Masters of Rome
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Masters of Rome is a series of historical fiction novels by author Colleen McCullough (b. 1937) set in ancient Rome during the last days of the old Roman Republic; it primarily chronicles the lives and careers of Gaius Marius, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, Pompey the Great, Julius Caesar, and the early career of Caesar Augustus.
Other major historical figures who appear and play prominent parts in the series include Mithridates VI of Pontus, Quintus Sertorius, Spartacus, Marcus Licinius Crassus, Marcus Tullius Cicero, Marcus Porcius Cato, Vercingetorix, Marcus Junius Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus, Mark Antony, and Cleopatra VII of Egypt. Each book in the series features a detailed glossary, hand-drawn illustrations of the major characters, and notes by McCullough detailing her reasoning for portraying certain events in certain ways.
The series has a thesis: as Rome became more central to the Mediterranean world, the old ways of doing things became impossibly cumbersome. Certain wise leaders (such as Marius, and later Caesar) tried to reform the old ways, in a manner that would be consistent with Rome's retention of its basic character as a republic. But the conservatives, or boni (good men) as they called themselves, opposed reform so fiercely that they made inevitable the death of the Republic they claimed to want to preserve, and the birth of a monarchy.
The books of the series are:
- The First Man in Rome;
- The Grass Crown;
- Fortune's Favorites;
- Caesar's Women;
- Caesar; and
- The October Horse
McCullough had decided to end the series with The October Horse because in her opinion the definite fall of the Roman Republic takes place after the Battle of Philippi when Caesar's murderers are killed. However, most historians place the end of the Republic a decade later after the final showdown between Augustus and Mark Antony in 31 BC. Due to much lobbying from fans McCullough has undertaken to write one more volume concerned mainly with Antony and Cleopatra.
Bob Carr, Premier of New South Wales, Australia has very publicly campaigned for McCullough to write further Roman novels. Surprisingly he argues that she should not continue in chronological order through the Second Triumvirate and the Julio-Claudian and Flavian Dynasties but instead skip ahead to write about the Five Good Emperors. This is unlikely because her eye-sight is rapidly failing due to macular degeneration.
External Links
On Colleen McCullough's conversation with Bob Carr at the Sydney Writer's Festival, 2004: [1] (http://www.writersfestival.uts.edu.au/conversation/mccullough_conv.html)