The Cicero Trilogy: Robert Harris

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I found the last two books of the series more engrossing but relished my time in Rome and the ups and downs of Cicero’s life. By the end, Cicero's soaring oratory is the only force left against those powers moving to snuff out Roman freedom for ever. LUSTRUM deals with the dangers, seductions, and horrors of power, and the slide toward brutal mob rule.

The depictions of well-known Roman figures such as Caesar, Marc Antony, and Octavian are similarly very well depicted. Cicero is a thoroughly engaging character, a self-made man who is heavily flawed and is often forced to compromise, a politician who fights with his wit and clever scheming.Still, Harris’ portrait of Cicero remains captivating and convincing and he brings Ancient Rome to life very skilfully. At the same time it does give some insight into the politics in and of Rome, how they could have been. However, I am willing to concede that these are minor gripes that mainly bother me and nobody else, I just wanted to get them off my chest. I only started it on the recommendation of a friend and got to exactly half-way through before finding that Robert Harris seems to have no talent for characterisation. The lex Manilia is proposed, granting command of the war against Mithradates to Pompey, along with the government of the provinces of Asia, Cilicia and Bithynia, the latter two held by Lucullus, which is opposed by Catulus and Hortensius.

I tried reading Lustrum a while ago but gave up early on, sensing that it wasn’t anywhere near as good as its preceding book, Imperium.Crassus and Pompey are evenly matched against one another, with each having enough supporters to veto the bill if required. Cicero is summoned to the house of Metellus Pius, pontifex maximus, and requested to prosecute Catilina over his extortion as governor in Africa. Now, this book is very heavy on the historical facts and as such, there's a lot of characters that potentially we could have had more information on, but I think that's what I like about this series, it's so heavily focused on the history rather than being yet another fiction book set in the ancient world. What made Imperium so compelling was the wonderfully viperous Caesar clashing with Cicero throughout (which is why I want to read Dictator as I think that book is going to be full of that) whereas Caesar, though his shadow looms over everything, is largely absent in Lustrum. The political side of things is overall very good, although I have some bones to pick about the trial of Rabirius and about the nature and direction of Augustan propaganda (which Tiro claims is biased against his former master) - W.

Its narrator is Tiro, a slave who serves as confidential secretary to the wily, humane, complex Cicero. There’s little inspiration with the material and Harris’ style feels very workmanlike and boring, like he was fulfilling a contract. They were like figures in the Rustics' play in A Midsummer Night's Dream, coming onto the stage holding a placard with their name on it. Despite this fidelity, he also manages to make Cicero more sympathetic than he easily might have been, since Harris is careful to mostly elide his somewhat repellent contempt for the Roman poor. Over dinner one evening, Cicero declares his intention to stand for election as aedile and to accomplish it by prosecuting Gaius Verres for extortion, based on the accumulated evidence.Throughout, the incredible gallery of historical characters that have become so familiar to the modern world shape the events, most significantly Caesar, Crassus, Pompey and Cato. Cicero puts on a splendid show with a large crowd of supporters and followers accompanying him on the parade and Hortensius comes up to him with a message which leaves Catilina and Hybrida confused as they know the two men are arch enemies. And trust me (you know that I am not saying it lightly), the ancient Rome beats the crap out of our days many time over. Harris takes rather a lot of Cicero's writing at face value, but that's a justified authorial choice, given that the narrator is Cicero's secretary - Tiro would hardly be interested in explaining the anti-senatorial faction's reasoning.