‘Who are you.sirs?From what port have you'sailed over the highways of the sea?Is yours a trading venture,or are you cruising the main on chance,like roving pirates,Who risk their lives to ruin other people?’
---Homer,TheOdyssey,TenthCentury
“Piracy like crime on terra firma has its great syndicates and its petty criminals.On the high seas,neither is an easy catch...No one,apart from ship owners,their crews and insurers,appears to notice that ptrates are assaulting ships at a rate unprecedented since the glorious days when pirates were‘privateers’protected by their national governments...Piracy iS a historical problem…It iS rooted in these societies...Despite all the information now available on piratical attacks,there are hardly any cases where these attackers are arrested and brought to trial.Piracy is a high—profit,low—risk activity.’
---Charles Glass,The New Piracy,AD 2003
In the wealthy town of 0stia.Marcus Didius Falco appears to be enjoyieg a relaxing holiday. But when his girlfriend,Helena,arrives carrying a bateh of old copies of the Daily Gazette.Falco is forced to admit to Petronius his real reasons for being there...
“Infamia”,the Pen name of the scribe Who writes the gossip column for the Daily Gazette,has gone missing.His fellow scribes have employed Faleo to find him and bring him back from his lazy drunken truancy.But before lonq,Faleo’s enquiries lead him into the world of Piracy and the discovery of criminal traditions lonq believed dead.Is this the right path towards finding Infamia?Why would pirates have taken him? And if they haye,will he be found alive?
OSTIA,ITALY:AUGUST,AD 76
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The Silver Pigs
Three Hands in the Fountain
Two for the Lions
A Body in the Bath House