McCullough does a great job of presenting the later stage of the Roman Republic. Obviously the dialogue is fiction and probably many of the relationships and interactions between the historical protagonists but who cares. The imagined relationships and actions that McCullokugh describes makes the actual history entertaining. While I read the book I had my ipad on the wikipedia and I kept referring to the history as written by the authors on wikipedia. All the main characters are referenced on Wikipedia even though McCullough takes license with her characters. I would recommend "The Grass Crown" for anyone curious about Roman history.

Este libro, al igual que el anterior, es muuuy largo.
Ventajas: es interesante y entretenido.
Desventajas: sigue sin tener suficientes descripciones sangrientas… y me obligó a investigar. ¡¿Cómo se atreve?! a mí nadie me obliga a hacer cosas. ¡Nadie!

Escenas y demás:
*El descubrimiento de la infidelidad de Livia Drusa y acontecimientos posteriores.
*El debate provocado por la lex Licinia Mucia: "la gente se negará a escuchar lo que no desea oír", se dice…
*Las discusiones sobre si aprobar o no la ley para conceder la ciudadanía romana a toda Italia: ay.
Mención especial a las palabras con las que Craso Orator destruyó verbalmente a Lucio Marcio Filipo, por supuesto.
En una nota relacionada, ¿sabía usted que pronunciar un indignado discurso puede llegar a ser causa de muerte?
*El asesinato de Marco Livio Druso: oh, carajo.
Maa, y ni siquiera puedo quejarme y decir que no era consciente de que eso iba a ocurrir. Argh…
*El asesinato de Quinto Servilio Cepio: bah, lo merec— er… digo… los asesinatos suceden, sí. Continuemos.
*Cayo Mario, cayendo en la locura.

Enfrentamientos contra estados vecinos y luchas protagonizadas por antiguos amigos en el horizonte. Divertido…

Cayo Mario fue el primer hombre de Roma y cónsul 6 veces. Él cumplió sus mayores sueños y se siente satisfecho, sí; vale, sufrió un infarto hace un tiempo y por culpa de tal hecho su estado físico ya no es el de antaño y se muestra malhumorado frecuentemente, pero esas son dificultades a superar, está seguro. Después de todo, tiene a su familia junto a él y a buenos y confiables amigos en los que podrá apoyarse de necesitarlo… amigos entre los cuales está incluido, sin ninguna duda, Lucio Cornelio Sila, quien fuera su mano derecha en guerras pasadas y con quien no acabará teniendo diferencias irreconciliables, no…
Y emprender un viaje acompañado por su esposa y sus hijos probablemente no le causará daño, de verdad. Y, cuando regrese, confía en que lo hará restablecido y listo para volver a las disputas senatoriales y dejar su marca en Roma otra vez, porque no permitirá que nadie sea más grande que él y al diablo las profecías, maldición.

Lucio Cornelio Sila sabe que debió ser pretor cuando presentó su candidatura, sí. Después de todo, fue desvinculándose de Cayo Mario poco a poco, su expediente militar era magnífico y hasta sus más acérrimos detractores le habían reconocido como un tipo competente… pero nooo. De algún modo, la esposa de Marco Emilio Escauro se enamoró de él y decidió empezar a acosarlo y, gracias a eso, Escauro lo colocó en su lista de enemigos y… bueno.
Esa situación, comprensiblemente, no hizo a Sila nada, nada feliz; lo que sí hizo, lamentablemente para sus futuros adversarios, fue volverlo incluso más decidido e implacable que antes. Él logrará todas sus metas, todas, y ay de aquellos que se interpongan en su camino porque, para el hombre, el fin justificará los medios y ningún medio, ninguno, estará fuera de la mesa…

Wow, 800 pages and where did it go? Ms. McCullough does an outstanding job of bringing Republic Rome to life. Excellent character development, fast-moving, hooking plot... and all based on true events and historic reasearch.

This second book in the series covers Lucius Cornelius Sulla's rise to being First Man, and then things go nuts!!! Blood, blood and more blood.

McCullough creates vivid, believable and lovable characters, and avoids getting bogged down in historical detail "showing off", but works in an appropriate level of detail to enrich the story without losing the strong narrative line.

Unfortunately, the parallels with modern American politics are scary and sad. (the usual quote... forget... doomed... repeat it).

Top notch Historical Fiction.

The Grass Crown (Masters of Rome #2), Colleen McCullough
The Grass Crown is the second historical novel in Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome series, published in 1991. The novel opens shortly after the action of The First Man in Rome. Gaius Marius and Lucius Cornelius Sulla eat dinner together with their wives, and discuss the threat presented by Mithridates VI of Pontus and Tigranes II of Armenia.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: دوم سپتامبر سال 2009 میلادی
ا. شربیانی

"It was the greatest day of Sulla's life. Fifty-one years of age, a general in complete charge of a theater of war at last, he had won his first great battle [...]. And what a victory! Covered so copiously in the blood of other men that he dripped with it, his sword glued by gore to his right hand, reeking of sweat and death, Lucius Cornelius Sulla [...] threw [his helmet] in the air with a scream of sheer jubilation..."

I kneel at Colleen's feet in awe, and I say that with no amount of exaggeration. Somehow, she managed to write a novel even better than the first of this masterpiece of a book series. Whereas The First Man In Rome is concerned with Gaius Marius' rise to power, The Grass Crown follows Marius' spiral into madness and Sulla's increasing alienation from his former friend, culminating with his infamous march on Rome. Other events this novel touch upon are the rise of King Mithridates in the East, the outbreak and bloody conclusion of the Social War, and the overall collapse of order within the Republic itself, now firmly in its death throes.

It's not just the historic events. There is an arc that I loved, that of a side character who doesn't matter much in the grand scheme of things, but was written so well that I was engrossed every step of the way. Livia Drusa's entire storyline, from her confinement in the house of her brother, to her disastrous marriage with Caepio Junior, her final marriage with the man she loved... and her untimely death... it almost moved me to tears. I will always remember her last words, that she didn't realize Penelope would die first. This is in reference to how she always called the love of her life, Cato, as "Odysseus" in her head, during the long years of confinement she endured since she didn't know his name. And she died having his children.

Sulla. Oh my God. Sulla. Where do I even begin? Never have I in recent memory been so... obsessed? Intrigued? In love? With such an amazing character. Proof? I just spent around $50 buying a biography on him, and I attribute that entirely to Colleen. If anything, Sulla gets even more morally gray in this book than the first one; he treats his wife Aelia horribly; he is utterly ruthless to his enemies at war and at home; he poisons random people when he gets angry; he loved his son; he held the boy in his arms as he died, bit by bit; he was a patriot who wanted to restore Rome to her glory; he was a man.

I could write a million things about this book's other characters. We also get to see more of Young Caesar in here, since he's growing up. You can tell Colleen loves him to pieces since he's a walking Gary Stu; I remember when I was young I hated her depiction of him, but these days I take it in the same stride as I do Mary Renault's depiction of Alexander. Nevertheless, I remain curious as to how I will react to his character on this read-through.

The Grass Crown is a masterpiece. It solidifies Colleen as an absolute genius; truly, I don't think there will be a book like this written ever again.

Second in the “Masters of Rome” series.

This volume has a number of struggles within it: the attempt by Livius Drussus as a patrician and non-demagogue Tribune of the Plebs to gain full Roman citizenship for the Italians in the face of opposition lead by his brother in law Caepio (furious that Drussus’s sister has had an affair with an Italian, her first child by Caepio is the bitter and malicious Servillia – eventually mother of Brutus and lover of Caesar) culminating in his assassination; the resulting war with the Italians which leads to huge loss of life on both sides for little real aim as part of finishing the war is granting citizenship to any Italians not joining the war; the increasing threat of Mithradetes (the reader like the Romans initially finds it very hard to keep track of or interest in the various Asian kings and their inter-relationships); the attempt by Sulla to become a military hero in his own right and then counsel; Marius’s struggle against illness and increasing madness to secure a seventh consulship but with the aid of a dangerous assortment of allies; the struggle between Marius and Sulla for military pre-eminence – starting with the war against the Italians where Sulla comes into his own, followed by Marius engineering to have the war against Mithradetes transferred back to himself, Sulla’s invasion of Rome, Marius’s reinvasions and massacres; the struggle for power between the patrician Senate and the commercial Knights, while at the same time the increasing foreign wealth and the loyalty of head count soldiers to a general prepared to grant them public land after their service call into question the very concept of the republic and increasingly replace it with close to a military dictatorship; Marius’s attempt just before his death to prevent the prophecy about Caesar’s greatness by making him a religious person.

We also meet Young Pompey and Cicero in the entourage of the Northern general Pompey the Butcher.

La storia si ripete, ciclicamente. Leggere questa serie di Colleen McCullough me lo fa pensare di continuo, per esempio quando nel Senato di Roma si discute sulla cittadinanza romana, col rifiuto categorico di molti a estenderla a tutti gli italici, con la terribile Lex Licinia Mucia che portò alla Guerra Sociale. Be', i discorsi sembrano così attuali da non poterci credere! E personaggi quasi dimenticati - che su Wikipedia occupano poche righe - come l'immenso Marco Livio Druso, qui acquistano finalmente la loro importanza.
Caio Giulio Cesare cresce, ed è un ragazzino eccezionale già da adesso. Cresce in un'insula nella Suburra, con una madre speciale, piena di carattere - Aurelia - e una serie di inquilini provenienti da ogni parte del mondo, imparando le loro lingue e le loro usanze (una cosa che gli sarà utilissima per la sua carriera militare e per la forma mentis).
Il libro spazia dalla conclusione de I giorni del potere, nel 99 a. C., con Giulio Cesare un frugoletto di meno di due anni, alla morte di Caio Mario, console per la settima volta, nell'86 a. C.
Un Caio Mario che, dopo il secondo ictus, impazzisce ed è sempre più perseguitato dalla profezia di Marta la Siriaca, che gli aveva annunciato, sì, sette consolati, ma anche che sarebbe stato superato in gloria dal nipote di sua moglie, Caio Giulio. E sebbene Caio Giulio Cesare si presti per amore della madre Aurelia e della zia Giulia a fargli letteralmente da bastone dopo il primo ictus, facendogli riprendere la vita politica e accompagnandolo dappertutto (e approfittandone per farsi raccontare tutto delle sue campagne militari e delle popolazioni che ha incontrato nella sua lunga esperienza), Caio Mario, approfittando del proprio potere consolare, gli fa un ultimo sgambetto per renderlo innocuo (secondo lui!): lo nomina, cioè, flamen dialis, sacerdote di Giove Capitolino, una figura particolare, che deve seguire dei protocolli strettissimi, che gli impediranno certo di diventare un soldato e quindi il grande uomo che supererà Caio Mario nella grandezza della storia di Roma. (Vediamo… — disse Cesare il Giovane con voce riflessiva — come Flamen Dialis non potrei vedere nessun cadavere umano, non potrei toccare nulla che sia fatto di ferro o di acciaio, dalle forbici e i rasoi a una spada e una lancia. Non potrei portare nodi su di me, né toccare capre, cavalli, cani, né piante d’edera. Non potrei mangiare carne cruda, né grano, né pane lievitato, né fagioli, non potrei toccare pelle che provenisse da un animale ucciso appositamente per ricavarne pelle. Avrei molti compiti interessanti e importanti. Per esempio, annuncerei la vendemmia ai Vinalia, guiderei le greggi nei cortei suovenaurilia, spazzerei il tempio di Giove, organizzerei la purificazione delle case dove è avvenuto un decesso. Sì, proprio molte cose interessanti e importanti!)
E quindi, adesso non vedo l'ora di continuare la lettura della serie, per scoprire come Caio Giulio aggirerà l'ostacolo.
E aspetto anche che Silla rientri a Roma dopo aver combattuto in Asia Minore contro Mitridate (dopo una partenza quanto mai... travagliata).
Quante stelle si possono mettere a questo romanzo? (Ma a tutta la serie dei Masters of Rome di Colleen McCullough, sia ben chiaro!) Perché quando lei racconta la Storia sembra di essere nel 91 a.C. a Roma (ma anche nel Ponto con Mitridate, per dirne una, eh!) Quindi cinque sono a stento sufficienti!

E' un vero peccato che questa serie sia relativamente poco conosciuta, rispetto al nostrano Manfredi, perché è un romanzo storico che, pur prendendosi le sue libertà, si sforza di mantenere il più possibile una grande accuratezza storica, ma, nonostante questo, riesce comunque mantenere una certa 'suspence'. Anche se storicamente ricordavo (più o meno nitidamente) come sarebbe finito un personaggio, quando incontrava delle difficoltà la domanda "e adesso come ne esce?" si manifestava lo stesso.

I personaggi principali sono figli del loro tempo, sufficientemente alieni per suscitare in me sufficiente voglia di prenderli a calci (Silla e Mario in egual misura), perché LO SO che il loro modo di pensare è romano

I problema principale è che in alcuni casi tende a diventare troppo 'spiegone storico/libro di testo' a discapito della storia, che perde improvvisamente di tensione. Mi sarebbe piaciuto che l'autrice avesse cercato di integrare un po' di più le informazioni al romanzo (e magari usato le note a piè pagina, leggere di due consoli romani che si spiegano a vicenda le funzioni delle varie toghe è un po' imbarazzante) e che, pur mantenendo un'impostazione corale del romanzo, avesse dedicato attenzioni particolari ad alcuni personaggi secondari: la storia romana è piena di personaggi con nomi molto simili, e in alcuni punti, quando alcuni di loro assumono importanza della storia mi sono resa conto che, essendo poco delineati, tendevo a perdermeli nelle maree di Catoni, Pompei, Marii, Ciceroni etc.

Letto per le sfide
1. Trim your TBR - Libro #22, per la task Un libro con un titolo diverso rispetto all'originale
2. Alphabet 2020 per Un libro di un autore il cui cognome inizi per M
3. Extra-Large 2020 - Modalità difficile (9/9, #944 pagine) ! Obbiettivo Completo!

Book 1 was fantastic, but hot damn book 2 was a masterpiece. McCullough has brought ancient republican Rome to life. These characters become so 3D and full of life, and the world is intricate, complex, but totally accessible, thanks to her superb research and writing!

The character arcs of the people's champ, G Marius, and the ever-complex and layered Sulla, are just amazing. Not to mention the dozens of other notable characters beginning to take the main stage... it's like the ultimate soap opera/sword and sandal/ancient west wing drama that anyone could ask for, oh and it's based off of what actually happened (recorded by biased scholars and record-keepers lol).

I know that, as historical fiction, the author takes some liberties with the story and the characters, but it's coming from a basis of such love and research that I am sold!

What a masterpiece in breadth and scope! My only gripe would be my own failings to understand all of the complexities of Roman politics, but I get most of the gist of the drama - it's really my own failings, not the author!

Slap on your best toga, don't bother watering down that wine, and make sure your hidden dagger is sharp - cus we are goin' IN!

5/5 Recommend for any Rome-head!

I'd read The First Man of Rome on a friend's recommendation back in 1994, then picked this up at a used bookstore several years later. Being schooled in church history, I'm weak on the history of the Roman Republic before Caesar. The time gap between the two books, the second of which follows immediately on the heels of the first, and my ignorance doubtlessly caused me not to appreciate this novel as much as I might have.

At the cost of repeating myself, dear Netflix, this series is ready fodder to be scripted into a much better series than HBO did with Rome. The author has gone to amazing lengths to actually make this book as historically authentic as possible. I have never read such a detailed historical fiction series ever.

The length of the book does make it exhausting to complete. Around 400,000 words would be like reading at least 6 modern day novels! In this era of 140 characters sadly this series may not find many takers. This is surely a hidden gem.

If you are as crazy as me about roman days then do pick this series. It is worth the trudge!

Well-developed fictional series.