Book Review – “Empire: The Novel of Imperial Rome” by Steven Saylor

Empire:The Novel of Imperial Rome continues the story of the Pinarius family chronicled in Steven Saylor’s earlier novel Roma: The Novel of Ancient Rome. In the earlier book, we followed the aristocratic family from the founding of Rome through the Republican years. Empire picks up at the end of Augustus’ reign and concludes at the end of Hadrian’s, covering about 130 years and four generations of Pinarii.  Saylor sets himself a Herculean task to cover the major events and people of the times in an entertaining and accessible way using a formula perfected by James A. Michner in his historical epics. He mostly succeeds.

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Book Review – “Imperium: a Novel of Ancient Rome” by Robert Harris

Imperium is the first in a trilogy of novels about the life and times of Marcus Tullius Cicero, one of Republican Rome’s most famous orators and politicians.  The book is narrated by Tiro, Cicero’s slave and secretary, many years after Cicero’s death. Tiro existed and is thought to have lived to be a hundred years old. He was famous for creating a short hand that he used for taking notes and later was adopted by the Senate.  There is considerable evidence he wrote a biography of his former master, but those books are lost to history. Harris gives him back his voice. From the opening pages:

“Imperium—the power of life and death as vested by the state in an individual. Many hundreds of men have sought this power, but Cicero was unique in the history of the republic in that he pursued it with no resources to help him apart from his own talent. He was not, unlike Metellus or Hortensius, from one of the great aristocratic families, with generations of political favors to draw on at election time. He had no mighty army to back up his candidacy, as did Pompey or Caesar. He did not have Crassus‘ vast fortune to smooth his path. All he had was his voice—and by sheer effort of will he turned it into the most famous voice in the world.” ”

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