Caesar: A Novel

Rating:
Summary: A Worthy Member (Though Not the Best) of the Series
Review: Caesar: Let the Dice Fly is a worthy member of McCullough's Masters of Rome series, and therefore essential reading to any of the avid readers of those books.

McCullough makes ancient history real and beleivable; she shows us the very human people behind the cardboard historical facades. We all know Caesar was great, but WHY was he great? McCullough shows us why--not just his through his achievements as a general, but through a realistic (albeit fictional) picture of the man.

In her notes at the end of the novel, McCullough comments on her publishers' requiring her to deal with a great deal of recorded history in a limited number of pages. This she does very well, but not as well as the previous books. Many of the most significant battles are described with astonishing brevity. This makes some of the events in the book seem forced and rushed. Perhaps her publishers should allow her more lassitude--none of her fans would object to longer books, or more of them!

While Caesar is not the strongest book in the Masters of Rome series, I still found it an engrossing read, as would anyone else reading these exceptional books.

Rating:
Summary: "Let the Dice Fly High" rolls a 7!"
Review: In this fifth book of the First Man In Rome series Julius Caesar leaves Rome for the Gallic Wars. The scene shifts between Gaul and Rome as the "Boni" or "Good Men" continue their machinations to destroy Caesar. Pompey Magnus goes from Caesar's ally to his nemesis.

McCullough's greatest gift is to make history come alive. Her characters are not the dry dust of high school history or Latin classes but spring from the page with ambition and passion. My greatest complaint is that she writes so slowly. I've waited two years for this episode to arrive and now I'll have to wait for the next. This entire series is a must read for anyone who is interested in Rome and Romans. McCullough's research is superb and when you finish, your understanding of how Rome ruled the world for 1300 years will have reached your gut level.

Rating:
Summary: Alternative history
Review: Irene Frain ,a French novelist,recently has noticed a tendency to disparage the images of the ancient world and its people.And she is right.Also Colleen Mccullough is following this tendency.Some reviewers have already interceded for Cato,Cicero,Brutus,Pompey,Antony.All they,with the exception of Julius Caesar,had lost in the novel their many-sided personalities.Perhaps it is only a reaction to their previous excessive romanticization,perhaps it is difficult to believe that such gifted and brilliant individuals did really exist.Of course "Caesar" is merely a novel.Still an author however fertile his fantasy may be cannot show us a cowardly Nelson,a good-hearted Hitler,an ugly Princess Diana without inevitably entering the domain of the alternative history.In this novel history may take an alternative course when young Pompey and Antony ,exactly those who in reality had admired the Egyptian Princess,find her appearance provoking nothing but mockery.We know how highly beauty was estimated in the Ancient world.Were Cleopatra such as represented in the novel,she would never become an object of the legend,her subjects would have given her an insulting nickname,the enemies would have used her deformity in their propaganda.Caesar and Antony were not only ambitious men of large scale but also very vain.Never would they tolerate such a mistress.Their attitude to the Queen perhaps would have been restricted merely to a political and financial alliance .Egypt was already a Roman ally and was obliged to support every enterprise of Rome.Were there on the throne of Egypt instead of Cleopatra a man,a child,an old woman,an unattractive woman the politics of Caesar and Antony would have been the same but their fate could turn out differently.Octavian would have lost the trump card of his propaganda.There exist only symbolic pictures of the Egyptian Queen.On the tiny coins her profile is engraved almost identical to the profile of Marc Antony,thus symbolizing their political,spiritual and family unity.These images have nothing to do with the appearance of the real Cleopatra.Only few historians perceive their symbolic./Prof.Paul Martin,Prof.Manfred Clauss,Irene Frain,Mary Hamer,Susan Walker/.The heroine of Colleen Mccullough is a plain girl dreaming of a love for a god.It is a very interesting conception but it has nothing in common with the real Queen of Egypt.We may believe Plutarch.He does not give us the evidence of the court flatterers.All these doctors ,cooks and Roman militaries gossipping of their lords were simply incapable to become creators of myths.