A Review by Keith Smith

Dirty tricks galore in this follow-up to ‘Imperium’ taking us through Cicero’s life at the peak of his power until his exile. Reviews, as for ‘Imperium’ , have been almost unreservedly excellent. Robert Harris is admired as much for his historical accuracy and attention to detail as his ability to write a high class thriller.

Rome, 63 BC. In a city on the brink of acquiring a vast empire, seven men are struggling for power. Cicero is consul, Caesar his ruthless young rival, Pompey the republic’s greatest general, Crassus its richest man, Cato a political fanatic, Catilina a psychopath, and Clodius an ambitious playboy.

The stories of these real historical figures – their alliances and betrayals, their cruelties and seductions, their brilliance and their crimes – are all interleaved to form this epic novel. Its narrator is Tiro, a slave who serves as confidential secretary to the wily, humane, complex Cicero. He knows all his master’s secrets, and all sides of his character, for Cicero’s weaknesses are as manifold as his strengths. He is revealed to us in this book, even more than in ‘Imperium’, as an undoubtedly flawed hero. We view with distaste the corrupt ways in which he seeks to overcome his enemies and yet we really do want him to succeeed as his rivals are so much worse!

Not only does Robert Harris give us an insight to the world power plays of the time, he makes us familiar with the day-to-day way in which life was lived in Rome in those dangerous but exciting times, and if he tells us little about the individuals who made up ‘the mob’ who exerted considerable real power that is because little is known. In every other respect we feel we are living through the times with Tiro his amaneunsis who makes an engaging narrator.

I cannot recommend this trilogy highly enough. I will read the final instalment (in 2011 unfortunately) as soon as it is published….