The Cicero Trilogy: Robert Harris

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I recently finished the Cicero trilogy by Robert Harris and was awed by the imaginative and fully realized rendering of ancient Rome during the fall of the republic, as well as Harris’s brilliant writing style. It is not only Cicero who contributes our knowledge of the period but Tiro, his slave, who has so much to offer, particularly his shorthand, much of which is still used. Cicero lived through exciting times of tumultuous change but a lot of it happens at a distance away from him, so a lot of uninteresting things take centre stage instead. Set in the dying days of the Roman Republic, Marcus Cicero begins his ascent through the ranks of the senate to become one of the most powerful men in Rome. After enjoying Imperium, the combination of detailed images of Roman life, politics and the compelling story line of the life of a great Roman Republican Cicero as told by his loyal slave and amanuensis Tiro, I couldn’t wait to get the other two volumes.

I assume because he preferred to cover the entirety of Cicero's life in his trilogy, which means a lot of historical fact to explain. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. He has hardly any inner life of his own, and the attempts later on to provide him with one fall flat, as though the author keeps checking the word count to see when he's done enough for Tiro to get back to Cicero again. Beautifully written with phenomenal attention to historical detail, Harris lays out, in fascinating detail, Cicero's career and the events that led to the birth of Imperial Rome.Cicero does it so that he can deal with the rumour that he supports foreigners above his own people and lay it to rest. Crassus turns up at Cicero's house and suggests a joint supreme command, offering to support Cicero for consul if he conveys the offer to Pompey, but Cicero rejects the proposal, despite being threatened by Crassus with suffering the same fate as Tiberius Gracchus. Enter Tiro, first a slave, then a freedman of Cicero, his relentless secretary, who lived to be 99 years old and wrote numerous books after Cicero’s demise, including his 4 volume biography, all lost.

The lex Manilia is proposed, granting command of the war against Mithradates to Pompey, along with the government of the provinces of Asia, Cilicia and Bithynia, the latter two held by Lucullus, which is opposed by Catulus and Hortensius. Part one sees Cicero rise to power, part 2 shows what he does with it and part 3 describes the chaotic aftermath in which the man is mainly naive, obstinate and melancholy.The book becomes easier as you progress as the characters start to fall into place but can swap political sides.

The last book of the trilogy paints a negative and therefore interesting picture of Julius Caesar, Marc Anthony and Octavian (the later emperor Augustus). Some of the machinations of the republic ring true in today's hectic heart of politics, and brings the reader to wonder if the outcome might be comparable.Cicero's plan is to have Gabinius summon Pompey to the rostra the next day, asking him to serve as supreme commander, and to have Pompey reject it and then the people would demand he take it. Harris describes Cicero, Caesar and Octavian (among others) in the same high level of detail as the world building. Cicero dispatches Tiro to the National Archive, Catulus's domain, to check Verres's quaestorian records as governor and finds no accounts submitted. Sometimes you feel that Robert Harris would have preferred to spend a bit more time with his characters, for instance when he talks briefly about Cicero's wife or his daughter. Originally published as three separate books (Imperium, Lustrum and Dictator) over a period of several years, and fascinatingly narrated by his long-suffering secretary (and slave) Tiro, the trilogy sets out Cicero's rise to the political pinnacle of Consul of Rome, achieved significantly by a successful prosecution of the corrupt Sicilian Governor Verres.