TO THE RAVENS
Akantha, the heroine of To the Ravens, my novel set in the lunar colonies of ancient Rome.
One thing I really liked about this book is that I got to blend historical facts with totally made up things. (Like the Romans, you know, getting to the moon.)
One minor thing is Akantha's short hair. Most artwork from antiquity shows women with long hair -- in fact, I can't think of any artwork that doesn't, but I say "most" because you never know. According to my research, the only females who had short hair among the Greeks and Romans would have been young girls and slaves. So it was heard of, but I infer it was somewhat belittling.
However, my other source (aside from history) was, of course, Lucian of Samosata, who assures us with a straight face that all of the Lunarians are running around bald. Now, I didn't want to go that far, in part because I like drawing hair and it would be harder to distinguish the characters on a design level if they were all bald. But I decided Lunarian (specifically Kynthian) beauty standards would include bald heads on men (often) and very short hair on women. So Akantha and her sister Karyai, and her mother Tanais all have short hair. Akantha's cousin Menaios is bald, though Pas' hair is chin-length because he dresses femininely, whereas Galana, Brixia, and Kokkonas are all set apart as foreigners by their long hair.
And the nice thing was, no one can tell me I'm wrong because it's not like they know what's going on on the moon.
