This wonderful novel made me ache to visit Syracuse just as Antony and Cleopatra took me to Egypt and Julius Caesar took me to Rome. Why? Because one of the most important characters in Syracuse Will Burn is Syracuse itself. In a highly effective narrative strand, the approach of the invading Carthaginians, ready to pillage, slaughter, enslave and burn, becomes even more gripping because we have been made to care for the city itself as well as the men and women who live there. This strand is further intensified by the manner in which we see – though the eyes of the central character – the terrible results of Carthaginian conquest of other cities along the path of their approach.
Just as Jim Loughran so expertly recreates ‘place’ in Syracuse, so he recreates ‘time’. The narrative deals with that section of the Sicilian Wars where Himilco’s Carthaginian army rampaged through Sicily and besieged Syracuse. The details of society as it existed then (407-405 BCE) are superbly presented. On the one hand, we see an agrarian economy serving the city-state, on the other, the city itself with its markets, its temples to the gods (the most important are Demeter and Apollo) and the barracks for the soldiers who protect them all.
Which brings us to the characters and characterisation. The central character, though whose eyes we see almost all of the action, is Timon. Timon works in the Temple of Demeter, but is more than a mere servant for two reasons. First, he is the physical manifestation of the god Apollo, to whom his mother prayed during conception. Secondly, he has the ability to see into the future. His visions are neither clear nor consistent, but in his childhood he has warned the city about an attempted invasion by Athenians. By the time the main story begins, his abilities are being taken increasingly seriously and so he becomes more important as the danger of renewed invasion grows. Timon is a brilliant character. As the naive outsider, he sees everything with wide and innocent eyes. It is all new to him – as it is of course to us. And, as the danger grows, our wide-eyed guide is thrust deeper and deeper into the heart of it and matures in consequence. Also important are the High Priestess of the Temple, Phoebe the stall-holder and the Generals Hermocrates, Nicomedes, Hipparinus and Dionysus amongst a lively cast of friends, family, enemies and lovers.
Syracuse faces more than the threat from the Carthaginians, for, in both civil and military society, there is lethal in-fighting all though this gripping narrative that twists and turns right to the last page, presenting to Timon one murdered commander after another as the ambitious leaders jockey for the position of tyrant as well as victory over Himilco’s approaching troops. In clear, modern prose (cf. Nolan’s recent epic The Odyssey), Jim Loughran brings us another gripping tale of ‘Golden Age’ Greece, closer to history than to legend, and all the better for it! More, please!
Peter Tonkin is the author of over 50 novels including Beware of Greeks, the first of The Trojan Murders series, published by Sharpe Books.
