What I've been reading...

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Robert Harris, Dictator (Hutchinson, 2015)

Just finished reading the above book and I loved it. It is the third in a trilogy of novels centred on the life of Cicero, as narrated by his slave/secretary Tiro during turbulent times in Rome’s history (weren’t they all turbulent?) when Julius Caesar has become part of the triumvirate with Pompey and Crassus. It concludes with Cicero’s rather brutal death and his realisation that he has miscalculated in his support of the young Octavian, later to become Augustus.

None of this is not a plot spoiler: Harris’s research of the period is extensive – his bibliography is impressive – and he keeps very close to the written sources. In fact, one reviewer said you might as well read the sources rather than Harris’s fictionalized account as he keeps so close to them. Harris’s writing style is clear. His characters are well drawn and you really care about the fate of Cicero, his daughter Tullia and his slave/secretary Tiro, as well as a host of other characters in the book. He maintains the tension throughout the book even if some of us are aware of how it must end. Harris was a political journalist in his other life and it shows. He enjoys recounting the political machinations of the Roman senators.

I love this kind of fiction based on fact. I can enjoy a good story in the hands of a master craftsman, but also feel I am learning a bit of history. There are, however, some weaknesses. Occasionally Harris slips into slightly jarring modern vernacular; for example Pompey and Crassus are said to stand for election “on a joint ticket”. But overall this is compulsively readable and succeeds in re-creating the social and political world of late republican Rome – I’m a great fan of Robert Harris as a writer. And the book makes me want to read the sources, all in the Loeb Classical Library. If you feel that modern government today is far from ideal in its corruption and greed, perhaps reading this novel might help put it into perspective. But then perhaps we should have learnt a stronger lesson from our Roman forebears.

Christine L. Corton