Characters

I was asked to introduce the characterns in my novels, so that it is easier to understand who they are. I started editing this list with their names. The list will be filled little by little, so that surprise is not spoiled and to follow the posts as they are published.

Neapolis - The Siren's Recall

Gavio

One of the main characters of the novel is a young Campanian man (born in Capua) moved to Neapolis dreaming to study natural philosphy. There he knows his future mentor Nymphios who will first teach and then adopt him. He will finish his studies in Elea philosphers' school, where he knows Pelagíos, before he gets back to Neapolis when the town's political situation becomes critical. Gavio tells his story in Chapter V of the novel.

Herennius Pontius

A background character, he was a meddiss tuticus, maximum Samnite magistrate, basically a consul with no colleague. History reminds his name during the episode of the Caudine Forks.

Lucius Cornelius Lentulus

Roman consul in 328-327 BC, a patrician, at the beginning of his consulate he was given an army to prevent Samnite war initiatives in Ager Campanus. His action was basically to cover the siege of his colleague Quintus Publilius Filo around Neapolis.

Nymphios

In the novel's premise he is mentioned as a Neapolis polemarch, one of the two highest-rank magistrates in a polis (demarchs), just like in the republican Rome there were two consuls. A difference was that usually in a Greek polis polemarchs tended civilian matters, while his colleague (the polemon was his military counterpart, the army leader. Nymphios in my novel has a reknown past as, thirty years before the Neapolis siege, he led a mercenaries host for the Syracuse tyrant Dionysius II (see here and here). History sometimes enjoys putting people in front of their own past.

Parthenope

Protecting goddess of Neapolis.

Pelagíos

Thebes warrior, from the Sacred Batallion and survivor of Cheronea, where he lost his father, meets the young Gavio during his travel around the Greek philosphy schools and is intrigued in discovering a “barbarian” who can talk about philosophy. Friendship ensues, Gavio invites him to visit Neapolis and Pelagíos gladly accepts. Pelagíos, like Gavio, has his chance to tell his own life in the novel's Chapter V.

Quintus Publilius Filo

Roman consul in 328-327 for his second mandate, a plebeian, in the beginning of this consulate he is given an army to siege Neapolis. His personal story is better told in this post.