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In writing my review of Robert Harris's earlier book, POMPEII, I had mixed feelings. I started by saying: "I wanted to like the book, and I tried, but couldn't quite succeed." I believe that when a writer decides to use fiction as the vehicle to present actual history, that writer takes on an obligation to emphasize the fiction; that is, above all to entertain. A sensible reader will not use an historical novel as a source for facts. In POMPEII Harris presented solidly interesting facts, but with disappointing fiction. In IMPERIUM: A NOVEL OF ANCIENT ROME that has changed. Basing his story on real facts from the life of Cicero, Harris uses suspenseful fictional techniques to make the book a page-turner. My own knowledge of Cicero is a bit rusty so I couldn't swear to where the history ends and the fiction begins, but that's no matter because the division between the two should be seamless. The background gives us an excellent primer on republican Rome's political and social systems. Against this backdrop, Harris starts with one of Cicero's early, historically-famous cases, that of prosecuting the powerful Roman governor of Sicily for corruption, and puts Cicero in enough continuing jeopardy to make the reader wonder with bated breath if Cicero can escape the consequences of his boldness. Harris shows Cicero to be a middle-class 'new man' with overwhelming ambition to reach the top, which in his case is to become a consul. The story has its share of mystery, conspiracy, and evil-doers -- Rome in real life lent itself to crime on the highest as well as lowest level. Cicero places his own man in a most dangerous position so he can witness and record the plottings of a patrician group that would take over Rome, and Cicero himself must hide from those who want to kill him. The action is surprisingly almost non-stop. The author chooses to end the story on a high note, which is wise in fiction of this type, but creates perhaps an erroneous impression that from here on Cicero's life is a bowl of cherries. No such thing, but that leaves enough of Cicero's real-life biography to furnish the material for a future equally exciting story. As it is, what Harris has written fits in nicely with another story I recently reviewed, Conn Iggulden's EMPEROR: THE GODS OF WAR, with an overlapping cast of characters, to show us the in-and-out machinations leading to the last days of republican Rome.
Reviewed by Eugene Aubrey Stratton, November 2006
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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