Okay, to be honest, I didn't finished this one. I was hoping more of a historical focused novel, rather than a fiction-romance with some historical background. So, I guess, 2 out of 5.

I could only get one hundred pages into this book! Does it get better? I don't know because I didn't care to find out! From the sappy dialogue, lack of conflict, overly descriptive but unevocative and unvivid writing, and overuse of exclamation points like right here! I can't imagine this novel getting so much better that I would make the ridiculous claim that this is one of the greatest historical novels as one reviewer here claimed! However, I can sort of understand why this book as so many rave reviews! Many of the readers of this novel belong into the camp of history buffs. I can appreciate sophisticated historical detail if it is used in the context of moving the story forward or if it used as a historical backdrop but here all of that well researched detail felt like the author who had done years and years of research stuffed every bit of research she did into one novel. There are those who enjoy this kind of thing but for those of us who read a lot of fiction and actually enjoy the implementation of important literary elements then this is a colossal waste of time! I'd much rather read non-fiction about Rome then this half-hearted attempt at story telling! Recently in another novel I read a really interesting paragraph about how true art is not dominated by the subject but the subject is completely absorbed in the style which is its own justification. Colleen McCullough would have been better off following this line of thinking and writing something more akin to The Thorn Birds instead of writing this crap! Now weren't all of those exclamation points irritating!

I started to get more interested in ancient Rome (particularly the Republic) after the HBO series started. I read Tom Holland's excellent Rubicon and knew I needed more--especially on Marius and Sulla, two of the most fascinating characters of this or any historical period. When I learned of McCullough's series, I began with this one and was immediately hooked. I've read all seven, but my favorites are the first 3 or 4.

I really appreciated the way she was faithful to the known history but filled in the unknown areas with reasonable and interesting guesses (e.g., Sulla's first wife probably wasn't Julius Caesar's other aunt, if he had more than one, but she was a Julia). There are dozens of interpretations that she makes (and usually explains in the notes at the end) that are usually so well thought-out and ring true to the known history. Her take on Caesar's epilepsy was particularly interesting and reflects her expertise as a medical doctor (a perspective most historians can't draw on). Her explanation of how Marius made J.C. the flamen dialis, a priesthood that would have prevented any kind of military or significant political career, was ingenious. It's clear (and she points out as much in her afterwords) that some things may not have happened the way she portrays them. But you never get the sense that, like some historical fiction writers, she's changing the history to fit her story. Instead, she tries to understand sometimes conflicting facts to arrive at a plausible rationale.

But, mainly, it's the characters that give this series life. Gaius Marius, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, and Julius Caesar are living, breathing human beings. She gets inside their heads, and you really get the sense that you know and understand these historical giants, who all were contemporaries of one another and of other legendary figures--Marc Antony, Cicero, Pompey Magnus, Crassus, Spartacus, Brutus, Cassius, and on and on.

I was never that interested in Roman history as a student, with its emphasis on the imperial period. But I think I find something tragic and bittersweet about the end of the republic, which, after all, was a functioning form of democracy more than 2,000 years ago. These men all held the ideal of the republic dear, but they just couldn't help destroying it, blinded as they were by their own hubris, greed, and ambition. It's a fascinating and exhilarating story, and the best way I can think of to understand this important period of Western history.

Este libro cayó en mis manos hace más de 20 años y tras leer la sinopsis y la biografía de la autora, leí que se trataba de la misma autora que había escrito el Pájaro Espino, que dio lugar a la celebre serie televisiva que enganchó a la TV a muchos de nuestros padres. Esto la verdad no me inspiró demasiada confianza, pero decidí leerla.
Descubrí que la autora despliega ante el lector de forma magistral todo el panorama de la compleja política romana, nos enseña el funcionamiento de sus instituciones políticas, nos adentra en la vida de las principales familias aristocráticas patricias y plebeyas de Roma: los Servilio Cepio, Cecilio Metelo, Cornelios, Julio César, Livio Druso, Licinios, Pompeyos, Antonios, Casios, Lépidos.......etc, que compone un cuadro complejo de intrigas políticas, familiares y corrupciones que, por lo menos a mi, me dejó maravillado.
Desde entonces hasta ahora lo he leído 3-4 veces y es unos de mis libros de referencia en Novela Histórica sobre el periodo romano tardo republicano.
La autora nos cuenta el periodo de la República Romana que abarca desde la Guerra de Yugurta hasta el sexto consulado de Mario, que es el personaje principal de esta primera Novela de la Serie, que ya adelanto que consta de 7 libros. En segundo plano está Lucio Cornelio Sila, que empieza colaborando con él y que terminarán enfrentados en la primera de las múltiples guerras civiles que asolan la República en el Siglo I ac. Estos enfrentamientos buscan la supremacía política y también ponen de manifiesto el choque cada vez más irreconciliable entre los inamovibles, que defienden el antiguo régimen, la aristocracia más rancia, y los que consideran que las estructuras políticas de la vieja República no son válidas para gobernar el Imperio cada vez mayor con el que se está haciendo la ciudad de Roma......Al final todo desemboca en guerras y el poder acaba, ya no en el gobierno de muchos, aunque sea una élite, sino en el gobierno personal de una serie de personajes de una u otra facción: Mario, Sila, Pompeyo, Julio César.......
Cayo Mario es el personaje principal, ya que consiguió eliminar el peligro de la invasión germana que amenazó Roma de forma muy seria a finales del Siglo II a.c. La figura de Mario, es fundamental en la Historia de la Roma republicana, ya que reformó el ejército para enfrentarse a esta amenaza, ejerció 7 consulados, 5 de ellos consecutivos, puso las bases para el dominio militar de Roma en los siglos siguientes, pero también rompió muchas normas escritas y no escritas, mostrando el camino de los "populares", que en los años siguientes fueron socavando el viejo sistema republicano y abriendo la puerta al Imperio, siendo el más importante de ellos Julio César, que era sobrino de Mario y que será uno de los más importantes personajes en esta serie novelesca.

Tras alcanzar el poder casi absoluto, durante su sexto consulado, sufre un ictus y debe retirarse de la vida pública...durante un tiempo. Y esto ya forma parte del segundo libro de la Serie.

Este libro es totalmente recomendable para todos los amantes de la Historia de Roma. En un principio puede resultar un poco complejo, con la avalancha de nombres, explicaciones políticas, formas de gobierno e instituciones, pero a medida que avanzas en la serie y en el libro, vas interiorizando toda esta telaraña y el resultado es excepcional. El único punto débil de esta autora es la narración de los episodios bélicos, yo creo que no le interesaban demasiado y pasa por encima sin profundizar lo más mínimo, cuando en ciertos casos estamos hablando de algunas de las batallas más importantes de su Historia: Arausio, Aquae Sextiae, Vercellae......pero os aseguro que el resto compensa.

the glossary alone is over 100 pages (2 are about wine in Roman times)

(i am also not sure who the woman on the cover is supposed to be)

One of my favorite books ever, in my favorite historical fiction series ever, and I'm thinking of it today because I heard about the passing late last week of the author, and it brought a tear to my eye.

This book inspired my love of Rome (took Latin for 3 years in highschool as a result), and especially the tumultuous and fascinating late Republic that she writes about. Her characters, both men and women, are vividly noble, self-interested, and flawed, often at the same time.

Rest in peace, and thank you for your writing, which in no small way inspired mine.

Abridged by audiobook

A classics professor friend recommended this to me as a well-researched novel set in the late Roman Republic. Indeed, it was, the notes included being worth a look in order to appreciate the work--much of it done by hired graduate students--involved. Most amusing was the research done as regards how it was possible for a man in a toga to urinate without becoming undone. However, although a plausible reconstruction, McCullough's actual writing style is a bit tedious.

The good: the extensive amount of detail about every single aspect of Roman life; social and cultural and military and, not least, political. Far too often authors will simplify, on the basis that it's simply too much to expect a reader with no previous experience of that period to take in. But here McCullough gives you all of the power plays of Roman political life, the push-pull for dominance between Senate and People - the assemblies and the laws and the debates and the votes - and somehow makes it both comprehensible and, even, exciting.

That exhaustive research extends to how the Romans thought; she doesn't quite capture their attitudes on two counts - liberty and homosexuality, which I'll come back to - but her characters really do feel ancient. They never feel like modern-day Westerners in togas.

She also has an incredible knack for writing vivid, personable people you want to spend time with. I loved Publius Rutilius Rufus's gossipy, urbane letters, and am completely fascinated by her Sulla; brilliant, charismatic, lupine, tortured, strangely sympathetic, surprisingly kind.

Essentially, if you read historical fiction to feel as if you've been immersed in the past, these are the books for you.

The bad: I really think she's bitten off far more than she can chew. Someone described her books as dramatised history rather than historical fiction, and that's it exactly; they're just one thing after another, with no shape, no dramatic arc. And because there's so much to fit in, she doesn't make much space for the characters' inner lives, or for quiet moments which develop their relationships without advancing the plot. (though to be honest, many of the characters' personalities seem to change as needed; Aurelia the warm, practical, determined landlady of an insula is not at all the stiff, silent, traditional woman who idolised Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi and was horrified at being asked to choose her own husband, and nor do I get why the same Julilla who bombarded Sulla with love letters suddenly hates writing to him.) Sulla and his (fictional) wife Julilla are a great case in point. He's a former labourer and prostitute, of aristocratic birth but a poor background, the survivor of an abusive childhood, who's clearly carrying around a lot of unprocessed trauma and shame because of that childhood and because of his attraction to men; and also a psychopath who reacts violently, often murderously, often against women, when made to feel powerless or vulnerable. He wants to be loved but pushes people away the minute they start making emotional demands on him, the minute they get close to the real person. (the only lover he doesn't react against is his German wife Hermana, and I wonder if that's because the whole thing is acting; she loves the Gallic warrior she thinks he is, not the Roman senator.)

In Julilla he marries someone too much like himself, or the side of himself he won't admit to; an insecure, co-dependent alcoholic with an eating disorder. But we're supposed to see Julilla's clingy, emotional behaviour as irritating, and hold her in contempt for it. At no point does the book go into what in her childhood made her like that, apart from an intimation her parents didn't want her; at no point does it explicitly talk about how Sulla is all she has, after her father died, and her mother decided not to speak to her because she starved herself in order to manipulate the family into allowing her to marry him; at no point does it go into why her sister Julia is so distant towards her; at no point does it talk about how she feels about being a mother of two by age 18, and why she has no interest in her children, other than a suggestion it's somehow revenge on Sulla for not loving her as much as she wants; at no point does it go into the many, accumulative coldnesses on Sulla's part that must have made her an unhappy drinker in the first place; at no point does it say how Sulla feels about having a wife who drinks, when his father was an alcoholic too. Julilla deserves our understanding and our pity, and yet the book will never let you see things from her point of view; instead it keeps insisting she's nothing more than a spoilt brat. (the one point in its favour is that Sulla does, deep down, love her and feel guilt over her death; for all that he insists to himself that he was glad to have indirectly caused it, the scene where he thinks "poor Julilla, poor poor Julilla" and states he's not going to blame himself suggests that he does, to me.)

Similarly, Sulla's sister Cornelia lives in Rome, and yet the two of them never interact - why? Is she too much of a reminder of where he came from? Does he hate her for escaping their family background and leaving him to deal with their father? We never find out.

In fact, the whole book is shockingly contemptuous towards women; the only two who escape are Julia, because she's an impossible paragon of perfection rather than a real woman, and Aurelia, because she takes on a masculine role in running her insula. (and because she's the mother of Julius Caesar, who can do literally nothing wrong in McCullough's eyes.) All other upper-class women are scorned for having no say in their marriages, for having too little education or employment to find a way of occupying their days other than love affairs, the only thing that affords them any agency or choice. Like Mary Renault, McCullough can see how terrible women had it in the ancient world, and like her, her response isn't sympathy, it's "who'd want to be a woman? better to be a man". There are few to no scenes of female friendship in this book, few to no scenes where women try to make their arranged marriages work, try to find ways of being happy and fulfilled despite the difficulties in their lives.

And McCullough's portrayal of Roman attitudes towards homosexuality is, quite simply, wrong. She thinks the Romans were homophobic, when it was effeminacy they had the problem with, not desiring men. (to put this in context, being too much of a ladies' man, or being too devoted to your wife, also made you effeminate in Roman eyes.) I could live with this, but she harps on and on about it, to the point where you wonder if it's just a cover for her own homophobia. (and she keeps getting irrumatio and fellatio confused, which is really irritating.) Also - the historical Metrobius (Sulla's lover) was a drag queen, but here he's a tragic actor, and I can't help wondering whether that's because of McCullough's own views about femininity.

Of course, the reason the Romans hated effeminacy is because they thought it would weaken their ability to resist tyranny, and this is something else McCullough doesn't get; just how much the Romans loved liberty and hated kingship, hated political submission. As a consequence, they feared that populists were exploiting the love of the people in order to accumulate power for themselves and become like kings, that most dreaded thing for a Roman. But any conservatives who put this view forward in her books aren't taken seriously; instead they’re just snobby stick-in-the-muds who are too busy judging the lower classes and new men to recognise their good qualities. It leads to a lack of balance, and ducks what made the downfall of the Republic so tragic; that slowly, inexorably, the Romans became the thing they had so much opposed.

Oh, and a couple of other things which nagged at me: all the swear words are in Latin (why be so coy??), and religion isn't really taken seriously. In her glossary at the end she talks disdainfully about how otherwise intelligent people believed in Luck and Fortune; and similarly, you hardly ever see any of the main characters, the ones she wants you to like, visiting temples or praying to gods other than the household lares and penates. Religious festivals are never shown. Perhaps the Romans really were that cynical about religion; but somehow I doubt it.

So, after all that, should you read it? I think yes, because of the detail in her recreation of Rome and because of her incredible, complex, layered, magnetic characterisation of Lucius Cornelius Sulla. But sadly, it's got some significant flaws.

When people wonder how I can pay so much attention to politics & not be totally angry & hopeless, I direct them to this book & it's brilliant illumination of the history that preceeds us. It's a bit much to get thru all the Latin names, but the story is so engaging one finds a way to deal with them. This is the first book in McCullough's Roman Republic series. She spent 13 years researching documents in the original Latin & Greek before embarking on the task of "fleshing out" the people who preceeded & shaped the destiny of Gaius Julius Caeser, and the life he lived. Western Civ was never so alive in high school!

I made it to page 304 (of 931) before I gave up. After reading a third of the book, I've got to admit to myself that if it's not working for me yet, it's not likely to.

First, I want to say that the amount of research that Colleen McCullough did for this novel is truly incredible. The 143 page glossary is a momentous achievement and I have enormous respect for her for doing it. (And to her publisher for allowing her to include it.) She clearly didn't sit down, read some translations of Livy and the like, then crap out a novel based upon some cursory knowledge of the period. If there's any fault to be had in her research it certainly can't be laid at the depth of it.

Given that, I was disappointed to find that I just could not get into this book.

A good part of it is the characters. Marius and Sulla are so unlikable (especially Sulla). And maybe they should be—they were dictators (in the modern sense)—but it's hard for me to read a book with perspective characters who aren't relatable or likable.

Worse, all the female characters were just terrible. Simpering, childish, generally stupid. If McCullough herself weren't a woman, I'd be ready to write the whole book off as the work of a clear misogynist. Which isn't to say that it's impossible McCullough thinks so poorly of her sex that she would write all her female characters so insultingly, but I'm just hesitant to assume that that was what was driving it. Maybe it was a deliberate choice—McCullough's supposition of what women would be like in such a thoroughly patriarchal and martial society as Late Republican Rome. But whatever the reason, I found it incredibly off putting.

On top of the unlikable characters, the dialogue is also cheesy and artificial. The style of the dialogue often felt like what I would expect from a cheesy '60s TV show. There was precious little authenticity to all of it. Worse still, for all the exposition McCullough gives in the narration, it's surprising that she also felt the need to have the characters spout it off at each other.

In my opinion, one of the advantages of prose is that it allows the author to communicate things to the reader that the reader needs to know that the characters already know and wouldn't have any reason to discuss. In movies or TV or plays, you can't do that. If the audience needs to know what a consul is in a movie, someone needs to say it. Good writers can make the exposition less ham-handed and obvious, but it often has to be done just so the audience isn't lost.

In prose, though, you have a narrator. If you want to explain something, you can just come right out and do it. (Whether or not a writer should throw exposition into a story or how much might be appropriate varies, but the concept isn't categorically inappropriate.) There's no good reason for Gaius Marius to tell Gaius Julius Caesar (no, not that one—his grandfather) what a consul is or to explain how the Centuriate Assembly works. (I'm pulling those examples out of my ass—I don't remember if those were actually among the many instances of exposition those two exchanged.) If you want to have exposition in the dialogue, someone needs to be talking to someone who wouldn't understand it—you can't have just any characters deliver it unless you want to kill the verisimilitude of the scene.

McCullough also makes some strange language choices that I just could not get behind. For instance, she calls equites "knights," a very medieval term that just didn't feel right in a story about Ancient Rome. The obvious cognate of "equestrian" to the Latin terms of eques/equites combined with the fact "knight" carries a bunch of distracting baggage make using that term incredibly questionable. And that's just one isolated instance. While I'm not trying to suggest that the book should be overloaded with Latin terms, some of them would've helped to strengthen the Roman flavor of the story and would not have hindered reader comprehension. Plus, sometimes the Roman terms just sound better (e.g., Transalpine Gaul sounds way better than "Gaul-Beyond-the-Alps").

Pacing is also an issue. Over 300 pages in and I feel like precious little of consequence has really happened.

Having said all that, part of my problem could just be that, frankly, I know where it's going. Not because it's predictable but because I'm familiar with the history this story is exploring. I know Marius is going to become consul repeatedly. I know he's going to reform the Legions. I know he's going to beat Jugurtha. I know he's going to fight a civil war against Sulla. I know Sulla will become a dictator and take over the state. I know Sulla is going to institute a bunch of reforms to strengthen the aristocracy. I know they're going to be discarded shortly after his death but that Sulla's takeover of Rome will become the model that Caesar (the famous one) follows when he takes over Rome. So maybe that just kills my patience and magnifies all the stylistic problems.

But that didn't kill my interest in HBO's fantastic TV series Rome, so I'm really not sure. I've never read historical fiction about an era that I'm familiar with but I'd like to hope that I can get into novels where I know broadly how it's going to play out like I can with TV/film.

if I can, unfortunately, this series doesn't appear to be one I'll be doing that with. Which is unfortunate—after going to Rome with my wife for our 10th anniversary, I was really looking forward to this series (among others set in Ancient Rome). I think the era is a goldmine for great stories. We've seen the story of Julius Caesar presented in grand fashion multiple times, but there are so many other fascinating stories that Ancient Rome has to offer beyond that. I hope there are other books out there that are written by authors with McCullough's clear dedication to researching the period but who write in a style I can actually enjoy.

First I have to compliment Colleen McCullough on her research. Truly an outstanding effort and very praiseworthy. Her glossary at the end of the book is excellent and one which I have referred back to more then once for just general information. Having said that I now have to state that the entire series has been going down in quality since the second installment n  The Grass Crownn. With the first two novels it is apparent that Ms. McCullough wrote them more or less simultaneously over a period of several years while doing her very extensive research. I read that she spent over five years researching and writing the first chapters and it shows. The attention to detail is excellent, her characters come to life, they sound and act like Romans (Silly thing to write actually. Let's go with they don't sound and act like people living in the late Twentieth Century. None of us actually know what ancient Romans sounded or acted like do we). There is nothing modern about her dialogue, plot, or characterization. After a short while I felt like I was reading a prequel to Robert Graves classic novels about Claudius. The only thing I felt there wasn't enough of was the biting wit that was so prevalent in Graves work. But I could live with that.

Unfortunately ,starting with the third installment, I saw the old Colleen McCullough coming through. The bestselling author who has written n  The Thorn Birdsn and n  Timn. It was obvious that the research was done and the dramatic stage set was built. Now Ms. McCullough was simply filling in with her trademark writing. Instead of a series of Roman novels there is a soap opera with modern characters running around in togas. Instead of intriguing and fleshed out historical personae there is hero worship of Julius Caesar and two dimensional characters. I made it through the fourth installment and gave up. More tired then disgusted - for what had been rather unusual was now become typical and could just as easily be set in New York City of today. I recommend the first two novels highly. In my opinion they reach a level higher then the average summertime read, but after that one has mind candy. Read n  I Claudiusn and n  Claudius the God and His Wife Messalinan by Robert Graves if you want truly entertaining fiction set in the Roman Empire.