Slaves to Love: Erotic Love Stories of Ancient Rome [Paperback]

I've long been a die-hard fan of any piece of "Imperial Rome" literature. I was reading QUO VADIS, BEN HUR, THE UNWILLING VESTAL, while many of my classmates were still wrestling with the intricacies of "See Spot!" "See Spot run!" W.G. Hardy's THE CITY OF LIBERTINES, is one of the few books I've actually read again and again.

That reason alone would have seen me turn to J.P. Bowie's SLAVES TO LOVE: EROTIC LOVE STORIES OF ANCIENT ROME, in my pile of to-read books, when over the last few days, a nasty bit of the flu put me flat on my back, and I found myself bored silly with proofing and writing my own stuff. Another reason for my selection, of course, is that J.P., I had been informed, was one of three other authors who would be joining me in the to-be-released-this-month short-story anthology HARD WORKING MEN from MLR Press; while J.P.'s works have been recommended to me, on more than one occasion, I'd found little time to make my acquaintance with it.

While I'm reluctant to be the forever-optimist who can see the good thing even in a horrendous bout of the flu, it having allowed me the opportunity to read SLAVES OF LOVE before I would likely, otherwise, have gotten to it, I will admit to having enjoyed the read, even if -- this book no exception -- I find that I'm more drawn to "novel" format than "short-story". At least, here, there are only two short-stories (novellas?), so they each have enough wordage to provide adequate plot and character development.

Both stories are based upon the premise of love at first sight (not my favorite premise), and rely upon that love being between patrician and gladiator and vice-versa (I've known enough attraction across class lines to know that this sort of thing happens everyday). "Lucius and Callistus" explores forbidden love amidst the background of the slave rebellion led by Spartucus; "Damian and Demetrios" sees romantic fiddling being done while the mad-emperor Nero is doing some fiddling of his own while Rome burns. While the former's ending left me wanting just as bit more, by way of resolution, despite the more probable reality of the story-line conclusion than my hoped-for expectations, the latter sufficiently ties up all of the loose ends into a genuinely enjoyable read. If I preferred the "two D's" over "L and C", it's probably only because I've always been fascinated by obscene madness and dissolution; even if if Nero's part is actually minor.

There is a lot of historical fun and games here, a lot of conflict and class struggle, a lot of passion (a book without sex, based within this time frame, would be a book entirely out of sync with the reality!). There are realistic people here, doing realistic things (once one accepts there is such a thing as love at first sight), experiencing the kind of hubris to which we can all relate, in this day and age, when all sorts of comparisons are being made between the here and now and the declining days of the Roman Empire.

If you've a fondness for things "Roman", don't pass up this one, even if (a minor complaint, here, from someone who usually buys a book, every time, for its cover), the cover graphic doesn't exactly provide any clue, that I can see, beyond the "Ancient Rome" mentioned in the attending (faint) text, that this two-short-story collection is about Imperial Rome. While two nude torsos could be gladiators or gym-trained patricians, in an age when premium was often set on physical prowess, the potential reader would be better served by having had one or both cover figures provided with some kind of clue-in prop (a Roman helmet, the drape of a toga, a sword). The heart-frame motif, too, enclosing each torso, comes across as tad insipid in a book whose love stories take place in exceedingly violent times. And while cover text identifies the book as "a novel", it's actually two separate novellas.

Oh, yes, this book pretty much focuses on man-on-man romance, although I wouldn't let its homosexuality keep you from it. The gay sex always seems to "fit" the situation and the historically accurate time frames, even when it leaves very little to the imagination.

I don't know about this one.
I really enjoyed the second story in the book, the story is sweet, has great sex, nice story flow... but the first one - well, maybe it's the ending that turned me off. It was like watching Titanic, we all know how that ends and it's not good.
So, yeah, the stories are good. Just not my liking. If I real fantasy I want a fantasy ending, nor reality.... that's just me.

First things first -because I had NO IDEA when I purchased this book- This book is not One Complete Story, but two short stories. Good stories, but short appetizers. Honestly I really hate this trend of writers coming together to write tidbit books. Give me the goods, give me 190, 255, 386 pages of beautiful men, loving eachother, fighting eachother. A world of gay vampires, werewolves, Roman Gladiators, Emperors and privlaged young men in one long novel. I need to escape this crappy reality. WHEW!!! I had to vent. Ok, ON WITH THE REVIEW. I liked these stories alot, I would have loved them if they were two full length novels, but no point in complaining about what DIDNT happen. The first story: "Lucius & Callistus" is about Lucius -a young man who hates his dying father and is struggling with the fact that he is a homosexual in a time when having sex with men is cool, but not something that you make a permenant living situation. He falls in love with Callistus -a captured soldier, turned slave who is made to fight in the Gladiator Games. I imagine Lucius looks like Ian Somerhalder (GOOGLE him) and Callistus looks like Andy Whitfield from the show "Spartacus: Blood and Sand. I do that to make my reading experience much more effective. N-E Way, coincidentally, Callistus meets the real Spartacus who leads a rebellion of the slaves against Rome. It is discovered that Callistus loves Lucius, but has to fight along side Spartacus for the noble cause. This story really does get exciting and moving and I wish it was longer. The ending was sad and I admit, ALMOST made me tear up.

The second story: "Damian & Demetrios" is about Damian -a young talented artist of means, and the son of a Senator who is totally in love with a Gladiator named Demetrios. This story takes place during the reign of Emperor Nero -and everyone should know how that turns out- this story had the best ending and it really made up for heartbreak and pain left over from the aforementioned story.