After 4 years of slowly making my way through the series, I read this one in mere weeks. The other books were necessary for the full enjoyment of this book, but I found this one much more engaging. The series, as a whole, is astonishing, and I highly recommend to anyone who loves historical fiction.

There is very little that hasn't already been said about McCullough's phenomenal "Masters of Rome" series. Meticulously researched and detailed, each is an entertaining, engaging and educational experience. The October Horse spans Caesar's time in Egypt and his murder (sob!), through the warring and deaths of most, if not all, of his assassins in 42 BC. Just one tome remains to complete the series, and I'm already quite sad about it. The amount of anxiety I felt in the pages leading up to Caesar's death was an unsettling and new experience for me -- I wonder whether any other readers had a similar reaction. I've read many other historical works in which the reader knows disaster is coming and aches to change history before it is revealed in terrible detail on the page, but I was nevertheless surprised at how affecting it was.

Highly recommended. I am thrilled so got the chance to write one more volume. She explains some of her decisions and certainly is not following "the Bard" in the end of Caesar. You really should read the Masters of Rome in sequence, but the book will stand by its own merits as well. Colleen was certainly one of the great novelist of the late 20th century, and she will be missed.

de las mejores novelas del imperio romano

McCullough is a masterful storyteller and her love and mastery of Roman history shines brightly in her Roman fiction. This book in her Masters of Rome series gives us the story of Julius Caesar in his prime, the beginnings of discontent within a faction of the Patricians in Rome, the plot and execution thereof to kill him, the rivalry between Octavius and Mark Anthony following his death and the ultimate rise of Octavian, who would eventually become known as Augustus Caesar, Julius Caesar's legitimate heir.

I learned so much about Roman politics with this book. I also learned the fate of the "liberators", those who had hatched the plot to kill Caesar.

The love betwee Cleopatra and Julius Caesar was a bit cold and calculating for my taste, but possibly that was the way it was in real life.

Just as the Romans sacrificed a winning race horse each October, the great Caesar who was so successful as Roman dictator and worshipped after death as a god was sacrificed by his so-called friends and countrymen thus the title of the book.

This is supposedly the last of the Masters of Rome books. In essence, with the battle of Philippi ending in 42 BC, this covers the fall of the old Roman Republic.

The start of the book covers the attempts to assassinate Julius Caesar begin to take root. Caesar's clemency and desire to bring Rome back to the old ways is doomed to failure. The ruling class is unwilling and incapable of meeting Caesar's vision. In order to protect their own varied powers and privileges, they decide to form a vast conspiracy to kill Caesar.

McCullough does a great job of explaining WHY Caesar was trying to do. It is likely that once Julius was done "fixing" the Republic, he would have retired (much like Sulla) with a restoration of the Republic with "updated" laws factoring in that Rome was now an Empire.

She also does a great job of explaining the other side of the argument from Cato and Cicero, to Marc Antony and Brutus. The act and the resulting fallout is also very well explained. I enjoyed this volume since it has much to do with the rise of Octavian. He is able to see that the Republic Julius wished over is effectively over. There must be a new way of doing things.

Octavian's reptilian mind is set on not only destroying all of Caesar's enemies but also securing for himself ultimate power. I thought it odd to finish the story with Antony not yet in Egypt since the final bell for the Republic had not yet tolled. I find that there is another volume after this called "Antony and Cleopatra", which I assume will finish out the story.

I do not know whether McCullough "jumped the gun" with declaring this the final volume and then later finishing the series with the aforementioned sequel, but the abrupt ending of a story that is not fully finished is mildly irritating.

However, this is a superb story. With the death of Caesar and the rise of a new Caesar, the transition from Republic to Empire has begun. As I have purchased the "final" final book, I shall read and finish it soon. I highly recommend this entire series. If you are not terribly knowledgeable about the fall of the Republic, you can mend your ignorance with this entertaining historical fiction series. I loved every minute of it and would recommend this to anyone with an interest for this period.

Apasionante!! No sé lo que opinaran los historiadores de este libro, si es riguroso o no... Pero a mí me ha dado detalles que desconocía sobre estos personajes históricos que hace que quiera saber más.

La saga mas detallada y profunda que he leido

Realmente concuerdo con lazautora esta saga es la mas completa en detalles y en episodios que se puede encontrar sobre este periodo de la vida romana. Estoy feliz de haberla completado mi bagaje de conocimientos se ha incrementado en muchos aspectos. Gracias

Caesar has dominated most of this series. His death way before the end of this volume would have seemed a disaster if it weren't for the story racing onward with such vigour that I was fast caught up in the aftermath. My only real sadness is that there is only one more volume to go. Ms McCullough had intended to end here but was apparently chivvied by her readers to go on with the story of Antony and Cleopatra.

I found her theories, especially the medical ones, most interesting and pretty compelling. The whole series with its convoluted politicking and power plays has been riveting.

That game of a book to take with you to a desert island? I think I would take this series. There's a lot of meat in it to make me think.

Sesto libro della serie sulla fine della Repubblica Romana. In questo capitolo vengono narrati alcuni tra gli eventi più famosi della storia di Roma, come il Cesaricidio e la battaglia di Filippi. Come nei libri precedenti, resta perfetta la fusione tra realismo storico e la profonda caratterizzazione dei personaggi.
Una stella in meno per il ritmo della narrazione, troppo lento nella prima parte del romanzo e troppo sbrigativo nella parte centrale.

4.5 stars for the seemingly ENDLESS war scenes. The war between the Liberators and the Triumvirate absolutely slogged. I felt listless after Caesar was killed so I had to push through the last couple hundred pages. I will say that the scene of Cato’s double death is one of the most disturbing things I have ever read. Ditto Porcia’s suicide (murder??).
This entire series has been an exercise in comparing America’s increasingly ridiculous political climate with that of ancient societies. What I’ve learned:
Humans are VILE and STUPID and WASTEFUL truly beyond belief. If the Chinese balloons or UFO’s wipe us all out it will just be one more example of the vile stupidity and wastefulness of this species.

The October Horse takes place after the defeat of Pompey Magnus at Pharsalus and his preceding death in Alexandria, with Caesar arriving in Alexandria, chasing after Pompey, and goes to the death of Caesar, and ends with the final defeat of the Liberators. Although the book is more on the side of Caesar, the novel doesn’t only show the perspective of Caesar; it includes points of views from all sides, from the march of Cato, Cleopatra and her relationship with Caesar. Although the main characters shift about two thirds through the story , each character is well thought out, with even small characters having their own ambitions, and even characters, like Cato, that you cannot fully hate.
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This novel (and series) is a different take from the common Shakespearean view of Caesar and the time period, yet still retains some of that. Much of what she has taken is from ancient roman historians, like Plutarch, and even Caesar’s own Commentaries. All throughout the book the brilliance and talent of Caesar is shown, yet it still shows his defeats, especially the mutinies, and his eventual death due to his policy of clemency. It is also not afraid to get into the relationships between characters (even on a descriptive level, be warned).

Overall, this book is a wonderful representation of Rome during the time period. Rather than the embellishing of Shakespeare, she just uses the realistic, gritty version with superb undertones, and still makes a great book. One of my only qualms with this book is the amount of foreshadowing that happens; although the Romans were quite superstitious, almost every major event is predicted or hinted at in some way. If you like history or want to read about Rome’s greatest master(s) not in textbook form, this is a great novel and series.