Tagged: marcus crassus
Fortune’s Favorites by Colleen McCullough
(Cover picture courtesy of Avon Romance.)
In a time of cataclysmic upheaval, a bold new generation of Romans vied for greatness amid the disintegrating remnants of their beloved Republic. They were the chosen…and the cursed—blessed with wealth and privileged yet burdened by the dictates of destiny in a savage struggle for power that would leave countless numbers crushed and destroyed. But there was one who would tower above them all—a brilliant and beautiful boy whose ambition was unparalleled, whose love was legend, and whose glory was Rome’s: a boy they would one day call “Caesar.”
While Sulla features heavily in the first part of Fortune’s Favorites, make no mistake: this is the story of Gaius Julius Caesar and his brutal early years. You know, Colleen McCullough’s portrayal of Caesar is the most sympathetic I’ve ever come across and yet he really does some horrible things. He crucifies all those pirates (but broke all their legs except the leader so they’d die quicker) and was utterly ruthless in Spartacus’ revolt as he served under Marcus Crassus. At the same time I had difficulty not shedding at least a few tears at his pure grief when his aunt Julia and his wife Cinnilla died.
Sulla is fully developed as a character now; his story is clearly done by the time he gives a gigantic middle finger to Rome at the time of his retirement. That’s when we really get into the Julius Caesar chronicles and things start to get a little more hopeful. Sulla was always such a ruthless guy but out of all the characters you couldn’t help but cheer for him once Gaius Marius went crazy. It was sad to see him go downhill over such a long period of time.
So it was a nice break to see Caesar finally start to succeed in life. His bargaining with Nicomedes of Bithynia for a navy, the sheer gall he had in facing the pirates when he was captured and his strategies during the Third Servile War all seemed so satisfying, so realistic because Colleen McCullough really put a lot of effort into his character. There are so many ways a sympathetic portrayal of Julius Caesar can go wrong (mainly the fact that hey, he did some pretty awful things) but in Fortune’s Favorites you can’t help but love him. Even his ruthless streak.
As I mentioned in my review of The Grass Crown, Colleen McCullough has a ridiculously addictive writing style. This book is 1004 pages long and I read it over the course of just four days, sneaking in a few minutes here and there. Considering how busy I’ve been lately that’s quite an achievement and a testament to how much I really enjoy her writing. She makes you really feel like you’re there in the ancient world along with all these historical figures you’ve read about for years. (In my case, anyway.)
Really, if you haven’t picked up Colleen McCullough’s Masters of Rome series, you need to start now. The crazy page counts are worth it.
I give this book 5/5 stars.
My Interview with Andrew Levkoff
Andrew Levkoff is the self-published author of one of my favourite historical novels, The Other Alexander. It’s a greatly underrated novel and this interview definitely sheds some light on why Mr. Levkoff decided to pick such an unusual figure in Roman history to write about. Today he graciously agreed to do an interview with me, so if you love hearing about Roman history, self publishing and tips for aspiring authors, please read on!
Update: Mr. Levkoff has just informed me that he won gold in historical fiction category of the eLit Awards. For anyone who wishes to see the results, here is the link: eLit Awards 2011 (PDF)
1. Why did you choose to focus The Bow of Heaven on Marcus Licinius Crassus? Out of all the figures in Roman history, why him?
I think Crassus may have gotten a bad rap. Rome hated nothing more than a loser, and in the eyes of historians like Plutarch and Cassius Dio, he was right up there at the top. Crassus lost the standards of his seven legions to the enemy. It took Octavian (Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus) 27 years to negotiate their return, and the day they were returned to Rome there was a celebration as great as if Caesar had earned a triumph. Continue reading
The Other Alexander by Andrew Levkoff
(Cover picture courtesy of PRLog.)
The Other Alexander is the first book in the epic trilogy The Bow of Heaven. Alexander, a young Greek philosophy student, is wrenched from a life unlived to submit to the whims of an empire—as a slave of Rome. In a world would without choice, he must use his cunning and wits to gain the trust of one of the most powerful men in the Republic.
Yet no matter how high he climbs, or how deeply he falls in love, Alexander’s life is still bound by the will of another. When his master becomes blinded by revenge, the fates of both owner and owned become slaves to a terrible choice. A choice which will threaten the very life of the empire one has ruled, and the other has been forced to serve.
Perhaps it’s the fact that I prattle on about history constantly, but I can guarantee you that everyone in my family and small circle of friends has heard of Gaius Julius Caesar. How could they not when he is such a cultural phenomenon, even two thousand years later? Yet while Julius Caesar is a household name, very few people have heard of Marcus Licinius Crassus. Even among historians, he is dismissed as the weak third member of the First Triumvirate, nothing more than the man who bankrolled the wars of Pompey the Great and Julius Caesar. But in The Other Alexander, I believe Andrew Levkoff has done for Crassus what Pauline Gedge did for Kamose Tao or what Robert Graves did for Claudius.
In a style reminiscent of Wilbur Smith’s Egyptian novels, Andrew Levkoff chronicles the life of Crassus through the eyes of his unfortunate slave Alexandros, called Alexander. Alexander is very similar to Smith’s Taita in the way he becomes invaluable to his master and ends up running the household. Also like Smith’s Taita, he constantly reflects on life with the complex, sometimes arrogant mind of a philosopher. Alexander’s forceful personality is part of what makes him a good character, but he makes the jump from a good character to a great character because he is full of contradictions, just like real people.
The first few chapters are slowly paced to draw the reader in without completely disorienting them with the foreign world of ancient Rome. However, the pace picks up steadily throughout the novel and by the end it rivals Conn Iggulden’s famously fast-paced novels. However, unlike Conn Iggulden, Andrew Levkoff does not change history so blatantly. As far as I know, The Other Alexander is one of the most historically accurate pieces of historical fiction I’ve ever read. You can certainly tell there was a great deal of research and care put into this novel.
My only true criticism is that this should have been proofread better. I caught several missing quotation marks in the dialogue and even the use of ‘pray’ instead of ‘prey’ in this passage on page 256:
“In that case, Gaius, you are nothing. Pray on some other patrician’s wife.”
Yet these mistakes do not detract from the overall quality of the novel and I would recommend this to anyone who is interested in Roman history, particularly that of the late Republic.
I give this book 4.5/5 stars.