I’m thrilled to welcome Susanna Fraser to our Time Machine this week!
What’s the Time Machine about? As a historical romantic suspense author, I love all eras of history. You name an era, I can probably find some sort of trouble to go digging into. So I thought it would be fun to check in with other authors and see what their favorite eras are and what they would do with just 24 hours to spend there. Stay tuned every Monday to see where we’re headed to next…
If you could go back in time for just 24 hours, what era would you go to and where would you land?
I waffled for a long time on this one, because while I’m broadly interested in history, I’m most passionate about two widely separated eras–the Napoleonic Era and Ancient Greece. My first instinct was to say Brussels on the eve of Waterloo in 1815. It’s the era I’m published in, after all, and one of my books, An Infamous Marriage, is even partially set in Brussels 1815.
But after a little more thought, I decided if I was really going to get one and only one chance to go back in time, I’d want to go long. Not 200 years ago to a culture a lot like my own, but 2500 years back. To a place at once immensely unlike my 21st-century American world and resting at its foundation. Athens, 5th century BCE. Birthplace of democracy. I’d probably go just after their triumph over the invading Persians at the Battle of Marathon in 490.
You have 24 hours… what would you do with your short time?
I’d walk around the city and talk to as many people as I could to try to get a sense of what it was like to be an ordinary person living through such an extraordinary time. I’d find out what everyday people thought of their budding democracy. I’d visit the temples, even though the Acropolis as we knew it was built a little bit later. I’d talk to as many women as I could. My least favorite aspect of ancient Athenian culture is the many restrictions placed on women–respectable women were kept in seclusion and not allowed to mingle with unrelated men even when with their husbands, fathers, or brothers were present. Women who weren’t respectable had a bit more freedom–e.g. there were the hetairai, or courtesans, who were educated and independent, but they couldn’t marry and any children they bore weren’t citizens. Even compared to other ancient cultures, Athenian history is men’s history. So if I could really go there, I’d want to hear the women’s voices.
Oh, and because I’m a military history geek, I’d want to talk to men who fought at Marathon. There’s much debate about exactly how the battle played out–where the armies were initially positioned, what triggered the start of the battle, whether the Athenians actually charged the length of the battlefield at a run (difficult to imagine in full hoplite armor, but these were strong, fit young men). I could write the definitive book on what actually happened at Marathon, based on eyewitness accounts.
Incidentally, that story many of you heard growing up about the messenger running 26 miles from the battlefield back to the city to inform them of the victory, only to drop dead of exhaustion as soon as he delivered his message? Wasn’t true. The messenger was a runner sent before the battle from Athens to Sparta, a distance of some 150 miles, to ask for their assistance. He delivered his message and returned with their response (basically, “Sure, we’ll help as soon as we’re done with this important religious festival”), and there’s nothing in the story about him dying.
No, the first marathon was the entire Athenian army, having won on the battlefield in the morning, quick-marching back to the city because they’d left it undefended and knew the rest of the Persian expeditionary force was on its way there by ship. They were the only defenders the city had (since the Spartans didn’t show up till a few days later!), so the only way to secure their victory was to get home before the Persians could beat them there. I recently read a book about the battle (Marathon, by Richard Billows) that speculated the scene was more like a modern marathon than you’d think–you have to imagine the population of Athens would’ve turned out into the streets to cheer their warriors on as soon as they realized what was happening!
You can personally see, visit, talk with (or whatever….) one historical figure in that time period. Who would it be and what would you do?
Since I’ve chosen to visit Athens at the very beginning of its glory days, I can’t pick any of the obvious choices. Pericles was a little boy, Socrates wasn’t born yet, and nor was the sculptor Phidias, to name just a few. Cleisthenes, the man credited with establishing Athenian democracy, was probably dead by then, though we don’t know the details of his later life.
So I’d probably put my military historian hat back on and talk with Miltiades, the general credited with the tactics that made the victory at Marathon possible. That definitive history I’d write wouldn’t be complete without him.
You have your cell phone with you — someone sees it. How would you explain what it is?
A magic talisman from the gods, what else? And I, as the priestess carrying it, would demand due respect.
About Susanna
Susanna Fraser wrote her first novel in fourth grade. It starred a family of talking horses who ruled a magical land. In high school she started, but never finished, a succession of tales of girls who were just like her, only with long, naturally curly hair, who, perhaps because of the hair, had much greater success with boys than she ever did.
Along the way she read her hometown library’s entire collection of Regency romance, fell in love with the works of Jane Austen, and discovered in Patrick O’Brian’s and Bernard Cornwell’s novels another side of the opening decades of the 19th century. When she started to write again as an adult, she knew exactly where she wanted to set her books. Her writing has come a long way from her youthful efforts, but she still likes to give her heroines great hair.
Susanna was born and raised in Alabama and has never lost her love for barbecue and SEC football or stopped saying “y’all,” “fixin’ to” and “might could” as her adult life took her to Philadelphia, England, and at last to Seattle, where she now lives with her husband and daughter.
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