SeanF

Doran’s “master plan”. It involved keeping Arianne, Viserys, and Daenerys completely in the dark about what he intended for them.

The big inaccuracy is that the Spanish regular army was useless, and fell apart on contact with the French. That’s thanks to historians like Napier and Southey, and really started with Wellington’s denunciations of them. Wellington’s biographers tend to portray the Anglo-Portuguese field army as winning the war single-handed ( with aid from the partidas). Bear in mind, Wellington complained about virtually everything, including the British officers, cavalry, and foot soldiers. Most Spanish historians give little credit to their regular army, because they’re mostly left wing, and view the army through the prism of Franco’s government. The partidas tend to be given more credit than they deserve, and overlooked is that the best partida units were regular soldiers fighting in irregular fashion, like the Boers, after 1900. Spanish historians praise the partidas as a popular uprising. In fact, the Spanish army’s performance, with two exceptions, was quite creditable. It was heavily outnumbered, underfunded, many of its commanders were keen but incompetent, and at the outset of the war, in 1808, it entirely resembled the British Army of 1794/5. Yet, by 1813-14, hardened by battle, funded by British money, it was pretty much on a par with the Anglo-Portuguese. Overall, about 55% of casualties suffered by the French were inflicted by the Spanish army, 33% by Anglo-Portuguese, 12% by Partidas. The two big problems with the Spanish army were a terrible cavalry arm, and an awful commissariat, riddled with corruption.

For sure. Doing my MA on the Peninsular War has made me realise how wrong some of the historiography is.

Most novelists would not have the time to study unpublished primary sources in the way that a professional historian does. They can read published primary sources, but those are often filled with bias, even when they purport to be impartial, such as Procopius, or Napier’s history of the Peninsular War. Mostly, the historical novelist is dependent on good secondary sources. There’s no doubt that someone like Bernard Cornwall is well-versed in the historiography of the periods he sets his novels in, but sometimes the historiography is wrong.

Just as coincidentally, I’ve just been reading The Burning Road, by Harry Sidebottom, set in Third Century Sicily, which depicts how awful it was to be a mill slave. Being an oarsman in the ancient world was a respectable job for a free poor man. It was one of the pathways to Roman citizenship. The worst aspect was being on the bottom tier, and having the other oarsmen relieving themselves on you.

If say, you were the secretary, accountant, butler, business manager to a great man in Rome, your prospects were fine. You’d accumulate your own fortune, could expect freedom, and to become a Roman citizen. Your own grandchildren might become knights or senators. People like Tiro, Narcissus, Pallas are examples. But, they were a small minority. As you say, being a mine slave was a cruel death sentence, and being a field hand not much better.

I once had the naive and ill-informed idea, that without the element of racial prejudice, slavery in the ancient world was not too bad. I blame my Latin textbooks, that would show happy slaves going off to work in the fields in the morning ("Laeti servi sunt"). Such books excluded the reaiity of chain gangs, the whips and boots of the overseers, professional torturers of disobedient slaves, routine rape of slaves (Marcus Aurelius was considered remarkable for never using slaves for sex), the kidnap of free people etc. He's often accused of making the slavers cartoonishly evil, with some readers arguing that slave owners can't be as bad as that. Unfortunately, my own reading suggests that many (not all) were that cruel and wasteful of human life. If there's a ready supply of fresh slaves (as in St. Domingue and other sugar colonies), there's no economic downside to just working slaves to death and replacing them with fresh stock. I think there's little doubt that the Ghiscari slave trade has to be smashed by force.

I do think Colleen McCullogh’s research was impressive, though I disagree with some of her conclusions. The Roman attitude towards sex between males, for example, seems more Western c. 1980 in her books, rather than that which upper class Roman males actually held (acceptable, so long as one was the dominant party and one’s partner was of low social status). I think, too, that in the last century of the Republic, the treatment of slaves was generally a lot more brutal than she depicts it.

I enjoyed The Janissary Tree, although I’ve not read others in the series. Some critics say it’s riddled with historical inaccuracies, although I don’t know enough about 19th century Istanbul to be able to judge.

Yeh, I mean who would trust the good faith of the Witch King?

Sorry. Now edited.

The book is fast-paced, and as you say, especially compared to a lot of fantasy authors.

In my experience, though, you should get it a few seconds past midnight.

I would hold him culpable for gross incompetence, unless I knew he was an archangel, fulfilling God's will on Earth.

I agree with all of that. I just don't understand why Denethor was portrayed the way he was.

I suppose then it's like inter-war Hungary, a kingdom without a king. That said, Aragorn's claim to Gondor is not really very strong, based upon descent and bloodlines. It's three thousand years since his ancestor ruled Arnor and Gondor. OTOH, the fact that Eru wants him to be King of Gondor is the strongest claim of all, but Denethor does not know this.

And, Denethor's views are actually entirely reasonable. If I were in this world, I would be arguing along the lines of Denethor rather than Gandalf. I would think that sending the Ringbearer to Mordor was an act of appalling folly. I would view Aragorn's claim to the throne as being like some descendant of Charlemagne telling me, the President of France, that he was the rightful king.

I think I must get this. Is there anything about the political and military structure of Gondor?

I think Orso is far more shrewd than either Louis XVI or Nicholas II. I wouldn’t be surprised if the twist were for him to come back as First Consul/President.

You mean what You can't forgive is the influence he had on fantasy. Don't assume that the rest of society agrees.

I enjoyed Druon, too. It's also fun to match some of the characters to characters in ASOIAF (Philip the Fair = Tywin, Isabella = Cersei, for example). I've read Coromandel and The Deceivers by Scott, which are both good, and the Forsyte Saga. I never shared Galsworthy's sympathy for Irene, though. I like a lot of Allan Massie historical fiction, especially the fictional autobiography of Augustus, and Nero's Heirs.