Uh Oh

[przed]

So one thing that happened at MediaWest this year was a little conversation I had with m. butterfly, one of my best friends, fannish and otherwise. She'd been trying to pimp everyone we talked to into the Spartacus fandom, and was bemoaning the fact that while I'd managed to suck her into a few of my fandoms (Pros and TT chief among them), she'd never successfully managed to get me into any of hers.

As a joke, I said "Well, I could write you a Take That/Spartacus crossover."

Except apparently my muse didn't realize I was joking and immediately started pointing out how awesome Howard would be as a gladiator, and how great a Roman Jason would be, and wouldn't Markie make a cute little slave boy.

Then yesterday I wrote the first scene.

I now have 650 words of TT/Spartacus slash, and need to find time to watch all of Spartacus, and do extra research on Spartacus' rebellion and the era of Roman life in general so I can write the rest of what will no doubt turn out to be another fucking epic.

And if anyone has any brilliant ideas about how I can turn Howard into a Roman gladiator name, I'd appreciate it. (I don't think Howardus is going to cut it. *g*)

::headdesk::

Comments

[sineala.livejournal.com]

I am up for Roman AUs in any fandom, even ones I know nothing about! Pick me! Pick me! (I know very little about Spartacus, but, uh, I can learn?)

I am really tired right now so I cannot get Google to provide the information for me, but the name Howard has been around long enough that I am sure there has to be a Latin version somewhere that someone must surely have used for their Latin writing. It wouldn't be an authentic Roman name, but it would be Latin. For all I know, it might even be Hovardus. Which sounds really really not Roman, but hey.

Your other option is to just pick a real Roman name (list (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Roman_cognomina)) or maybe even Latin word that sounds similar (slaves can be named pretty much whatever their owners want, after all), which is what I did for the Pros Roman AU I wrote. Maybe they have RL middle names that would be period? (It's why Bodie ended up mostly going by Philippos in the AU I wrote, because it did happen to work as a name, even if it was a Greek name.)

[przed.livejournal.com]

Oh, I was hoping you'd comment! (I'm sure I shall pick your brains further for Roman details as I get further with the story.)

The list of Roman names is brilliant, though the H ones don't quite do it for me. But Donatus looks promising. And Mead's linked to a etymology site that has a couple of Scandinavian antecedents of Howard that could also be used for his original, pre-slave name. (The Sweetie wants to know what "duck" is in Latin since he always calls Howard the Duck Man, on account of his having the name of two ducks. Feel free to ignore him. *g*) I'm beyond grateful that I don't have to do much with Mark and Jason to make them acceptable, though I will have to explain how a Roman ended up with a Greek name in Jason's case. ;-)

I'm definitely going to be in search of information on the Roman legions and their hierarchies, though I'm not sure yet exactly what I need. (It's going to have to be a combination of what they did in the series merging with the reality.) I do know I'm going to make Jason a retired officer who ends up going undercover with the slave revolt and eventually throws his lot in with them. The series has a young Caesar also going undercover, so I've got to find out exactly what they did with that storyline and play off it. I shall be in touch!

Thanks!

[sineala.livejournal.com]

The Latin word for "duck" is "anas." You're welcome. :)

I ended up having to make Bodie of Greek descent to explain how he ended up with a Greek name -- Greece colonized a lot of Italy (the term you want to search for is "Magna Graeca") so I figured it was plausible. You might not want to do that, though. It would be easier if Jason were a slave, because Greek names are, IIRC, pretty popular for slaves... so if he's undercover as a slave, maybe that's his slave name? Maybe it was what the Greek slaves around the house nicknamed him when he was a kid? Something like that.

Everything I know about Roman spies (because someday I am totally going to write that Roman spy origfic, you just watch me), alas, is way way after the Third Servile War there, and the Roman intelligence organizations I am familiar with (like the frumentarii) were only put into place by Hadrian. Which is, you know, a couple centuries too late.

[przed.livejournal.com]

The Latin word for "duck" is "anas." You're welcome. :)

::snort:: Now the question is, do I tell the Sweetie or not. ;-)

Hmmm, the Greek name thing is going to make things a bit more difficult. But now I'm thinking of making him a slave who was owned by a diplomat, showed a facility for languages at an early age, was drafted to do more and more espionage work as he got older, and was given manumission by his now elderly owner when the man retired . Now Jason is living in Rome as a citizen (would that be possible?) and is drawn back into spying by his former owner who's worried about the Servile War. So he's got a proper Roman name for his new life, but reverts to Jason to go undercover once more. Is any of this sounding plausible?

Of course, if I go in this direction, it means losing almost all of those first 650 words. But it wouldn't be the first time that happened.

You totally need to write that Roman spy origfic!

[sineala.livejournal.com]

Points you might want to be aware of: a freed slave (who has to be over 30, if this is an issue) is almost but not exactly identical to a freeborn citizen, in terms of rights -- they can't hold political office, and they can't join the army. So if you want him spying, he can't actually be doing it in affiliation with the Roman military. I don't know if this presents a problem, but I thought I would mention.

If it helps, also, his master (assuming he's a senator/equestrian) would be at least bilingual in Greek (it was a prestige language for the Roman elite; they liked to have Greeks as secretaries and whatnot), and it looks like, judging by the war maps, that a lot of the fighting was in the south (IIRC, the south was definitely part of Magna Graecia) and Campania (has a lot of cities that were formerly Greek colonies, like Neapolis/Naples, which is why its name is Greek).

[przed.livejournal.com]

I'd intended to make Jason in his 30s, so that will work out. And I think I'll have him spying on behalf of his former senator/equestrian owner and friends of his who are concerned about the rising power of Pompey, Crassus and the military, so not having him able to serve in the army will also not be a problem.

I'd like to have had his former owner be a provincial governor or high official in several far flung areas of the republic. Would that make sense? That would give Jason the opportunity to pick up more languages along the way.

[sineala.livejournal.com]

Sure -- though if you actually want to make the senator former-owner a governor (proconsul) he will possibly have had to be consul first (I think it depends on the province). And that means you can actually make him a real person if you want since we know who all the consuls (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Roman_consuls) were.)

Even if he stays in Italy he can pick up Latin, Greek, probably Oscan and Umbrian, Etruscan if it's not dead yet (and I don't think it is). Not sure about the prevalence of Gaulish outside Gaul. You probably can't appoint the owner governor of Egypt, because Egypt had special rules (and was not a province until Augustus, I don't think)... so Egyptian's out...

[moth2fic.livejournal.com]

You could try using Horatius or Hadrianus or something like that and rely on the capital H! Don't forget a lot of gladiators would have come from all over the empire and might have had names that would have sounded foreign to Romans. I will definitely be reading a TT crossover with slave boys...

[przed.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking I might give him a D name close to Donald (Donatus) and an original Scanadinavian name (Havaror or Havard). I've got so much research I'm going to have to do with this one, it's not funny, but I do enjoy the research.

So glad I'll have at least one reader for this bit of insanity. *g* (Why does my brain like throwing the TT boys into historical settings so much?)

[moonlightmead.livejournal.com]

Oh good, sineala is on the case already. She was the first person I thought of as likely to have ideas.

I have thought of another way to do it: look up the (putative) etymology of Howard and find roots that you can mangle use as a basis to come up with a new name. Helpfully for you, one website gives three possible etymologies: http://www.behindthename.com/name/howard - 'ewe-herder' isn't immediately pregnant with possibility (although you can probably get in a great insult about 'fit only to...') but the links to the Germanic and Norse versions are more hopeful for a gladiator - Latin nicknames for 'brave' (one of the Germanic elements) or 'guardian, defender' (Norse) must exist.

[przed.livejournal.com]

Sineala has given me a good start on the Roman end, but I do like some of the options on your etymology site. I'd only turned up that Howard was Middle English in my first search, but hadn't found the Scandinavian roots.

'ewe-herder' isn't immediately pregnant with possibility

Not for this story, but I've already started toying with a short modern story where someone gets hold of a name book on a TT tour bus and a sheep shagger joke is made. (My muse is clearly insane.)

[solosundance.livejournal.com]

I really can't add anything helpful, but on the whole argh!epic! thing can I just say... HEE!

[przed.livejournal.com]

Howard is looking at you askance.

Seriously, why has my brain decided that TT is the perfect fandom for these crazy historical epics? Why?!

This pretty much puts the nail in the coffin of my getting anything ready for the Pros BB, though. Ah well, there's always next year.

[rangerke.livejournal.com]

OMG! This is so, so exciting. Gladiators, slaves and TT.

and wouldn't Markie make a cute little slave boy
Uhm yes, the cutest little slave boy ever! ;)

Yay for another epic!

[przed.livejournal.com]

This one is going to take me a while, but it is getting me rather excited. Howard is perfect gladiator material.

Mark is turning into the cutest and fightiest little slave boy ever. But then, I always like writing him as fighty. *g*

[dorinda.livejournal.com]

Ahahahahaha. You tripped and fell into Spartacus! Very clever, m. butterfly. :D

[przed.livejournal.com]

As I've managed to turn m. butterfly into a Howard/Jason TT fan, she's a very happy fangirl right now.

Now I just have to get past the spurting blood of Spartacus. (I swear, every time I tried to watch the show I'd flip on a crucifixion scene and there'd be blood flying everywhere!)

[dorinda.livejournal.com]

I'm sure someone's already told you that it gets less 300-style after the first few episodes, which it does. When I originally tried watching it, I laughed myself dizzy in the very first gladiator fight where someone gets his leg lopped off through the thigh and there's NO BONE in there. Just a cylinder of meat, like some kind of boneless ham or roast. So then I stopped watching for quite some time--not squeamish, but come on, boneless ham. :D

Eventually, people told me it wasn't quite like that anymore. Although of course there's still blood, so maybe m.butterfly will issue you a protective face-shield of some kind.

[przed.livejournal.com]

Okay, now I'm just going to be thinking boneless ham during every combat scene. *g*

m. butterfly, who is usually a lot more squeamish about these things than I am but couldn't resist the Nagron goodness, told me she got through the blood by telling herself it was just a Monty Python sketch. Which strategy I may emulate.

[dorinda.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's a perfect strategy! Totally. It will certainly be aided and abetted by the early Boneless-Ham-fx style, so don't you worry.

("It's just a flesh wound!")