Gordianus the Finder
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Gordianus the Finder is the fictional protagonist of Steven Saylor's Roma Sub Rosa series of mystery novels set in Republican Rome.
Gordianus interacts with non-fictional citizens including Sulla, Cicero, Marcus Crassus, Catullus, Pompey, Julius Caesar, Quintus Sertorius, and Marc Antony.
The first Gordianus novel, Roman Blood, is based on an actual murder trial in which Marcus Tullius Cicero defended Sextus Roscius against the charge of parricide. The crime has a unique punishment, which Saylor describes in gruesome detail.
For an ancient Roman, Gordianus has an unconventional family. His wife, Bethesda, was his former Egyptian concubine, whom he had purchased as a slave. His eldest adopted son Eco was a former mute who followed in his father's footsteps as an investigator; another adopted son Meto estranged himself from his father by becoming a soldier; while the youngest adopted son Rupa was the result of an adulterous affair with Cassandra, a young spy for Julius Caesar (actually, Rupa was the brother of Cassandra). The only child of his blood is his daughter Diana, an intellectual and headstrong young woman.
He died soon after his wife did, while in Egypt, by drowning in the Nile (The Judgement of Caesar)
