I love this series so much, I 100% understand the fans lobbying for her to continue despite this being a good ending point for someone who wanted to write about the end of the Roman Republic and, more importantly, about the life of Caesar.

But her Octavian is so good ♥ I love the whole actor's motif that evocates Sulla from the initial books. I don't agree much with how emotional he is when regarding Caesar, but that's to be expected coming from McCullough. Also, everything between Octavian and Agrippa was the best gay romance I have ever read. Can't wait to see how it goes when Livia enters the stage.

Me ha gustado menos que los anteriores porque empieza a perder fuelle el eje central de la saga que es la política republicana. Con la muerte de César y todos sus enemigos políticos antes y después, al final se queda un vacío donde el nuevo triunvirato apenas tiene rivales aparte de sí mismos. Va a ser interesante ver el paso de la República al Imperio, pero la saga está perdiendo la magia de la política senatorial que la ha hecho grande.

Prior to reading 'The October Horse' I had enjoyed 'Dictator' the final installment of Robert Harris's Cicero/Tiro trilogy. Reading these 2 books in close proximity was fascinating as it appears both authors have a soft spot for their central character and a dislike for the other protagonist.

Colleen McCullough certainly shows Caesar at his best and one wonders what might have been prevented and what might have been, had he not been assassinated. Cicero meanwhile is not flattered in any way whatsoever!

Having read all 5 of the preceeding Masters of Rome series it feels churlish and disrespectful to suggest this is not the best, but perhaps that is only because McCullough has set such a high standard. There are the inevitable summary passages and statements included for the benefit of readers who haven’t read 1-5 which can feel a bit repetitive. I felt the 'Cor blimey guvnor' style of dialogue attributed to some Roman soldiers (on the odd occasion they have a speaking part) was a little clumsy.

Where McCullough exels is in making us understand what she thinks is going on in Caesar's head. Early in the book she has Caesar reflecting on deliberately referring to himself in the 3rd person as an embodiment of Rome. That felt authentic and powerful.

Yet again we discover as the narrative unfolds just how cruel and violent the ways of Rome were. As this book races to its conclusion I was thinking never mind the First Man In Rome we might be left with the last man standing!

And....I'm so pleased Colleen McCullough changed her mind and wrote a 7th in the series....can't wait!

This whole series is a masterly analysis of Caesar's life, what was happening in Rome around his life, and a huge range of characters.

This is not "light reading"

When I began reading these McCullogh novels I had no idea that at the end I would be considering a historical mystery. Namely, after 600 years of a republic how could it all vanish in a generation? Now I know.

This is the 2nd to last in the Masters of Rome series. I read the others years ago and just loved, loved, loved them.

A word of caution to anyone new to the series. Don't try to remember all the names (every Roman has three) and just latch onto the one name for the major characters.

McCullough is at her best when combining historical facts with a well thought out psychological profile for every major character. She puts the reader in the point of view of Caesar, Cleopatra, Cato, Brutus, Marc Antony, Octavian and many more, yet never misses a beat. Understanding their motivations is what powers the narrative.

Caesar's time in Egypt wasn't quite as exciting and we start to see and feel his age. He's still in command, but he's devastated by the death of Pompey. The romance with Cleopatra is as political as all his other affairs, but now he's middle-aged and seems more interested in teaching her as a professor than a lover.

The rendering of Cato at the end of his life was especially insightful. In the earlier books, Cato came off as miserly and miserable (which he was). But in north Africa, as the Republicans were falling apart, Cato was the only one who showed signs of brilliance, even managing to do a great job commanding a legion and being the reasonable one in the room.

After Caesar is gone, McCullough weaves the historical facts into an intricate and understandable story that plays out through the egos of Cicero, Brutus, Cassius, Marc Antony and Octavian. It ends with Brutus's death and we start seeing how Marc Antony and Octavian will start the last phase of the struggle to control Rome. Of course, we know who wins, but McCullough makes it fascinating to read a blow-by-blow recounting of how and why it all happened.

Marc Antony & Cleopatra is the last book in the series. Kinda sad to see it come to an end.

Assolutamente da leggere se si è appassionati del mondo romano antico o se si è innamorati della figura di Gaio Giulio Cesare.
Sorprendentemente scorrevole, nonostante (ovviamente) la presenza di una moltitudine di nomi e parole appartenenti al mondo antico.
Essendo un romanzo, e non un volume storiografico, ne ho apprezzato alcune rifiniture fantastiche/fittizie delle vicende e dei personaggi.
Comunque, un gran capolavoro…capace di far emozionare, travolgere e insegnare tanto.

I avoided this book for at least a year, it sat on a pile rather forlornly. However, having just finished it , I have to admit that it is well written. The author really draws you in to the world of ancient Rome. She draws the machinations if the various characters in a way that makes them really come alive

Romans, despite their claim to civilization, had their own weird superstitions and rituals. The October Horse was the off-horse (or the one who ran on the outside track and thus had to run faster) of the winning chariot team from the annual Ides of October race. This horse---arguably the best horse in Rome in the prime of its life---was ritually sacrificed to Jupiter Optimus Maximus at the end of the race, and its head became a prize during the public scramble after the killing.

This was the title chosen by Colleen McCullough’s for the final book of her brilliant Masters of Rome series. The series chronicles the fall of the Roman Republic from the advent of the General Gaius Marius to the Dictatorship of Cornelius Sulla and then the life and death of Julius Caesar. Like the previous books in the series, the events in the books closely track general historical reconstructions of the records of this time. The details and characters are fleshed out from the imagination of the author and the narratives are changed to a more gossipy reader-friendly style.

Plot Details
Caesar, in this book, visits Egypt in pursuit of the “boni” the group of trouble making senators behind his rival Pompeii. While arbitrating the Egyptian succession dispute, he falls in love---in a manner of speaking---with Cleopatra. After dallying in Egypt and Africa ostensibly for rounding up the final remnants of the boni, Caesar returns to Rome as dictator for life.
During a visit to Rome by Cleopatra, a cabal of jealous Senators murders Caesar in the Senate forum. But in a surprise move, Caesar adopts nephew Octavian as his son and heir instead of Marcus Antonius (or more popularly Mark Anthony), setting off a new round of civil intrigues, including the forming of the Second Triumvirate (Antonius, Octavius, and Lepidus) against the murderers. The book finishes with the defeat of Cassius and Brutus, Octavian perched on the verge of power (despite his cowardice in battle), opposed by a martial brutish Marcus Antonius (with no hint yet of a romance with Cleopatra).

In the course of 700 pages (in the hard cover edition), indeed over the course of 6 books of 700 pages each, McCollough has brought to life the petty jealousies, power struggles, ideals, superstitions, crises, and frustrations of life at the end of the Roman Republic: At a period in history just as the Roman culture started to struggle with the problems related to the beginning of the Empire.

The Review
This novel could have just as easily been titled “Caesar and Cleopatra” or “The Ides of March” if the author intended to end her series at the end of Caesar’s life. But this novel is actually about Octavian (later Octavius Caesar Augustus) since Julius Caesar dies half way into the book. But of the four main protagonists in the series, I seemed to like Octavius the least. Probably because, while undoubtedly politically brilliant (consul at 21!), he did not really have any hurdles to overcome on his rise to the top. (Incidentally, Octavian is a more casual way of refer to Octavius, like Johnny to John. In the book, Antonius also refers to his rival as Octavianus, which both mocks his rival’s name’s ending and reinforces Antonius’s view of him as a minor).

From amongst the huge diversity of threads running through the previous five novels, a consistent theme seems to be the rags to riches rise of its main characters: Marius had to overcome his “hayseed” image to become Patrician, Sulla had to overcome poverty and psychopathic tendencies, Caesar had to overcome poverty, wars, and political structures---such as his relegation to flamens dialis---erected by jealous enemies. While history records that Octavius would overcome his share of political enemies and win a few wars of his own on his way to founding the Empire, these stories are not contained in this book.

The physician McCullough gives Octavius asthma (not confirmed in the historical record) to probably enhance his character with something to overcome and perhaps also to explain his cowardice in battle. But this weakness fails to accomplish what McCollough did so brilliantly with her three previous characters: that is, to give a glimpse of the character’s steel inner core, to distinguish these men so as to validate their rise to power.

In Octavian’s case, we have ambition, an ability to pick out good men (we are tantalized by his partnership with Agrippa), astute political insight, and skill with negotiations (witness the way he set up the Triumvirate). But this doesn’t make him great so that the core we see is more marble than steel. And it’s not just because historical events give the author little to work with, in building up Marius she worked with even less. In this sense, Octavian is the least satisfying “hero” that this series has portrayed up to this point.

Critics have derided McCollough’s style as historical soap opera---like it was a bad thing. Actually, the soap operatic sequencing of well known historical events (such as the union of Caesar and Cleopatra) coupled with thoroughly researched speculation (on such topics as Marc Anthony’s role in the assassination) lend realism to the novel. It is soap opera in a very Frank Herbert’s Dune kind of way.

I applaud this kind of historical story telling because the realism brings Ancient Roman history to life far more convincingly than dry historical commentary from Plutarch or Suetonius, or even modern accessible writers like Michael Grant.

For example, she describes how Caesar’s murderer’s fled to the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus in panic, and then how the common people set up a shrine to deify Julius Caesar, and how a comet showed itself during the games held in his honor. And then she links all these events together into a continuous sequence showing the love that Rome felt for its dictator, and how Octavius rode these sentiments as the divi filius to power. This works for me way better than studying the classics at school.

McCollough does not claim that her version of history is the only correct take. She even provides contact information at the end of the book for readers who want to refer to her bibliography. But it was by reading this series that I developed an interest in Classical Rome. I know that I am not the only reader that got hooked this way.

McCollough’s strength is the way that she portrays the personal motivations behind the events, and then spikes it full of titillating details.

For example, anyone who’s read or watched Shakespeare remembers Marc Anthony’s defense of Caesar speech (you know, “Friends, Romans, Countrymen: Lend me your ears!”). But McCollough has imagined a historically more controversial story by adding Anthony as a willing accomplice to the murders. Anthony had fallen out of Caesar’s grace and needed money to fund his lavish lifestyle. Believing that he was Caesar’s heir, he quietly assented to the murder so that he could get his hands on the money.

As another example, Caesar fathered a son---Caeserian (yes, as in the procedure)---by Cleopatra. But McCollough spices up the romance by describing how Caesar withheld his orgasm from Cleopatra so that she would not give birth to Caesarian’s sister and then marry them together.
Incidentally, Marcus Antonius and Cleopatra do not come out particularly well in this novel. Anthony is a brutal despot with delusions of oriental grandeur. Instead of Richard Burton, think Herman Goering. Cleopatra is a flawed beauty weedy wisp of a girl barely out of her teens. Instead of Elizabeth Taylor, think Kate Moss with Barbra Streisand’s nose.

This series started five books and twelve years ago with the First Man in Rome in October, 1990. This sixth book is separated from the fifth by almost 5 years. Having set the new standard for historical novel writing in the previous books, this is probably the weakest book in the series: Octavian is not that likeable, the affair with Cleopatra is not fully explored, the battle descriptions are more cursory, and the politics have lost their multi-dimensional texture (this last gripe is historical and not the fault of the author). Still, this book is still far far better than any pure historical novel printed in the last couple of years.

From what I’ve read in interviews with the author, this series was always meant to end at five books. But she had had so much fun in the writing that she could not manage to end her 3,500th page with the death of Caesar. So she needed this book. And so introduced us to Octavian. Perhaps this means that there is hope that she will continue this series with a seventh book!

Loyal readers of this series will need no encouragement to buy this book. New readers can start the series with this book, because with introduction of so many new characters, very little of this story requires reference to what happened in prior books. Buy this if you like historical novels or if you like talkative narrative stories. This book will keep you engaged on a plane ride back and forth across the Pacific.

I read Antony and Cleopatra first, so in the wrong order. However I really loved Antony Cleopatra a lot and just flew through the book. But not with this one, I really struggled with reading this one and far from enjoyed it

The October Horse (Masters of Rome #6) I struggled a bit with this one but loved the other books in this series.


Colleen invites us to unravel its intricacies layer by layer. It challenges us to confront the history within the story, suggesting that those who venture into this world may emerge with a changed perspective.