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Lustrum by Robert Harris


DecimusCaesar

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The second part in Robert Harris's novels on Cicero is now available.

 

Anyone going to get it? I haven't read Imperium but I thought Pompeii was pretty good (whatever happened to the Hollywood movie they were making about that?)

 

So far it's been having some pretty good reviews - I read a very positive one from the Independent. I would post it up here but its caused my computer to crash three times.

 

Anyone have any thoughts on the novel?

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I read both, Pompeii and Imperium and I have to admit that Pompeii was much better than Imperium. I thought that the story of Pompeii was more thrilling.

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  • 2 weeks later...
I read both, Pompeii and Imperium and I have to admit that Pompeii was much better than Imperium. I thought that the story of Pompeii was more thrilling.

 

I suppose the more action orientated story of Pompeii is more thrilling to many other people than the political dealings of Cicero. That's probably why most ancient epics seem to centre on the Romany army, rather than the politics of Rome.

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I suppose the more action orientated story of Pompeii is more thrilling to many other people than the political dealings of Cicero. That's probably why most ancient epics seem to centre on the Romany army, rather than the politics of Rome.

 

 

As for me, it would depend. How does the author portray Cicero? If he sees Cicero as the noble "pure as the fallen snow" Stoic I'd rather read about Roman military blood and guts. If however Cicero is depicted with his warts, vanities and insecurities, then that might be interesting reading.

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Harris definitely portrays the whole Cicero -- brilliant and sometimes downright stupid, brave and sometimes utterly cowardly, heroic and sometimes just despicable. It's Cicero's better side that (rightfully) captures most of the limelight in Imperium, especially the prosecution of Verres, where Cicero's brilliance, bravery, and heroism were in full force. Yet, one of the more dramatic scenes in the first novel concerns the deep disappointment of an idealistic young Stoic who had supported Cicero and who witnessed with horror one of Cicero's particularly ugly Gaul-baiting speeches.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I've read it about a month ago (time flows so fast...) and I must say that I did not really enjoy it. We cover a lustrum (5 year period) going from the beginning of Cicero's consulate to his exile. Why did I not enjoy it ? Numerous reasons, first among them the fact that I think the same period is better sketched by C. McCullough's "Masters of Rome" books, which are richer, more detailed and a bit more correct on the factual side of things. One example of such "mistakes" are the marriage clothes' colours as described in the novel. Also Harris use a lot of expressions which are clearly anachronistic and, to me, detrimental to the overall feeling of "being" in the ancient time.

So really not one of my favourite Harris' book.

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  • 1 month later...

I have read "Imperium" and am now half way through "Lustrum".

Imperium was an excellent book, I read it twice, and Lustrum is looking to be even better.

 

Harris has a long standing interest in Ancient Rome himself and the books are written as closely to historical fact and to what we know of the principals characters actions as possible.

 

They are about politics, public and private, in late republican Rome. They are narrated by his private secretary 'Tiro', as a very old man in Augustan Rome, long after Ciceros death. Cicero is the main character obviously but Caesar, Crassus, Pompeii, Cato, Cataline and a whole host of other names are also prominent, interacting with Cicero and out of sight.

 

Excellent books.

I highly recommend them both. :D

 

The 3rd and final book, on the collapse and Civil war, should be awesome too.

Edited by Kieronus
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