• We continue our muckraking exposé of the sordid tasks that working authors today are obliged to do in order to flog their wares. The gang of six authors I’m profiling here run the gamut of genres, from books for younger readers to historical fiction and nonfiction. Their common thread? All six authors write on Greco-Roman themes or books sets in Greco-Roman times. And all six have new books out this year.

Adrienne Mayor

• Adrienne Mayor, an independent research scholar in Classics and the History of Science at Stanford University, is the author of The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times; Greek Fire, Poison Arrows & Scorpion Bombs; and The Poison King: the Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome’s Deadliest Enemy, the latter a nonfiction finalist for the 2009 National Book Award.
Q: Welcome, Adrienne! Well, enough of the small talk–what’s the most embarrassing event you’ve ever done?
A: In Paris, I was invited to present “The First Fossil Hunters” to a Francophone classics/art history audience at the Institut National d’Histoire d’Art. Professors and students filed in for my lecture at 8pm; there was even a simultaneous translator. A bit jittery, I made a quick trip to the lavatory down the hall. The cleaning staff didn’t see me slip into a stall—and when I tried to exit, they had departed, locking the door behind them. Although I’m not fluent in French, I was able to shout “Allo!” and “Aidez-moi!” After a long time, I was liberated by a Sengalese cleaning woman. Amid laughter, she confessed she had hesitated to let me out in case I was a ghost!
• That incident had a happy ending. My other martyrdom occurred in Seattle in 2001. As my four hosts at the Pacific Science Center escorted me over, I was taken aback when they confessed they’d neglected to advertise my talk. I was even more appalled to learn they’d booked me into the cavernous IMAX theatre that seats thousands. Four other people showed up—for an audience of eight.
Q: Whew. That story is enough to make anyone lock themselves into a toilet stall. What about your  oddest comments (or gifts) from fans?
A: When I spoke at the Museum of Radio and Television in Los Angeles a few years ago, I was presented with a splendid gilded Proclamation from the Mayor of Beverly Hills. That alone was unique but the questions afterward were the weirdest I’ve ever fielded. I particularly recall the gentleman who inquired, “What is the difference between a Greek griffin, a Scythian griffin, and Merv Griffin?”
Q: Only in La-La Land. Wild stuff, Adrienne! Thanks!
(P.S. to shoppers: Adrienne’s books are in hardcover and paperback; The Poison King and Greek Fire are available on Kindle.)

Caroline Lawrence

• Caroline Lawrence has written a 17-book series of history mystery stories for children aged 8 and up. There are also two quiz books, a Treasury, an two volumes of short stories, including The Legionary from Londinium published in 2010. The BBC produced a glossy TV series based on the books and in 2009, Caroline won the Classics Association prize for “a significant contribution to the public understanding of the Classics.”
Q: Welcome, Caroline! Can you describe the most embarrassing book event you’ve ever done?
A: It was the Oxford Literary Festival. They didn’t provide a dressing room, and as I was changing into my Roman costume at the venue, 30 middle-school children arrived early. Luckily, none of them spotted me crouching, half naked, behind a pillar.
Q: Most unusual place you’ve ever found your own book/s for sale?
A: In a secondhand bookstore on a Roman backstreet.
Q: Caroline, what’s the most bizarre question an interviewer has ever asked you?
A: This one occurred in Holland. The interviewer asked, “How old are you and how much do you weigh in kilograms?”
Q: What’s the most unusual gift you’ve ever received from a fan?
A: Fans who started reading my series eight years ago at age 10 are now studying Classics at University—and they say that my books are part of the reason!
Q: What a satisfying “gift” that must be!
(P.S. to shoppers: Caroline’s 2010 title Legionary from Londinium is a Kindle e-book. Her other books are available online and elsewhere in paperback and some in hardcover editions.)

Gary Corby

• According to Gary Corby, ancient history is more bizarre and exciting than a modern thriller—that’s why he chooses to write mysteries set in Classical Greece.
Q: Welcome, Gary! What’s the most unusual place you have ever found your book on sale?
A: Within minutes of my book’s release, a used (!) copy was up for sale on Amazon. And another copy was up for auction on eBay Australia.
Q: What’s the strangest question ever put to you by an interviewer?
A: This didn’t happen during an interview but while doing research, touring ancient sites in Turkey. A Kurdish rug salesman asked me if it was possible for a woman during her menstrual period to experience an orgasm.
Q: Wow. I wonder why he asked you instead of a female tourist. Did you learn more Kurdish words than ‘orgasm’? In the spirit of research, of course.
Q: What’s the oddest remark—or the most enigmatic comment you’ve ever received from a fan?
A: A struggling writer once told me that my success had given him hope that he could make it too. I still don’t know what to say when someone tells me that!
(P.S. to shoppers: Gary’s debut novel The Pericles Commission is available wherever good scrolls are sold. It’s also on those newfangled nook and kindle thingies.)

• Now then—aren’t you relieved you’re not a published author? Although most authors will claim there are more glory moments than dire, deer-in-the-headlights ones, it’s still an arduously competitive and frequently humbling business. So, dear readers, please be good to these authors, and others like them, this Christmas!

• Far too many of you out there, wistful writers and blissful non-writers alike, vicariously picture yourselves living The Life of a Published Author. Admit it. You fantasize about sprinting to your glam book-signing event past lines of adoring fans. Getting cosy late-night calls from your agent, announcing the latest kindle numbers for your book. Chilling in the Green Room before your Oprah interview.
• This week you’re in for a treat. You’ll live vicariously, all right—in my armchair tour of the dark underbelly of book promotion. Yesirree! Step right up! Meet the author as trained seal, valiantly endeavoring to shout over the cacaphony of expresso machines. Squirm to the real-life trials, tribulations, and humiliations endured by even the best wordsmiths.
• Authors Steven Saylor, Vicky Alvear Shecter, Ruth Downie, Adrienne Mayor, Caroline Lawrence, and Gary Corby—my terrific gang of six—
rashly volunteered to undergo my grilling about their worst book-peddling experiences. As writers, they run the gamut of genres, from children’s books to historical fiction to nonfiction. Their common thread? All six authors have new books out this year on Greco-Roman themes or set in Greco-Roman times.

Steven Saylor

• While watching movies like Spartacus and playing with Roman toy soldiers as a boy, Steven Saylor never dreamed he’d grow up to write novels about ancient Rome. His sleuth Gordianus the Finder uncovers crimes in the age of Julius Caesar. In his novels Roma and Empire, Steven takes a more panoramic view of the ancient world.
Q: Welcome, Steven! We’re hungry to learn—what’s the most embarrassing book event you’ve ever done?
A: Years ago, I took part in a group signing for Mystery Week in the San Francisco Bay Area. Everything went wrong. The bookseller had no idea who we were and put none of our books in the window.  A handyman on a ladder went about rewiring a light fixture a few feet away while we sat at a table for two hours. No audience. It was gruesome—until a shopper who was headed for Italy happened to drop by –and I got to sign a book! Gratifying—but also embarrassing, since it was a group event.
Q: Most bizarre question you’ve ever gotten from an audience?
A: On my first trip to the north of England, a man raised his hand and in a broad Scottish accent, asked, “Mr Saylor, I read ye book, and I liked it but—why must ye have a murder?” I was speechless. Naturally, that night in my hotel room I came up with an answer: the murder is the Pandora’s box, the rip in the social fabric that allows all the other secrets being kept by the characters to tumble out.
Q: Oddest or most poignant comment you’ve received?
A: At a signing a male reader once asked, “What does it mean that, over the course of your series, you’ve created an ideal father in Gordianus?” Something I’d never realized, but he was absolutely right. The reader at times sees patterns not seen by the author, who’s like a painter standing too close to the canvas to see the big picture. Gordianus as an ideal father is a theme that runs all through the series, even though I never intended to do this. I’m still thinking about what it means.
Thanks, Steven! (P.S. to shoppers: Steven’s books are available in hardcover, paperback, audio CD format, and Kindle e-book format.)

Vicky Alvear Shecter

• Vicky Alvear Shecter writes for teens and younger readers on figures of ancient Greece and Rome. Her lively language enthralls kids; educators and parents alike praise her meticulous research. Both Alexander the Great Rocks the World and Cleopatra Rules! are large format, heavily illustrated books with plenty of extras.
Q: Welcome, Vicky! Prepared to lose your last scrap of dignity? Tell me, what’s your most humiliating book event ever?
A: When a big box store invited me to do a signing but never a mentioned a word of it to anybody. I spent the entire time listening to chirping crickets!


Q: Hm. Would this have been a pet store, I wonder… OK, what’s the most bizarre question an interviewer or bookseller has asked you?
A: I’d just completed a storytelling session for kids in a popular bookstore, and went to thank the manager, where the conversation went like this:
Me: Even though the audience of toddlers was much too young for my book, I appreciated the opportunity.
Manager: The parts of the stories I could hear over the wailing toddlers were really good.
Me: Thank you. May I tell you a little more about who my books are written for?
Manager: Yeah. But first, what’s your favorite cookie recipe?
Me: um…
Manager: I’m putting together a cookie recipe book featuring the authors who come to my store.
Me: Oh, I don’t really bake. Still, I do want to clarify that my books are best for children nine years and older…..
Manager: (interrupting) Oops, gotta go! Email me that cookie recipe when you can! Thanks, bye-bye!
Q: Funniest comments ever received from a fan?
A: A girl about 11 emailed to say how much she enjoyed my first book. “I normally hate history,” she wrote, “but reading your book was fun. I’m going to write my report on Alexander the Great. But I should tell you, as soon as I finish it, I’m going to forget everything I read. Just thought you should know.”
Thanks, Vicky! (P.S. to shoppers: Vicky’s books are available in hardcover online and from other fine bookstore and museum retailers.)

Ruth Downie

Ruth Downie is author of what will soon be 4  books, set mainly in Roman Britain. They feature army medic Gaius Petreius Ruso and his inability to avoid murder mysteries. She loves doing the research and has developed a worrying habit of gazing into holes dug in the road in case the workers have turned up something ancient and interesting.
Q: Welcome, Ruth! You’re in for it now. What’s the most embarrassing book event you’ve ever done?
A: That would be the one attended by me, the organizer, one other person (which is why the show had to go on), and the nice couple who were there to lock up the building afterwards. Halfway through, two more people wandered in, but I think they came to see why the lights had been left on.
Q: What about the oddest or funniest remark you ever gotten from a fan? Or a non-fan, for that matter?
A: I had a lovely email from a reader who must have sussed out my deep insecurity. After I had responded to her, she wrote back, saying,  “Thanks so much for taking the time to reply to me—a real writer would never have bothered.”
Thanks, Ruth! (P.S. to shoppers: Ruth Downie’s books are available in hardcover, paperback, and various e-book formats, including Kindle and Nook.)
How to stun an author: buy a book, for pity’s sake!

• Can’t get enough of these unsavory literary doings? Stay tuned for my upcoming blogpost. Part 2 of our wrenching, rollicking exposé will continue with more of the everyday ghastliness that confronts authors of every stripe.

We’re finishing up our rollicking interview with Stephen Moorbath, gadabout geochemist, irrepressible punster, world-class archaeological grunt, and—as we discover—a connoiseur of volcanoes worldwide.
Welcome, Stephen!

Q: I’m a big armchair fan of the showier aspects of geology, eg volcanic activity. My family used to take us trout-fishing at Spirit Lake, a pristine body of water which sat below Mount St. Helens before the major eruption in 1980.  Ever visited St. Helens or any of the Cascades?
A: I’ve worked a lot with volcanoes, which are my second major geological interest. And in fact, I visited Mount St. Helens not long after it erupted! Volcanoes are the bowels of the Earth, and they emit its waste products (which is why some people refer to them as lava-tories).

Mt. St. Helens, erupting 1980

Spirit Lake, after St Helens eruption

Spirit Lake, in 1982

Q: Stephen, have you done any investigation on the vulcanology of the Mediterranean, especially active sites like Mount Etna?  I am very taken with Etna. Until I flew around it last fall, I had no idea it was such a tall (11,000 feet) handsome  chocolate-colored cone. And that snow around the top, with a bit of cherry-red lava! Reminded me of my favorite icecream dish—with marshmallow topping and a cherry on top.  Until I saw what a wretched climb it would be, I had fantasies (armchair, of course) about doing a farewell dive into its crater, as the ancient Greek philosopher Empedocles was said to have done.

Mt. Etna on Sicily

A: I have worked mainly on the volcanoes of Iceland and Chile. I’m particularly interested in the chemical compositions of the lavas and what they can tell us about the nature and composition of the depths of the Earth.  In Iceland I witnessed at close quarters an eruption on the island of Surtsey. Truly awe-inspiring. The heavens were on fire, the Earth trembled continuously, and the sea emitted vast columns of steam. Surtsey sits on the present-day mid-Atlantic ridge, which is the suture of the split between Europe and America. That occurred about 55 million years ago; since then, Europe and America have drifted apart at about 2 centimeters per year.  (Maybe it was better that way!)
Q: Stephen, you are a man of many interests. What are your favorite leisure activities? Are you busy traveling to places you’ve not yet seen, natural wonders you’ve not yet ogled?
A: My favorite pastimes are classical music, photography, archaeology, palaeoanthropology (human evolution), philately (love of stamps, not television!) and cycling.  I love travel. Scenically, the most beautiful countries I’ve visited are Chile, Norway, Yemen, Switzerland, Austria, Iceland, and Greenland. As for towns and cities, too many to mention!
• My best scenic memory is our honeymoon; Pauline and myself, touring round the western USA in 1962 with a small car and a tent. We went to Bryce Canyon, Arches Monument, Goblin Valley,  the Arizona desert, the Rockies, etc—you lucky people! The Grand Canyon was a real favorite—but I would never want to experience again the agony of heat cramp in my legs at 120 degrees F. at the bottom of the canyon!

Bryce Canyon

Q: You’re also a linguistics buff, aren’t you? And some while ago, you had the kindness to correct a linguistic misstep of mine, having to do with the ancient Etruscans. Tell us more about them. Mystery folks, weren’t they?
A: Yes, I’ve studied them a bit. They lived side by side with the ancient Romans for hundreds of years BC, but they had their own culture and language, unrelated to any other. Eventually they merged with the Romans.
Q: Or were conquered or assimilated by the Romans.
A: True.
Q: Can you teach us a deathless phrase or two in ancient Etruscan?
A: Judging by the amount of Spanish wine you took on board at the dig in Spain, you’re fond of the grape. Here’s an Etruscan phrase you’ll like. This sentence dates to about 400 BC, and refers to Fufluns, the Etruscan god of wine.
“Mi Fuflunusram, mi mathcva.”
Q; Which means?
A: “I am of Flufluns, and I am full of inebriating drink.”
Q: Well, cheers! Or bottoms up, as you must say in jolly old Oxford.
Thanks, Stephen, for a fascinating globe-spanning ride!

Geologist, field researcher, and rockhound Stephen Moorbath cannot get enough of grubbing in the dirt, apparently, as we’ll learn from his backbreaking experiences on the dig of his friend and fellow scientist Bill Waldren.

Fellow diggers Moorbath and Leon

Q: Stephen, you and I met in September 1998, at the archaeological dig run by Bill and Jackie Waldren on the Spanish island of Mallorca in the Balearics. You were hunkered down in an uncomfortable little pit, going through untold shovels full of reddish Mallorcan soil, just as I was.
How did you first get interested in Bill’s work—via geology and/or archaeology? You were his mentor and path-smoother at Oxford, weren’t you?

Bill Waldren and his excavation

A: I first met Bill in 1975. At the age of 50, he presented himself for admission to Linacre, my Oxford college, to carry out research for a doctoral thesis (which we call a D. Phil.) on his pioneering archaeological work on the island of Mallorca. Bill had no previous academic experience at all—but he so impressed the Admissions Committee (of which I was a member) with his striking, macho personality and with his past, present, and future research, that he was unanimously accepted as a research student, against all the normal academic rules.
• Bill had always been a “do-er” rather than a “thinker.” Nevertheless, his eventual doctoral thesis turned out to be one of the biggest, heaviest, longest, most beautifully illustrated, not to say illustrious, thesis of this type anyone could recall. It certainly showed that Bill could “think” with the best of them!

Jackie Waldren

Q: Was Jackie whipping up those amazing, succulent meals back then? The memory of those lunches and dinners from the Waldren clan, supplemented by astonishing quantities of good red wine, remains fresh in my mind.
A: Bill’s wife Jackie always provided immense and essential support for Bill throughout his archaeological career in Mallorca. She ran their impressive, jointly designed house and the Museum in the village of Deia. Later, Jackie’s professional interests turned to Social Anthropology.
Q: She wrote a book on the cultural anthropology of Mallorca, didn’t she?
A: Yes. And in between, she also managed the numerous 2-week parties of Earthwatch-supported pioneers who came every year to the Waldren’s home, mainly from the USA, to take part in Bill’s extensive and ongoing excavations.
Q: The dig was quite close to Valdemosa, as I recall.
A: Yes, the neighboring village. Just a short walk from where Frederic Chopin and his mistress Georges Sand spent a lamentally cold and dank winter in 1838.  She wrote a book about it. Chopin was supposed to recover from his lung complaint in the predicted Mediterranean sunshine, which didn’t materialize that year. Instead of composing, poor Chopin was decomposing! Anyway, after three months of suffering, they returned to Paris, where Chopin gradually recovered.

Q: Stephen, in your estimation, what is the lasting legacy of Bill’s work?  Did the two of you ever collaborate on any project?  (Besides drinking good Spanish wine and eating their wondrous cooking, that is…)
A: Bill’s work was of major importance in clarifying the pre-history of Mallorca from the time that human beings arrived there from the mainland, some 6000 years ago. He also worked on the fossils of antelopes called Myotragus, which survived on Mallorca island long after they had died out on the mainland of Spain. They evolved in unusual ways in that island environment.

Bill with Myotragus skull

Q: How did Bill discover the Myotragus bones?
A: When he arrived in Mallorca from Paris in the 1960’s, he had no special knowledge of archaeology. But he soon started exploring the many large limestone caves in which, almost single-handedly, he made the most exciting and important discoveries which formed the starting point for all his later research. The antelope bones had been thrown down into the caves, you see. That laid the foundation for his academic reputation. Bill’s work is of lasting importance in Mediterranean studies.
Q: What about your personal relationship with the Waldrens?
A: My wife, Pauline, and I quickly became close friends with Bill and Jackie soon after they arrived in Oxford in the mid-1970’s. We have visited them nearly every year in Mallorca since then. We took part in the ongoing excavations together with the Earthwatch volunteers (including our illustrious and muscular author Vicki). Our contributions were brawny rather than brainy, but we followed all of Bill’s scientific achievements with the greatest interest, year by year. His death a few years ago was a major loss to everyone, both from a personal and scientific viewpoint.
By the way, my own geological research is not at all related to Bill’s activities—but Bill had the ability to inspire everyone with his achievements. I have to admit that archaeology can be just as inspiring as geology!

A: What a gratifying friendship. And what a gratifying Earthwatch dig that was—getting to meet you and the Waldrens was a peak experience for me. Please stay tuned for my next blogpost, where we’ll cajole Stephen into revealing all about his volcano fascination, his philately, and his Etruscan fixation.

This week, “A Fresh Eye” welcomes one of Oxford University’s well-loved figures, geologist Stephen Moorbath. A lifelong geochemist and field researcher, he spent three decades of summers on Greenland. He played a pivotal role in the discovery and analysis of the very oldest rocks on earth. He’s also well-known (some might say notorious) for his deft and daft way with words, as you’ll soon discover.

Vicki with Stephen Moorbath at dig in Spain

Q: Welcome, Stephen. As a young boy in England, what adventurous thing did you dream of doing or becoming?
A: As a small boy, I wanted to be a tram-driver. I used to stand next to them for years in my daily travels. It built my character; and it was there that I learned how to read between the lines!
Q: Did you achieve your goal?
A: I never became a trolley-car operator; but some years later at school, I fell in love with the science of chemistry, producing some nasty little fires and explosions in our kitchen. Although I was actively discouraged from this activity, I later enrolled at Oxford U. to study chemistry. With chemistry, I really felt in my element (or all 92 of them). However, during my first year, I underwent a sudden conversion to geology—the best thing I ever did. In any case, geology involves a lot of chemistry; in fact, the distribution of the chemical elements in nature is called “geochemistry.” I’m actually a fully paid-up “geochemist.”
Q: What won you over to geology?
A: The main reason I wanted to study it?  The geological sciences provide such a wonderful and truthful picture of the origin, evolution, and structure of our planet throughout the whole of geological history—and of the evolution of all living creatures inhabiting the planet. All this is so much more realistic and intellectually satisfying than the picturesque but totally inaccurate creation myths of religious texts.

Q: Who have you principally worked for, in this field?
A: After years of study I became a university academic, involved mainly in teaching and scientific research. I’ve spent most of my professional life at Oxford University, which happens to be one of the places where modern science began some 400 to 500 years ago. And shows no sign of ending yet!
Q: Stephen, what’s the most important find you’ve ever made?
A: I’ve found many interesting geological and archaeological objects, but the most important may have been my close connection with the 1971 discovery of the oldest known rocks on the earth’s surface—and actually holding them in my hands.
Q: Wow. Tell us more about this.
A: I first visited Greenland in 1957, as a geological field assistant to an expedition. My own research work there started in 1971. I worked closely with Vic McGregor (now deceased) in the discovery of the oldest known rocks and the measurements of their actual age—close to 3.8 billion years. This is still quite a bit younger than the age of the earth itself (and of the solar system), which is close to 4.5 billion years. I spent 15 summers on Greenland (1971 – 2001), collecting rock samples, which were then transported to Oxford for geological and chemical research. The Greenland rocks proved that water was already plentiful on earth some 3.8 billion years ago. Some workers have suggested that these ancient rocks already contain evidence for the presence of primitive life at this time, but I think that the evidence is still inadequate.

West Greenland, site of oldest rocks in the world

Q: Other findings that have come out of your work?
A: Numerous workers in many laboratories have studied these ancient Greenland rocks since 1971. Their work has helped to give a detailed picture of what the earth was like in its early stages; they’ve now compared and contrasted this with today’s terrestrial environment and found surprising similarities but also many important differences.
Q: Such as Greenland itself?
A: It looks exactly as it did in 1957. However, detailed measurements by meteorologists and glaciologists show that global warming is beginning to cause an increased rate of melting of the Greenland ice cap.
Q: Stephen, in the American Museum of Natural History in New York city, there is a boulder-sized display of a banded iron formation. It is said to occur almost exclusively in very ancient rocks. Is this similar to what you and your colleagues uncovered in Greenland?
A: Banded iron-formation (we call it BIF) is a major component of the oldest (3.8 billion years) rocks in the Isua region of West Greenland. It is a sedimentary rock deposited under water, composed of magnetite (iron oxide) and quartz (silicon oxide). I think that the BIF boulder in New York’s museum comes from Isua—and I think I helped to collect it!
Q: What a thrill that must have been!
A: The excitement and expectation of finding something often exceeds the thrill of what you actually find.
Q: What about stromatolites? I love the way they look. Any of those in Greenland?

Stromatolites: very ancient life forms

A: We have yet to find any stromatolites there. But such creatures still survive today. The best known ancient stromatolites come from Australia and South Africa.  They’re widely recognized as demonstrating the existence of primitive life on earth by somewhere around 3.5 billion years ago.

Vicki Leon: Fascinating to learn this, Stephen. We’ve got lots more to quiz Stephen Moorbath about, so please join us on my next blogpost for Part 2 of “A Fresh Eye.”

Q: Queen Cleopatra once made a very wild bet with Marc Antony: that she could spend more money on a single dinner than he could. At the meal, she had a single drink put in front of her; in it was a large pearl worth 10 million sesterces, which she swallowed. She won the bet!

Another woman, however, received a black pearl worth six million sesterces—also from a famous man. This was no tipsy giftover dinner, either. Who was the mystery woamn? And who was her generous boyfriend?

A: Although Julius Caesar had 3 wives and many lovers, the gal he most ardently loved was Servilia Caeponis, from one of Rome’s noblest families. They became lovers in 63 BC. Four years later, he paid a cool six million sesterces for a huge, lustrous black pearl for Servilia. (That’s the equivalent of 1,000 pounds of gold.)

Today, black pearls are back in fashion. Harvested mainly off the Tahitian islands, they can cost up to $22,000.

Coming in November!

• A no-holds-barred interview series with geologist, Greenland researcher, and raconteur Stephen Moorbath…talk about going “way back when”—this man rocks!

• For your Christmas wish-list, including that hard-to-shop-for teen or husband, read the  quirky “Vic recommends” roundup of recent release books for young AND old that will tickle lovers of Greek and Roman fiction and nonfiction

• another tricky teaser from the 1-minute Mystery from History, this time about long-ago bling

In case you missed them—
October posts included: philosopher dates vampire; creepy stories of the Roman opening to the underworld; Periander the necrophiliac tells all; and the two Vics explore the deathless art of Queen Cleopatra: poignancy or porn?