I haven’t read it yet, but I saw it at the bookstore.
I thought the series was done. I wonder if our library will have it?
It was done. McCullough said she was going to wrap it up with The October Horse, then realized she did need to tell the story of Antony and Cleopatra.
I’m about done rereading *Fortune’s Favorites *and Caesar’s Women is waiting in the wings. I’ll go buy Antony and Cleopatra soon.
I love this woman’s writing. She did 12 years of research before she started the series. When I first read the series about 15 years ago, I thought it was just a historical novel set in Ancient Rome. Then I did some Googling, and imagine my surprise to find out Sulla and Gaius Marius were real! It was like meeting a movie star in person.
I fear, however, she may not be around much longer…I read an article recently where she was in a wheelchair, and she is suffering from macular (sp?) degeneration.
I love this series, too and love the fact that it is largely based on fact - at least the events and somewhat the characterizations/personalities, too.
I have this in my shopping cart, but will probably wait until it is in paperback so I can carry it everywhere. I find I have to keep reading her books and not give myself breaks, or the names and plotlines get too blurry and I don’t get into it…
I’m reading it now, abot 1/4 of the way in. Good as usual, though now her Ceasar worship borders on necrophilia. She can’t seem to go 1/2 a page without describing how much better Ceasar was at whatever the current character is doing.
That sounded a little harsh - I’m really enjoying it.
I do wish she would do a Gracci prequel.
I’m a classics scholar, and read The First Man in Rome and The Grass Crown some years ago.
The history on major events and persons is fairly accurate, though of course McCullough had to fill in a lot of detail on characters like Marcus Livius Drusus, since these men–while extremely important in their own age–are little more than names now. Her invention of a marital relationship between Marius and Sulla via an invented daughter–though there is no evidence for it–is a good example of not being too slavish to history in the service of telling a good story. One of the other things I liked about the novels is how they’d tell much of the story in letters. Letter-writing was an important part of ancient life among the aristocracy, and I think this was a good decision on her part.
I didn’t consciously stop reading the series, but to tell the truth the writing didn’t really grab me the way it grabs many fans (it’s a bit soap-opera for my taste; Sulla’s villainy IIRC had everything except a mustache to twirl). And now there are two excellent biographies of Cicero and Augustus by Anthony Everett, so for me at least there’s not much cause to return.
Yeah I faded out somewhere around number 4 because of soap opera, but I wish I had a text of the fictional letter from a young Pompey to the Senate in re: the suppression of the Hispanian insurgency. In fact I liked her entire characterization of Pompey, and I wish I’d lasted in the series long enough to get to the later JC years. It was genuinely funny.
She explains this in her afterword to the first book. Apparently, one of the ancient historians (Plutarch?) mentions Sulla’s first wife by name, Julia. If she were a relative, either a younger sister or a close cousin to Gaius Marius’ Julia, McCullough claims, it would go a long way toward explaining the friendly, mentor/pupil relationship Marius and Sulla had at the beginning of Sulla’s career…they were related through marriage.
I also liked how she proved that there was no way a man could wear a loincloth under a toga, that they had to go “commando,” and she cites research by another historian that proved the size and shape of the toga.
Her glossaries at the end of the books are nearly as fascinating as the stories themselves.
I’m so ashamed to think that when I read the above my first thought was “Hmm, 2009 Deathpool material.”
I’ll check it out from the library( it does have it) and read it. If I like it I’ll buy it. I have all the other novels in the series. I still miss Aurelia and Julia(wife of GM) though. They were two of my favorite characters.
I thought the series was finished too. Now, I’ll have to go out and get the latest book. Conveniently, I have a $50.00 Borders gift card that needs to be used. 
I thoroughly enjoyed the series, although, as some have mentioned, some of it did get a little soap-operish. I found Sulla to be a fascinating, if twisted, man. Also, although I am a female, I found all the battle plans and strategies discussed by Sulla, Julias Caesar and Pompey really interesting.
I’ve reread each of the books several times. There’s a Borders just down the road from me. I think I’ll go have a look see tomorrow.
Me too! That’s just when the Republican system started to go tits-up! (Not that the Brothers Gracchi are to blame; I’d accord that to the reactionaries who resisted them.)
I never finished October Horse. My problem was that she tried, but failed, to inject some kind of suspense in the plot to kill GJC. Knowing it will happen made it too tedious for me.
I enjoyed the first four books a lot more, maybe becuase so much have been written, put on stage, made into movies and tv about GJC and Octavian. She’s a better storyteller than I, and I respect the research she put into it, but she’d be better off keeping the killing of Caesar off stage, maybe in the way Clavell did the ending in Shogun.
**BrainGlutton **I love you and I want to have your babies(could be a tad tricky as I’m a bloke).
Iread all of the MoR series and loved them to death.
Finding that there is another one,which also opens up the possibility of future ones,has made my day.
Next thing you know someone will discover a previously unknown Aubery/Maturin novel.
Yee Ha!
I’ve always hoped she would keep the series going long enough to give us her picture of the life of Jesus and the early Christians. Doubtful, I guess.
I want a sequel to Morgan’s Run. I heard one was in the works, but alas…
True; the Gracchi were the first to reveal the true power of the office of Tribune. The tribunate was set up initially to give the Plebeians some say in the once-Patrician controlled government, mainly by the power of vetoing any legislation before it could come up for vote in the assembly.
But over time the Patrician/Plebeian distinction was not the clear wealthy/poor divide it once was, as entrepreneurial Plebeians became rich with the lavish economic opportunities that fell to Rome during expansion. Plebeian access to the regular offices–Consul, praetor, etc.–was opened up by a series of laws ostensibly to promote fairness, but really to to incorporate the wealthy Plebeians–who interests were now more in line with the Patricians–into the usual government offices, keeping the Senate a wealthy oligarchy. Thus the original impetus for the plebeain Tribunate–to stop the excesses of the wealthy class–faded.
The Gracchi, however, took the office seriously, and seem to have been genuinely interested in reform for all the poor of Rome (a growing class since wealthy landowners bought up small farms to create huge estates, with the former owners and their descendants becoming sharecroppers, joining the army, or just bumming around the city). Their tragic mistake was failing to realize was how vindictive the ruling class could be, a class that knew exactly how to manipulate elections and public sentiment while treated the government as their own private cash register. The <i>Senatus Consultum Ultimum</i>–basically a public death sentence against a citizen labeled an enemy of the state–was first invented to deal with the younger Gracchus.
If McCullough could keep all of this interesting–without devolving it to a simple, melodramatic battle of personalities, my hat would be off to her.
Sorry to bump, but I just finished it.
I really wish McCullough had written an afterword…she did for all the other books, and I’d love to read her thoughts on writing this book after she said she was done with the series. All I’d read were news articles.
I had no idea Octavian was so Machiavellian. He was incredibly patient, and very rarely put a foot wrong. Livia Drusilla was perfect for him.
In the end, Agrippa marries Marcella, Octavian’s niece. I thought he married Julia, Octavian’s daughter…is that later on?
I did like Antony’s introspection in the end after the Battle of Actium, where he saw everything he’d done wrong, but it was too late to fix it.
Poor Caesarion…if he hadn’t looked so much like Caesar, Octavian would have let him rule Egypt. I wonder how history would have changed if Caesarion had been allowed to stay Pharoah?
Doubtful. Octavian wanted to secure Egypt’s food production for Rome in perpetuity; making it a province was the only way to be sure.
I’m 125 pages in - must. not. read. spoilerish. threads!
I just don’t know how I am going to find time to finish it at the speed I want to.
This kind of book, like many Greek plays, is written on the assumption that the reader/viewer is already familiar with the general outline of the events.