3.28.2011
The First Man in Rome
by Colleen McCullough, 978pgs, paperback
Overall Grade: A
Series: Masters of Rome book 1
Fantabulous! This monstrous novel begin the generation before Julius Caesar the Dictator is born, so his parents are coming of age and getting married. But that's really a side-story because the protagonists of this tome are Marius and Sulla. Marius and Sulla are constantly being referenced by later Romans so this book greatly helped whet my desire to find out what made them so important. Protagonist #1: Gaius Marius, a rich military man, he wants to get into politics, but has no clout because he's from Puteoli (read: a citizen but not a Roman). So he marries into the well-respected, but poor patrician Julians. Spends most of the rest of the novel, being a general first in Numidia then in Northern Italy.
Protagonist #2: Lucius Cornelius Sulla, from a patrician family, has unsavory (to a Roman) sexual inclinations. As the story begins he's under the thumb of his step-mother and Greek mistress, but once Sulla gets ambitous that situation soon changes and Sulla ends up the recipient of both their wills. Now flush with money, he belatedly sets about building a political career (the ONLY career worth having for a well off Roman man). He also marries into the Julian family, and follows Marius on his military campaigns, eventually becoming his second-in-command.
Labels: genre: fiction, genre: historical, media: book, series: Masters of Rome
