Dictator

Dictator
○ 2015 Robert Harris
416 pages

"Why should you be the one to stop Caesar?!"

"Who else is there?"

It is the twilight of the Roman republic.  Liberty and the rule of law are in tatters, withered by an alliance of egotists, and Rome itself imperiled by the manipulators of mobs. For Marcus Tullius Cicero, the days have never been darker. Having spoken out against the unholy trinity --  Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar -- he finds himself an exile, forced to leave behind the life of Rome for a gloomy retreat in pestilential Thessolonika.  The greatest orator in Rome has not yet said his final piece, however. Soon the alliance of ambition will tear itself apart,  and therein lies one last chance for true men of the Republic to return the ship of state to a safe harbor.  For Cicero, the  rise and fall of Julius Caesar will be the last stand of republican virtue and Cicero's own concluding moment of brilliance before winking out.  Dictator is the finale to Robert Harris' biographical trilogy of Cicero,  one fitting but sad.

As the would-be great men vie for power, Cicero struggles between despair and determination. He is exiled twice, and withdraws wearily into the countryside of his own accord another time, growing steadily more tired from a struggle that seems pointless. The ever-shifting balance of power is ever against the restoration of the rule of law,  leaving the Republic dominated by first three personalities, then two, then one, and – finally, chaos that will spell an end to not only republican liberty, but to Cicero himself.   This is not a slow fade, however. Instead, Cicero will collect himself, gathering his robes and striding into the Senate – or wherever debate can be head once a rioting mob burns the senate building down – and delivering fiery oration against those who would reduce Rome into another petty dictatorship, or maneuvering in private to frustrate Caesar and Marc Anthony’s dreams of kingly power.

The political drama might be stronger if most readers didn’t know exactly what might happen; taken as a story, removed from history, the ending is wholly unexpected, as  not until the last does Cicero’s underestimation of Octavius backfire against him and doom Rome to empire.  Another element of the story, more pervasive here given the vagaries of fortune and Cicero’s fight against gloom, is philosophy. In his periods of isolation and defeat, Cicero creates an update to Plato’s The Republic, and several commentaries on Stoicism. These aren’t woolgathering for him, either;  his appreciation for the preeminence of virtue, his practice of some Stoic precepts,  serves as his motivation to endure whatever fate sees fit to throw at him. If it means tempting death by defying Caesar – so be it.

Dictator has been a long time coming,  but it is a fitting send-off for a man hailed as a father of the nation. In Imperium we saw him rise from rural obscurity to the senate, achieving rank on his merits alone; in Conspirata, he faced down a mob to defend the rule of law, and in Dictator – when the Senate has burned, and every constitutional authority buried – he goes down fighting, thrusting his throat toward an executors knife and bidding him witness: this is how a Man dies  The conclusion rendered by Cicero’s secretary Tiro is best, however:  what matters most with Cicero is not his undeserved death, but his accomplishments in life.  He was the last man of the Roman republic, and Harris’ treatment of his life does both Cicero and the reader well.

The Roman Way

The Roman Way
© 1932 Edith Hamilton
281 pages

                                        Slave: He saw the girl.

                                        Master: Oh, hell! How could he?!

                                        Slave: ...with his eyes.

                                        Master: But how, you fool?

                                        Slave: By openin' 'em! ("Merchant", Plautus)

The Roman Way follows up on the success of Edith Hamilton's The Greek Way, and models itself after that first work of Hamilton's, in which she used Greece literature to evaluate it. In Roman Way, she draws on the comedic plays of Terence and Plautus, the histories of Caesar, the letters of Cicero, and the poetry of Catullus and Horace among other authors.  The book's greatest virtue is that Hamilton's choice to reproduce pages from plays and longer passages from letters allows students of Roman history to connect with that history more directly -- to test the waters of literature from another time while protected from confusion by the presence of the author's commentary. Hamilton's writing is strong and flourished, conveying a clear affection for the subject: she reads plays originally written in Latin for pleasure.

When generalizing, Hamilton is golden for the lay reader, though the more focused analyses of poetry and literature are likely to find their best audiences in serious students of literature and Roman history. Being a somewhat serious student myself, I found a lot of value here. I enjoyed reading Roman plays and realizing that for all the centuries that have passed, it's still possible to get a laugh out of them. I found Cicero's  humility (!) in his letters especially endearing:  sensitive about his constant bragging and the disconnect between his political values and the political choices he made, he frets to his brother:  "What will history be saying of me six hundred years hence?"  I also enjoyed the chapters on Roman romanticism and aesthetic values. Broader narratives forget to see the Romans as people at times, and Roman Way makes good on that. Times pass and values change, and the literature reflects it.

Good follow-up to Caesar and Christ;  Romanophiles and those interested in literary history should find it engaging.

Related:

• The Greek Way, Edith Hamilton
• The Roman Mind, M.L. Clarke

Conspirata

Conspirata
© 2009/2010 Robert Harris
340 pages

“Until this moment, gentlemen, I did not realize the extent to which there were two conspiracies I had to fight. There was the conspiracy which I destroyed, and then there was the conspiracy behind that conspiracy -- and that inner one prospers still. Look around you, Romans, and you can see how well it prospers!”

Imperium and Pompeii sold me on Robert Harris as an author, and I anticipated with eagerness Imperium’s sequel, the second part of his biographical trilogy of Marcus Tullius Cicero. The sequel (Lustrum's) release in America was delayed for three months, after which time it arrived as Conspirata. Imperium ended with Cicero’s rise to the consulship (63 BC), the highest office in Rome. He earns the office not through family ties or money, but through sheer political prowess and oratorical might. He will need both to survive in late Republican Rome -- in a time  of political crisis and turmoil. The dispossessed, hungry, and desperate masses view the violent would-be revolutionary Catalina as their savior.  Cicero and Catalina are bitter rivals, and their machinations against the other dominate the initial two-thirds of the book. Catalina’s desire to overthrow the Republic is personal for Cicero, and not just because of the latter's adoration for tradition and Roman virtue:  Catalina has sworn to murder Cicero, and inspires his supporters to hate our subject. In spite of popular hatred, Cicero is determined to maintain the rule of law against the threat of violence.

Although Catalina is the most direct and obvious threat, Cicero will find that he is not the only threat. The revolutionary is flanked by the young and ambitious Julius Caesar, whose own adeptness at the game of politicians is startling. Supporting the both of them is Crassus, the robber-baron and king-maker of his day:  Crassus, whose vast wealth can buy him everything but the glory he seeks, is willing to do whatever it takes to make a public name for himself. Looming in the distance is Pompey, whose opinion of himself after the destruction of Rome's foreign enemies is so great that he refers to himself as “the Great”.  The legendary general commands the respect of all: his own ambition to rule the world is thwarted only by the equal ambition of Caesar and Crassus. What unites these men is their lust for glory and power -- and standing against them are men like the pragmatic Cicero and the puritanically idealistic Cato. In this novel’s  five year span (known as a lustrum), Cicero’s star will rise to glory despite the odds -- but against such powerfully arrayed forces, it may not long shine.

Conspirata is a first-rate political thriller, one that invokes the tension between idealism and pragmatism as well as the on-going fight between the haves and the have nots. Cicero emerges as a sympathetic character even as he is partially corrupted by his own success, largely because those he stands against are such scoundrels. The very nature of politics emerges through the various political fights here, as they both its idealism and its tendency toward corruption for both noble and ignoble purposes. The struggle between the optimates and populares intrigues me, largely because it continues today, giving Rome’s political dramas steadfast relevance. Harris has triumphed here.

Related:

• Steven Saylor's Catalina's Riddle, which has the main character give shelter to Cataline during the power struggle. 

Cicero

Cicero: the Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician
© 2001 Anthony Everitt
359 pages

I've been intending to read this for a few months now, but other books have always gotten in the way. As I plan on continuing in Robert Harris' biographical novel trilogy of Cicero's life, it seemed proper to read a standard biography of Cicero for comparison's sake.

I'm rather taken by the book. It's written in a narrative style, increasing reability and keeping the reader interested. The title is accurate, for Everitt not only writes about Cicero's life, but establishes plenty of context about Roman history,  Roman government, and Roman lifestyles. The emphasis on Cicero's historical context continues throughout the book: the Republic's waning years and death are covered in detail, given Cicero's role in attempting to preserve it, even as Marc Anthony and Octavian's armies clashed.Thus, the book functions not only as a fairly thorough treatment of Cicero's life, but allows the reader to get a handle on late-Republic politics.

The portrayal of Cicero seems balanced, on the whole: Cicero's politics only slightly overshadow his philosophical and literary contributions, while Everitt seems neither unjustly cynical or romantic about Cicero's life, but generally portrays him in a positive light with a few caveats. On the whole, Cicero is readable and informative treatment not just of Cicero, but of late-Republican Rome itself.

Imperium

Imperium: A Novel of Ancient Rome
© Robert Harris 2006
305 pages

I would not have expected to find a novel set in ancient Rome, nor would I expect the author of a mystery novel set in a world where Nazi Germany emerged victorious in the second world war to have penned it -- but here it is, and here Robert Harris has penned it. This is a novel set in the last days of the Old Republic -- before the dark times, before the Empire. The novel is told in the first person, from the perspective of "Tiro": slave/servant of Marcus Tullius Cicero, known chiefly by his last name. In a way, this is a biographical novel about Cicero, although it starts when he is a young politician in his twenties and culminates in his election to the consularship. The story takes us through several decades of political change in Rome, although it is not one long and fluid story: Tiro, addressing the reader directly, writes that he has no wish to bore the reader with a retelling of hum-drum events. He focuses, rather, on three very memorable and life-altering episodes in Cicero's political life.

I found the book completely compelling: not only does Harris create drama out of stuffy-sounding letters about legal incidents, but he makes the idea of Rome come alive. Its politics, its sights and sounds -- he gives the city life. Tiro's narration holds the story together and offers us a different perspective on Rome. He is aware of the plight of slaves, the existence of an entire Republic beyond the walls of Rome and the personal interests of its ruling class. He shows us Cicero when he triumphs and Cicero when he badly misjudges situations. This is excellent drama -- but beyond fiction, it is historical fiction. Here, too, Harris comes through. His depictions match what I know of the period, especially in terms of philosophy.

I enjoyed the book immensely, and am pleased to know that it is only the first book in a planned trilogy about the life of Cicero.

"The art of life is to deal with problems as they arise, rather than to destroy one's spirit by worrying about them too far in advance." - Cicero, as quoted in the book. He also commented that "Sometimes one must begin a fight in order to find out how to win it."