Lustrum - Robert Harris
This novel is about Cicero’s consulship and the years after until he has to leave Rome.
It took me a fairly long time to read this book. First because I kind of had to because of my Latin exam next week, secondly because there’s not a lot going on in this book.
There’s Caesar and Pompey and Catiline and all that - but if you knew what was going on in 63 BC you would be well off reading only the last two chapters of part one when Catiline and his followers are exposed to the senate. The second part seems unneccessary at first, but then I think if Robert Harris had written it from Caesar’s instead of Cicero’s POV it would have been more exciting and fun to read. There are a few consequences Cicero has to experience when Caesar finally takes power (which happens in the second to last chapter, I think), but then again Cicero’s point of view seems quite stupid.
Nevertheless, I liked Harris’s style of writing and the way in which he combines fiction and historical facts. The story is told by Cicero’s slave Tiro (who, in fact, wrote his memoir and is the reason this little & exists) who is, of course, quite biased. In the first part Cicero is portrayed as the hero who is going to save Rome - the second part describes him merely as a coward. This antithetic characterisation has its charme, but still, I don’t think the second part was necessary from Cicero’s point of view as it is about Caesar obtaining power.
There are a few storylines that - sadly - are mentioned later in the book but are not adequately taken care of. Like when Tiro falls in love with Agathe - a Greek slave prostitute, I think you could call her - and just can’t get himself to talk to her again on their brief encounters.
All in all, I think Robert Harris did a great job in making the history of Rome interesting to those who have to study it. But that’s about all there’s to it, unless you’re some kind of Ancient-History-Nerd which, sadly, I'm not.
(originally posted April 2016)
This novel is about Cicero’s consulship and the years after until he has to leave Rome.
It took me a fairly long time to read this book. First because I kind of had to because of my Latin exam next week, secondly because there’s not a lot going on in this book.
There’s Caesar and Pompey and Catiline and all that - but if you knew what was going on in 63 BC you would be well off reading only the last two chapters of part one when Catiline and his followers are exposed to the senate. The second part seems unneccessary at first, but then I think if Robert Harris had written it from Caesar’s instead of Cicero’s POV it would have been more exciting and fun to read. There are a few consequences Cicero has to experience when Caesar finally takes power (which happens in the second to last chapter, I think), but then again Cicero’s point of view seems quite stupid.
Nevertheless, I liked Harris’s style of writing and the way in which he combines fiction and historical facts. The story is told by Cicero’s slave Tiro (who, in fact, wrote his memoir and is the reason this little & exists) who is, of course, quite biased. In the first part Cicero is portrayed as the hero who is going to save Rome - the second part describes him merely as a coward. This antithetic characterisation has its charme, but still, I don’t think the second part was necessary from Cicero’s point of view as it is about Caesar obtaining power.
There are a few storylines that - sadly - are mentioned later in the book but are not adequately taken care of. Like when Tiro falls in love with Agathe - a Greek slave prostitute, I think you could call her - and just can’t get himself to talk to her again on their brief encounters.
All in all, I think Robert Harris did a great job in making the history of Rome interesting to those who have to study it. But that’s about all there’s to it, unless you’re some kind of Ancient-History-Nerd which, sadly, I'm not.
(originally posted April 2016)
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