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Colloquialism and Exoticism
Damnatio Memoriae is the final, emotionally raw, and beautifully written chapter of the Nero and Sporus saga. How do you feel now that you have completed Sporus’s story, and were you able to achieve everything you wanted with the characters in the novel?
This is really one long novel, but now that I’ve reached an advanced age, I always worry about being able to finish things so I decide to do it as a trilogy so that even if I were to pass away, that would still be some parts of the book out as separate books. Because of this, I’ve lived with the characters for a very long time. One thing though is that we do know how the story ends, and we’ve always known it because it’s one of the few things that the historical record actually tells us. One problem with releasing the story in smaller chunks has been people getting the last chunk and complaining bitterly about the protagonist’s fate. Unfortunately, it’s one of the few things I couldn’t change without violating the whole idea of a historical novel.
What goals did you set for yourself as a writer in this book?
My largest aim was to truly inhabit the world of the first century and completely eschew any kind of moral or philosophical biases I might have as an inhabitant of our modern era. This is very difficult because so many things that were taken for granted are now shocking, and something that taken for granted today would’ve shocked the Romans. For example, the idea of people actually being equal would have been astonishing. Sex and violence, so much a cause of societal uproar today, were not only not that profound, they were even mostly entertainment. One reader complained bitterly that I didn’t use archaic language. But the Romans didn’t know they were ancient! I had to strike a balance between colloquialism and exoticism. Everyone doing what I do has to find their own happy medium. I hope that that which is exotic or horrific about the Roman world comes across most successfully when it is treated as completely commonplace.
What experience in your life has had the most significant impact on your writing?
Bringing up a child who was completely comfortable as either gender and had no qualms about switching whenever he felt like it. This book is actually dedicated to him. I use the word him because the language I usually speak to him in is Thai, a language in which most pronouns are gender-neutral. People who grow up in this culture simply don’t suffer any agony about pronouns.
What is the next book that you are working on, and when can your fans expect it to be out?
I’m returning to science fiction and fantasy at the moment with a new post-holocaust trilogy set among wolves. I’m also doing a sixth novel in a series that I’ve been working on for over 40 years. It was very popular in the 80s and I’m reviving it. It’s one of those vast Galactic Empire kind of things.
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Captured by pirates as a boy and trafficked to the slave markets of Rome, Sporus rose from a poet’s plaything to one of the most powerful figures in the Roman Empire.
The historian Suetonius tells us that the Emperor Nero emasculated and married his slave Sporus, the spitting image of murdered Empress Poppaea. But history has more tidbits about Sporus, who went from “puer delicatus” to Empress to one Emperor and concubine to another, and ended up being sentenced to play the Earth-Goddess in the arena.
The decadence of Imperial Rome comes to life in S.P. Somtow’s Literary Titan Award-winning trilogy about one of ancient history’s wildest characters.
Damnatio Memoriae
Somtow’s Damnatio Memoriae is the final, emotionally raw, and beautifully written chapter of the Nero and Sporus saga. It’s a deeply personal journey told through the voice of Sporus, a former slave and imperial concubine, who relives his (and her) rise and fall at the edges of empire, identity, and power. This isn’t your average Roman epic—it’s visceral, surreal, darkly poetic, and hauntingly queer. With Nero’s collapse and Rome’s chaos as the backdrop, Sporus reflects on life, gender, betrayal, and the myth of love, all while waiting to be executed in a packed arena. It’s intense.
What hit me first was how lyrical the writing is. It reads like a fever dream soaked in garum and incense. Somtow doesn’t hold back—there’s real pain here, but also twisted humor and staggering beauty. The opening monologue, for example, where Sporus describes the reek of sand, blood, and beast dung in the arena, while cracking dry jokes about makeup and waiting for a death scene, felt like Oscar Wilde doing Gladiator cosplay. And yet, it’s achingly tragic. And then there’s the ring scene in the marketplace, where a carved image of Persephone triggers a spiritual collapse and sparks an impromptu imperial crucifixion crisis. Absolutely brilliant and brutal.
That said, this book isn’t an easy read. It expects a lot from you—emotionally, intellectually, even morally. Nero is magnetic and monstrous, sometimes at the same time, and the dynamics between him and Sporus swing from disturbing to tender. Somtow nails this complexity. But the heartbreak really comes from how aware Sporus is of their own powerlessness, even while being dressed up as a goddess or cherished as a boy. In “Clipped Wings,” the metaphor of the clipped doves—meant to be freed in a religious ritual but secretly recaptured—just gutted me.
If you like your historical fiction brutal and beautiful, if you’re into mythology reimagined through a queer lens, if you can handle morally messy characters and poetic trauma—this is for you. Fans of Mary Renault, Madeline Miller, or even Game of Thrones at its sharpest will probably find something to love here. But it’s also for people who want to feel something deep and uncomfortable. I’m not gonna lie, it’s sometimes hard to stomach—but I didn’t want to look away.
Pages: 232 | ASIN : B0F2YZ1HRH
LITERARY TITAN 