plumjadespoils13

History, Mythology, and Demonology behind "Spoils"

Princess Plum Jade

Apollodorus was a real person who served Queen Cleopatra. He is the loyal servant who carried his Queen, concealed in a carpet, back into the palace to meet Julius Caesar for the first time. It is presumed he was murdered in his last journey, attempting to smuggle the Queen's eldest son, Caesarion, out of Egypt to safety in India, beyond the reach of Octavian (Caesar Augustus.) In my fic, I chose to depict him as a nobleman and it is entirely possible that Cleopatra would have granted him this status for his loyalty and service. Little is known about his personal life.

It is a fascinating footnote to history that Caesar Augustus retained the golden idol Julius Caesar had commissioned of Queen Cleopatra. When one considers the galling and hate-mongering propaganda Augustus and his cronies fostered among the Roman population regarding the Egyptian Queen, one cannot help but wonder what truly motivated the young emporer. It's an intriguing question. Why did he keep the idol? He would have been praying before it daily at his family's ancestral temple. How could he tolerate it if he hated her so much?

Agrippa was one of the greatest tactical generals in Rome, and it was his strategy that helped destroy Cleopatra's navy at Actium. Marcus Antonius was not a skilled naval tactician and the Egyptian naval ships were slower than the Roman ones. Agrippa was known to be very xenophobic and anti-Eastern in sentiment. So, of course, I love the idea of him being tormented by erotic dreams and fantasies of Kordelia at the end of the story.

The mythology regarding the founding of Rome is correct. There are statues featuring the twins, Romulus and Remus, being nursed by a female wolf, still in existance.

I did take some liberties with the god, Apollo Lycius. "Lycius" is simply one of the many surnames given to the Greek Deity Apollo and the name means "Wolf-God." However, it is presumed he was "honored" with this name because he rid a particular region of Greece of wolves. I chose to reinterpret that myth as Apollo actually organizing the werewolves and banning them from hunting humanity.

I believe Angelus would have been completely at home during this particularly brutal era of human history. The Romans were very much the ruling power of the western world. They were very elitist and xenophobic of Eastern cultures whom they considered "pampered and soft and too fond of luxury." Yet the Romans themselves were shockingly decadent. The rape of Xiao-Mei could have easily happened, and probably did scores of times throughout Rome and all cultures practicing slavery. I don't think I depicted Angelus as being more brutal than the average Roman patrician (upper class) citizen would have been.

It also made sense to depict Kordelia as the clever and beautifully exotic "spoils of war." Alexandria was a very cosmopolitan city, a center of culture and learning in the Ancient World. Dress, cosmetics, and hairstyle fashions began there.

Regarding the exchanges between Angelus and Kordelia about Helen of Sparta/Helen of Troy: Helen of Sparta was the wife of Menelaus (the King of Sparta) and she was seduced and carried off by Paris, a Trojan Prince. Mythology states that Helen was bewitched into loving Paris by Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and beauty, because Aphrodite had promised Paris "the most beautiful woman in the world" for his wife. Helen's abduction by Paris is allegedly one of the main causes of the Trojan War. It took eleven years for the Greeks to conquer the city and Menelaus and Helen were happily reconciled.

Incubi and sucubi are the same type of demon. Incubi are male and sucubi are female. Some legends dictate that it is actually one demon who changes sex at will. (For example, the female sucubus would seduce a male partner and drain him of semen, then transform to a male incubus and seduce and impregnate a female partner.) It is a vampiric demon, feeding on erotic desires, lust, and sex.

I may have drawn the line a bit, saying they cannot feed on erotic love, but perhaps that's an imaginative explanation for why these demons are not known for having love afairs or emotional attachments to their prey...

Thank you for reading "Spoils!" If you have any other questions regarding the story and/or the history and mythology behind it, please e-mail me at [email protected] and I will do my best to answer.

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