Love, Sex, and a Criminal Affair: James Hynes resurrects late antiquity in his historical novel “I, Sparrow” with great relish in fable. Extremely exciting and informative.
In Cartago Nova, Spain (today’s Cartagena in the southeastern region of Murcia, an important silver mining site for the Romans who conquered the city in 209 BC), things weren’t exactly smooth sailing in the fourth century AD. We are at the end of the Roman Empire, almost a hundred years later it will have collapsed, the end of antiquity has begun.
A boy, unnamed and of unknown origin, witnesses an attempted rape in the brothel where he grows up. The cook Focaria, who is busy gutting fish, is seriously harassed by one of the brothel’s customers who entered the kitchen.