Product Description

PART OF THE ACCLAIMED MASTERS OF ROME SERIES

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #74772 in Books
• Published on: 2003-08-07
• Binding: Paperback
• 1056 pages

Synopsis
Rome's leaders are frightened: the brilliant, ruthless Gaius Julius Caesar must be crushed before he can overthrow the government and become dictator. This magnificent novel opens in Gaul, scene of Caesar's magnificent victory over fierce people. His conquest is in the name of Rome, but when the senate refuse to give Caesar his due he marches upon his own country, an army prepared to die for him at his back.

Customer Reviews

just brilliant!
I've had the pleasure of reading all the Masters of Rome series in order one after the other and I've found it a wonderful experience! I love McCullough's style of writing - she makes the whole period come to life and manages to get some great history into her work. Its obvious she's done tremendous research for all these books.

It's also obvious that she's very much in love with Caesar! I'd agree that he was an amazing human being - no doubt - but I have to say I could fall for McCullough's version of him myself - although I doubt he was as squeaky clean as she portrays him!!!

Highly recommended for anyone interested in the Roman republic and in politics in general.

Fifth Book in a Captivating Series

Colleen McCullough was born in Australia. A neurophysicist, she established the department of neurophysiology at the Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney She then worked as a researcher and teacher at Yale Medical School for ten years. She is the author of the record-breaking international bestseller The Thorn Birds and her series of books on Rome have also been bestsellers. Colleen lives on Norfolk Island in the Pacific with her husband.

Colleen McCullough has been one of my favourite authors, every since I read the book The First Man in Rome and then eagerly awaited the next in the series and then the next and so on. Caesar is the fifth book in the Masters of Rome Series.

The book charts the life of arguably the most famous man from ancient history. It begins n 54 BC and the star of certainly the greatest man of his time is rising. He is claiming victory after victory in his race through Gaul. However, although the victories are gained in the name of the Republic, many of the most important men in Rome are terrified. No Roman general has ever before brought his legions to the gates of Rome and they feel he must be destroyed before he can take the city and name himself as Dictator . . .

Excellent on both Caesar and Rome
There's a 5 year gap between the end of the last novel in this 6 book series (Caesar's Women) and this one: Caesar is in Gaul, and finds his ties in Rome being cut. Instead he throws himself into the Gallic campaigns which are described in minute and enthralling detail (based on Caesar's own commentaries).

I don't know how McCullough does it, but she manages to render military campaigns, legion's rebellions etc absolutely fascinating! This isn't by any means an objective look at either Caesar or Roman imperialism, and she is unashamedly on Caesar's side, but somehow it works fabulously.

Back in Rome the Senate led by the vacillating Cicero and neurotic Cato and undermining Caesar, and the book leads inevitably and inexorably to Caear's crossing of the Rubicon.

I can't praise this book enought - not as history (which it doesn't purport to be, though it does stick to the sources - albeit in an interpretative way) but as sheer story-telling.