When in Rome . . .

Valerio Massimo Manfredi wants to bring ancient worlds back to life, writes Paddy Agnew in Rome

Valerio Massimo Manfredi wants to bring ancient worlds back to life, writes Paddy Agnew in Rome

To anyone familiar with the action-packed adventures of the ancient world, as brought to life by historical novelist Valerio Massimo Manfredi, it comes as a quiet disappointment to find that he lives in a handsome, elegantly restored farmhouse, in the heart of rich, flat, vine-growing Emilia Romagna.

The "disappointment", of course, comes from the fact that such is the intensity of his fast flowing, Raiders of the Lost Ark-style epics, you almost expect to find him living in a reconstructed Roman fort, complete with catapults, turrets and protective moat. Indeed, on a bright sunny day, the "mist-shrouded Hesperia " that features in his most recent publication, The Talisman Of Troy seems far away.

Spend time with "Professor" Manfredi, however, and you will soon discover the passion for ancient Greek and Roman history that throbs through his novels reflects the genuine enthusiasm and learning of a man who, by turns, is a classics scholar, archaeologist, university lecturer, screenplay writer and historical novelist.

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He came about that "historical novelist" label almost by accident. In the 1980s, a friend who was well-familiar with his classics background asked him if he would consider writing a "historical novel" set in ancient Greek or Roman times. The idea was that the novel would form part of a series of fictional works being produced by a small, since defunct, Bologna-based publishing house.

Despite never previously having written fiction and despite the book's seemingly poor financial prospects, Manfredi accepted the offer. He had a problem, however - where to begin? In the end, he turned for help to the Father of History, Herodotus. Put simply, he banged a copy of History on the table and opened it up at random. Thus was born his best-selling novel Spartan.

"I opened the book up at Herodotus's account of the famous battle at Thermopylae and although I am a classics scholar and knew all about Thermopylae, I have to admit that I had never read this account before. I was intrigued to find that two of Leonidas's famed 300 had survived and that gave me the idea for a great yarn," says Manfredi.

Sitting around the lunch table with his American wife (and translator), Christine, and cheered by a welcome plate of pasta in brodo, a delicious light omelette and the odd glass of the local sparkling white, the conversation flows easily. It is not difficult to imagine Manfredi in the role of seanachai, beguiling his archaeology students at Milan's Bocconi University.

Indeed, that same story-telling skill eventually kick-started his fast-fading novelist's career. Even though his dip into Herodotus had produced an early version of Spartan, the local publisher had gone bust. Manfredi made an appointment with senior Mondadori editor, Alcide Paolini, saying he had a great idea for a novel based in ancient Greek times. He was rewarded with a withering reply and a look of the "can't-get-him-out-of-here-quick-enough" variety. At that point, Manfredi's storytelling skills kicked in. Half an hour later, he had an advance on a rewrite of Spartan.

The Manfredi formula is not complex. He himself speaks of creating a sort of "time machine" which takes the reader on a great historical romp that, for a moment at least, allows one to "live in another age", experiencing the sights, sounds, odours and quality of daily life in ancient times. Explaining his modus operandi to the Guardian last year, he put it thus: "I move instinctively: I'm so used to reading ancient texts in their original language that I've been vaccinated against rash modernisation. Recreating the ancient world through literature makes sense only if the narration is capable of evoking that whole world - not just its politics and chronology, but its daily life, which is what we're truly interested in."

There's plenty of all that in The Talisman Of Troy. While his "inside track" on the splendors of Roman and Greek civilisations takes an intriguing look at lifestyle in ancient times, he also admits to a fascination with critical historical moments, such as the fifth century AD lFall of the Roman lEmpire, described in an earlier work, The Last Legion. "Just think of it, this was a civilisation which had created an empire comprising 300,000 kilometres of road, 8,000 cities, 500,000 aqueducts, 11 separate merchant navies, urban sewage systems, public libraries, a postal service and then it crumbles, destroyed by the barbarians. It would be as if today we were to lose the Basilica of St Peter's, the frescoes of Piero Della Francesco, the paintings of Picasso, the music of Beethoven and Mozart."

While he might be careful to avoid "rash modernisation", his work lends itself to interesting parallels with modern times. He makes the point himself in an addendum to The Last Legion when he argues that today's affluent West (the ancient Rome of yesteryear) should beware of alienating the Third World poor (the barbarians of Roman times): "In the turbulent modern day, the West - which sees itself as immortal and indestructible (much as the Roman empire did in its heyday) - would do well to consider that all empires dissolve sooner or later and that the wealth of one part of the world cannot hope to survive long in the face of the abject poverty of the rest of the world's populations. Those who were then called 'barbarians' did not want to provoke the destruction of empire; they wanted to become part of it. Many of them even defended it with their lives but the die was cast, and the world plunged into a long period of chaos and degradation."

Even though those words might have the ring of apocalyptic pessimism, Manfredi is no pessimist. Put simply, he believes passionately in the importance of learning from history, in the importance of "safeguarding civilisation, the most remarkable achievement of humanity".

Looking around Valerio Manfredi's living room, it is hard not to notice he has become an international success story. Two long shelves contain translations into more than a dozen languages of his best-known work, The Alexander Trilogy, which, has sold more than a million copies worldwide and sparked of a number of films about Alexander the Great.

The book shelves would suggest that the time has now come when Manfredi could easily afford to abandon archaeological digs and university lecturing to concentrate full time on writing. He abhors the idea. He says that he "will always be a teacher", arguing that his contract with students is a constant source of stimulus.

In a contemporary Italy where dissatisfaction with state education is widespread, he strikes a positive note for the national system, arguing that the US, for example, might learn a lot from a close study of the "liceo classico" system, with its emphasis on ancient Greek and Roman civilisations. He also points out proudly that he himself is a product of the state system, having been born the son of a small farmer who was in no way connected to the world of university academia.

While he intends to continue teaching, he is quite clearly not short of writing projects. He is currently working on a new novel, The Tyrant, which is based on Dionysius, the 4th century BC "Tyrant of Syracuse".

Furthermore, he is also working on a screenplay to be crafted from French writer Marguerite Yourcenar's Memoirs of Hadrian.

On the day your correspondent visited Prof Manfredi, he was preparing for a trip to visit his "old friend" Fidel Castro in Cuba. Castro's interest in history prompted him to read The Alexander Trilogy, thus earning Manfredi an invitation to Cuba some years ago. Nowadays, when he visits Havana, his trip usually ends with a stormy all-night session with Castro when all the ills of the world and of history too are discussed, analysed and remedied.

Castro's hospitality has been amply rewarded, however, for Manfredi has negotiated with his publishers in order to have his author's rights waived in Cuba, enabling the "Istitudo Cubana Del Libro" to lay on a 300,000-copy print run of The Alexander Trilogy that it would otherwise never have been able to afford.

For Manfredi, in Cuba as elsewhere, the main point is to get the word out - the word from ancient classical times, that is.

The Talisman of Troy is published by Macmillan