Imperium: A Novel of Ancient Rome

Today I finished listening to the audiobook of Imperium: A Novel of Ancient Rome by Robert Harris. Imperium is the first of three novels written by Harris about Marcus Tullius Cicero, the famous Roman prosecutor, orator, statesman, and author who lived in the tumultuous days of the first century BCE and who reached the height of power as consul in 63 BCE. Cicero was caught up in the turmoil after the assassination of Gaius Julius Caesar, and he was murdered under the orders of Marcus Antonius.

Cicero’s importance today comes from his writings, many of which have survived the two thousand years since his death. Cicero was the greatest writer of the Latin language; he invented many new words and established many conventions of the written grammar of Latin, and he was enormously influential on writers of Latin since his days.

I enjoy reading novels about Roman History from the Late Republic into the first hundred years or so of the Roman Empire. I read and greatly enjoyed I Claudius and Claudius the God by Robert Graves and all seven volumes of Colleen McCullough’s Masters of Rome series, which begins with The First Man in Rome.

Imperium is a memoir told by Tiro, Cicero’s slave, freedman, and secretary, near the end of Tiro’s long life. In my eyes, this approach is not entirely successful since it makes the book a somewhat dry read and removes all suspense. Tiro begins by narrating Cicero’s prosecution of the entirely corrupt Gaius Verres. Tiro continues with Cicero’s political maneuvers to become consul, at which point this volume ends.

I will continue with listening to the succeeding volumes, Conspirata and Dictator. I assume before reading these books that Conspirata is about the Catalinarian conspiracy and that Dictator is about Cicero’s interactions with Gaius Julius Caesar.

My rating is 3/5 stars (good).