turns out to be Polla herself. Driven to despair by her husband's repeated infidelities, she has been trying (somewhat half-heartedly) to commit suicide
. Flavia watches her swallow a cup of wine laced with the non-existent poison, then faint from its imagined effects. Flavia then confronts Felix, telling him how much his selfish behavior has wounded his wife.
Pulchra, who once idolized her father, is so distraught by her parents' behavior that she makes her own half-hearted attempt at suicide, swimming out to sea to drown herself. Flavia convinces her to come back, telling her that her parents can mend their relationship, and to remember that Flavia and the others are still her friends.
Felix calls Flavia into his study to thank her in private for helping his wife and daughter. To her surprise, he moves closer, as though wanting to kiss her. Though she has dreamed about him doing this before, now that it is about to happen, she is suddenly repulsed, and excuses herself in a hurry. She runs out, deciding to forget that she has ever loved him.
Tranquillus receives a harsh letter from his father, who has heard about some of the wilder goings-on at the villa, and put a scandalous interpretation on some of his innocent exchanges with Flavia. The letter ends with his father ordering him to end the betrothal and return to Rome. Tranquillus is furious, but has no choice but to obey. Flavia is saddened, as she was honestly getting to like Tranquillus.
As the four friends depart the villa, she decides that she is in no hurry to fall in love and get married. Instead, she is determined to enjoy her childhood for as long as possible, and have as many adventures with her friends as she can.
s, creatures with the bodies of birds and the heads of beautiful women who perched on rocks at sea and lured men to their deaths with their hypnotic singing. The sirens appear in Homer
's Odyssey
, which Flavia recites to an interested audience. The allusion comes up since each of the three widows invited to the villa for the false matchmaking party is both young and very beautiful, drawing the attention of all the men.
There is also a humorous scene parodying the passage from the Odyssey, when the women and girls of the villa decide to skinny dip
in the ocean and sunbathe naked on a rock out at sea. In excitement, the boys try to slip out in a boat to spy on them, but end up running aground on some nearby rocks.
Children's literature
Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...
historical novel
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...
set in Roman
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
times 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...
. The novel is the eleventh in 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.
Plot summary
June, AD 80: When Flavia Gemina's father Marcus leaves on another sea voyage, she and her three friends – Nubia, Jonathan, and Lupus – accept an invitation from their friend Polla Pulchra to spend the rest of the month at her father's luxurious villa in SurrentumSorrento
Sorrento is the name of many cities and towns:*Sorrento, Italy*Sorrento, Florida, United States*Sorrento, Louisiana, United States*Sorrento, Maine, United States*Sorrento, Victoria, a township on the Mornington Peninsula, Victoria, Australia...
. Behind the invitation is a plea for help: Pulchra's mother, Polla Argentaria, seems to fall ill whenever they have houseguests, and Pulchra suspects someone is trying to poison her mother. On the pretext of a matchmaking party, Pulchra has convinced her father to invite all of Pulchra's suspects.
Romance is thick in the air: Flavia still nurses a secret love for Polla's father, the charismatic Publius Pollius Felix, despite the difference in their ages. She is flustered to find that the male guests include the young lawyer Gaius Valerius Flaccus, who shared a past adventure with them (in The Colossus of Rhodes
The Colossus of Rhodes (novel)
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 The Colossus of Rhodes is a children's...
). Pulchra also takes a shine to Flaccus, even while growing closer to Jonathan. Flavia also meets, for the first time, the young senator's son she has been betrothed to: Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus
Suetonius
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, commonly known as Suetonius , was a Roman historian belonging to the equestrian order in the early Imperial era....
. The two do not make a favorable impression on each other, but gradually she is won over by his inquisitive nature and willingness to help in their investigation.
Flavia assigns each member of her new "team" to watch one of the young bachelors or widows, but no obvious suspect turns up. However, their surveillance does reveal the disquieting fact that Felix regularly cheats
Adultery
Adultery is sexual infidelity to one's spouse, and is a form of extramarital sex. It originally referred only to sex between a woman who was married and a person other than her spouse. Even in cases of separation from one's spouse, an extramarital affair is still considered adultery.Adultery is...
on his wife, with the female houseguests, the young slave girls, and several women from the nearby town of Baiae
Baiae
Baiae , a frazione of the comune of Bacoli) in the Campania region of Italy was a Roman seaside resort on the Bay of Naples. It was said to have been named after Baius, who was supposedly buried there. Baiae was for several hundred years a fashionable resort, especially towards the end of the Roman...
(whilst there are no explicit depictions of sexual activity in the novel, there is certain implicit material which might surprise in a children's novel). They consider whether one of the young widows (or even Felix himself) is trying to poison Polla to make way for a new marriage.
Tranquillus has the idea of consulting a poisoning expert in Baiae, Locusta (purportedly the daughter of the famous poisoner
Locusta
Locusta was a Roman serial killer during the 1st century AD.Locusta was born in the Roman province of Gaul. In AD 54, she may have been hired by Agrippina the Younger to kill the Emperor Claudius, possibly with a poisoned dish of mushrooms. In 55, she was convicted of poisoning another victim...
employed by Nero
Nero
Nero , was Roman Emperor from 54 to 68, and the last in the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Nero was adopted by his great-uncle Claudius to become his heir and successor, and succeeded to the throne in 54 following Claudius' death....
). Locusta says Polla's symptoms are consistent with poisoning by hemlock
Conium
Conium is a genus of two species of highly poisonous perennial herbaceous flowering plants in the family Apiaceae, native to Europe and the Mediterranean region as Conium maculatum, and to southern Africa as Conium chaerophylloides....
, which shows that the poisoner must be an amateur: hemlock is only lethal if used in the correct dose, and when it is fresh.
Flavia has the idea of laying a trap: she lets the adults overhear her angrily scolding Tranquillus for bringing back a packet of incredibly lethal poison from Locusta for "research purposes," and tells him to hide it in an isolated part of the villa. They lie in wait to see who steals it, and the poisoner turns out to be Polla herself. Driven to despair by her husband's repeated infidelities, she has been trying (somewhat half-heartedly) to commit suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
. Flavia watches her swallow a cup of wine laced with the non-existent poison, then faint from its imagined effects. Flavia then confronts Felix, telling him how much his selfish behavior has wounded his wife.
Pulchra, who once idolized her father, is so distraught by her parents' behavior that she makes her own half-hearted attempt at suicide, swimming out to sea to drown herself. Flavia convinces her to come back, telling her that her parents can mend their relationship, and to remember that Flavia and the others are still her friends.
Felix calls Flavia into his study to thank her in private for helping his wife and daughter. To her surprise, he moves closer, as though wanting to kiss her. Though she has dreamed about him doing this before, now that it is about to happen, she is suddenly repulsed, and excuses herself in a hurry. She runs out, deciding to forget that she has ever loved him.
Tranquillus receives a harsh letter from his father, who has heard about some of the wilder goings-on at the villa, and put a scandalous interpretation on some of his innocent exchanges with Flavia. The letter ends with his father ordering him to end the betrothal and return to Rome. Tranquillus is furious, but has no choice but to obey. Flavia is saddened, as she was honestly getting to like Tranquillus.
As the four friends depart the villa, she decides that she is in no hurry to fall in love and get married. Instead, she is determined to enjoy her childhood for as long as possible, and have as many adventures with her friends as she can.
Explanation of the title
The title refers to the myth of the SirenSiren
In Greek mythology, the Sirens were three dangerous mermaid like creatures, portrayed as seductresses who lured nearby sailors with their enchanting music and voices to shipwreck on the rocky coast of their island. Roman poets placed them on an island called Sirenum scopuli...
s, creatures with the bodies of birds and the heads of beautiful women who perched on rocks at sea and lured men to their deaths with their hypnotic singing. The sirens appear in Homer
Homer
In 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 Odyssey
Odyssey
The 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...
, which Flavia recites to an interested audience. The allusion comes up since each of the three widows invited to the villa for the false matchmaking party is both young and very beautiful, drawing the attention of all the men.
There is also a humorous scene parodying the passage from the Odyssey, when the women and girls of the villa decide to skinny dip
Skinny Dip
Skinny Dip is a caper novel by Carl Hiaasen first published in 2004.-Plot introduction:Set in South Florida in the course of April, 2003, it is about a woman, Joey Perrone, who takes revenge on her cheating husband after he has tried to murder her...
in the ocean and sunbathe naked on a rock out at sea. In excitement, the boys try to slip out in a boat to spy on them, but end up running aground on some nearby rocks.
Allusions to real-life persons, places, or events
- Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus will grow up to be the famous historian SuetoniusSuetoniusGaius Suetonius Tranquillus, commonly known as Suetonius , was a Roman historian belonging to the equestrian order in the early Imperial era....
, author of The Twelve Caesars, among other works. - Publius Pollius Felix was a real person, the owner of a luxurious villa in the Bay of Naples, and the patron of the poet Publius Papinius Statius, who described the villa in his poems. However, it is conjecture that the site described in the novel was the villa of the real Felix.
- The fictional Polla claims to be the widow of Marcus Annaeus LucanusMarcus Annaeus LucanusMarcus Annaeus Lucanus , better known in English as Lucan, was a Roman poet, born in Corduba , in the Hispania Baetica. Despite his short life, he is regarded as one of the outstanding figures of the Imperial Latin period...
, the famous poet. In her afterword, Caroline Lawrence writes that Polla Argentaria was indeed the name of Lucan's widow, though it is conjecture that this Polla was the same Polla who was married to Felix. - Polla tells Flavia about many past women who have committed suicide, either in despair over lost loves, or in loyalty to dead ones: Queen Dido of Carthage (as described in VirgilVirgilPublius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...
's AeneidAeneidThe Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of roughly 10,000 lines in dactylic hexameter...
), the wife of Seneca the YoungerSeneca the YoungerLucius Annaeus Seneca was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work humorist, of the Silver Age of Latin literature. He was tutor and later advisor to emperor Nero...
, and ArriaArriaArria was a woman in ancient Rome. Her husband Caecina Paetus was ordered by the emperor Claudius to commit suicide for his part in a rebellion but was not capable of forcing himself to do so. Arria wrenched the dagger from him and stabbed herself, then returned it to her husband, telling him that...
the wife of Caecina PaetusCaecina PaetusCaecina Paetus was condemned to death on a charge of disloyalty by the emperor Claudius in 42 AD. He chose to commit suicide rather than face the emperor's wrath...
. - During one dinner party the guests debate the relative philosophical merits of StoicismStoicismStoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium in the early . The Stoics taught that destructive emotions resulted from errors in judgment, and that a sage, or person of "moral and intellectual perfection," would not suffer such emotions.Stoics were concerned...
versus EpicureanismEpicureanismEpicureanism is a system of philosophy based upon the teachings of Epicurus, founded around 307 BC. Epicurus was an atomic materialist, following in the steps of Democritus. His materialism led him to a general attack on superstition and divine intervention. Following Aristippus—about whom...
.