Mon, Jul 7, 2008
The children join an admiring crowd reveling at the arrival in Ostia port of gladiators from the famous Capua training school, although they are bought by the ambitious senator Africanus to entertain emperor Domitian privately. After Nubia wonders if her never before mentioned brother-gladiator Tahaqo could be among them, Jonathan and Caudex go see for themselves, but the trainer Barbatus, who sold off Caudex as slave once for refusing to kill, seizes them both, despite his golden ring from Titus, to replace a gladiator who was bitten while feeding the tiger and puts them with his gladiator group, which Jonathan remarks to be mostly far beneath Capua's champion reputation. Flavia doesn't dare tell Mordecai ben Ezra where they are, but Lupus bravely snoops at night, and she follows in the morning. Jonathan is convinced Barbatus must have another purpose, training a boy a day before a performance being absurd...
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Mon, Jul 14, 2008
Ostia is puzzled by the arrival of an abandoned ship. Lupus finds inside a scared, wounded sailor, which armed men take 'back' by force from Mordechai's care. Caudex's claim to have seen a 'Stymphalian (hellish) bird' in the woods is disregarded until poet Aristo faces a lion there. Flavia, however, is only interested in the mystery of her father Marcus's lover Cautilia, strangely finding clues fitting a fresco on Hercules' trials. She abuses her election as fool's king in the Saturnalia to take the gang snooping in the widow's past and accuses her of using a love-potion and poisoning her late husband. Her father answers that he'll punish her by making her marry. The 'ghost ship' was abandoned after its live games cargo escaped. Lupus discovers its captain is Cautilia's 'dead' husband Poplicolus. The last clues prove dangerous as they meet the escaped cargo.
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Mon, Jul 28, 2008
Lupus escapes capture by slave traders but his friend Porcius and others are taken. Using his uncle's former slave ship Lupus sails, with Flavia, Nubia and Jonathan, to Rhodes where it is believed that Magnus, said by many to be a giant, master-minds the slave trade. Flavia, Jonathan and Nubia are all captured by Magnus and his men but Lupus alerts the authorities, who free them though Magnus escapes. Also Lupus is dismayed to hear that his mother Melissa, whom he believed was on the island, has gone to Greece as a priestess of Apollo.
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Mon, Aug 11, 2008
Flavia's tutor, the Greek Aristo, needs to return to his home town of Corinth but Flavia's father, Marcus, disallows it. Later Marcus is found stabbed with Aristo leaning over him. Aristo flees to the hills and Flavia, Nubia and Lupus, along with bodyguard Caudex, pursue him, only Nubia believing in his innocence, whilst Jonathan stays behind to help his father save Marcus's life. Once in the hills Flavia discovers that Aristo has a brother Dion, who is also looking for him and whose appearance can solve what really happened.
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Tue, Aug 12, 2008
Jonathan's sister Miriam brings Hephzibah, a childhood friend, to Ostia. Hephzibah was a slave to the wealthy Dives, who freed her just before he died, but she has no witness to the fact and Dives' son Celo is accusing her of being behind his father's death. Flavia brings poet and aspiring lawyer Flaccus to plead Hephzibah's case and purveyor of sacred chickens Floridius is also brought forward as a witness but is killed. After Miriam dies in childbirth, requesting that Hephzibah looks after her baby sons, Flavia works out who really killed Dives and the witness, thus securing Hephzibah's freedom.