I first read Imperium shortly after its release about ten years ago, and have eagerly awaited its two sequels as much as any other sequel/series of whatever genre I was reading at the time. Now, after a Martin-esque wait (just kidding, Martin has actually produced more in the same time period), the last book was just released in the US in January, so I thought I'd mention them all together.

The trilogy is narrated by Tiro, the personal secretary of Cicero for his entire political career. An historical figure, Tiro invented a form of shorthand which enabled him to rapidly transcribe entire conversations, and although his actual works have been lost, certain writers of antiquity refer to his biography of Cicero, which this trilogy pretends to be. For someone unfamiliar with the events or minutiae of Roman politics or lifestyles and culture, there are explanations, usually explained away as the result of Tiro writing for an Imperial audience some twenty or thirty years after Cicero's death, and explaining how things used to be in the old days of the Republic. In spite of these conceits and accommodations to a lower standard knowledge,*** the narrative style is engaging and interesting without any obvious dumbing down.

***(I shit you not, a few years ago, my father, at his job in a municipal office, used the phrase "crossing the Rubicon" and none of his coworkers had any idea what the phrase meant, or its historical origin. He started asking around and could not find one employee of the town government who was at all familiar with it. We both learned about it in like, fourth grade, and when he related this story to me, we both recalled the same illustration in our grade school history books as our associated image of the event & phrase - I probably only knew about it because I was taught in a school that used fifty year old books. I find that most people don't know jack about ancient Rome, compared to what nine year-olds used to be taught)

Although the three different books could probably each be read as a stand-alone novel, they are a continuous story as well. Imperium briefly describes Cicero's formative education and political experience, and really gets started with his prosecution of Gaius Verres, in the context of other contemporary events, such as Pompey's rise to power, and Crassus' crushing of Spartacus' slave rebellion. It goes on to follow Cicero's rise through the ranks of the Senate up until his campaign for consul. climaxing with his discovery of the existence of a possibly unhistorical conspiracy to seize unconstitutional power by a dangerous clandestine alliance. Conspirata, also published under the title Lustrum, in the UK at least, begins with Cicero's term as consul, covering his struggle against the Cataline conspiracies & the trial of Rabirus, and the subsequent years up to his conflict with Clodius Pulcher, against the backdrop of the formation of the first Triumvirate, ending with his exile. Dictator takes Cicero from his exile to his death, with the civil war, the rise and fall of Caesar's regime and the emergence of Octavian in the aftermath.

Cicero is plainly the protagonist and hero of the story, and care is taken to reveal his virtues and strengths, which, belonging to a moderate and practical but principled politician, are not necessarily as readily obvious as the courage of a more physical-action-oriented character, nor are his accomplishments as easily quantified as a military victory. At the time, the books are fairly honest, and reasonably accurate, historically speaking, about his flaws and weaknesses and faults. If they sometimes seem, along with the weaknesses of his political position and station in life, to be overwhelming, it only makes his successes or stands on principle that much more satisfying and earned.

Cicero lacked the financial security or power of many of the politicians who played at his level. He lacked an aristocratic heritage or name recognition. He was temperamentally unsuited for military activity and had no birthright advantages in securing the sort of command where he could apply his formidable intellect to abstract warcraft and win glory and fame in that arena. And in spite of these disadvantages, he achieved almost unheard of political successes, through professionalism, hard work and eloquence. Tiro's description of Cicero's political campaigns rings familiar to a modern audience, except handled almost entirely by two brothers, a handful of their close friends and a few slaves doing the clerical work. The author chooses to use political terminology that might be anachronistic in a few places, but calls to mind contemporary political issues in such a way as to make the alien world of Rome in the first century BC feel lived-in and familiar. It's easy to understand the lex Gabina in terms of the War on Terror, or various anti-bribery measures as analogous to campaign finance reform.

We see Cicero's basic decency, dedication, work ethic & his talents. He is also capable of vanity, ambition and self-centered behavior, and like all too many very intelligent people, an inability to keep his mouth shut at times. On any number of occasions, he hesitates where decisive action might have changed the history of the world, or acts foolishly and brings about disaster. He frequently deviates from the republican principles for which he is remembered and admired, in order to survive, advance or curry favor with a faction, and on more than one occasion, turns against friends or allies in the name of the greater good or even expediency. Many times, his family or inner circle are shocked or appalled at his actions, only for him to remonstrate with them in terms of pragmatism and political survival, and yet there are points when he knowingly accepts opprobrium or defeat or worse by refusing to compromise a principle. To the extent that work passes any judgement one way or another on these stances or changes, rather than an historical or moral assessment, it is phrased as the personal opinion of the narrating character, who is a loyal subordinate and friend, to a certain degree, of his subject. On the whole, Cicero's struggles and positions are presented as akin to real life, and a flawed mortal human being just trying to do his best and what is right to whatever capacity his abilities & circumstances allow.

Other famous historical characters get a decent treatment as well. Harris' Caesar is one of the better portrayals in my mind to reconcile his apparent virtues, his known abilities and character, with his actions and their impact, which are shown as Cicero would have viewed them. While many contemporaries seem to admire Caesar in the "loves a winner" sense, and formulate hindsight justifications of his actions on the grounds of necessity, or by excusing his faults by comparison to those of his contemporaries, Harris does a solid job of portraying the dictator as driven purely by ambition, and aided by an extraordinary degree of pragmatism. Caesar's human qualities are present in many of his friendly interactions with Cicero, and Tiro and Cicero even speculate some fairly reasonable explanations for his mindset, but those explanations and qualities are not allowed to obscure his lust for power and what would come of it. You never forget that this is a bad guy, which really ought to be any sane person's view of a man who overthrew a constitutional republic to impose a military dictatorship. The usual excuses about Caesar being pushed to extremes by the hostility of the optimates (or the aristocracy, as the books tend to frame the central conflicts) are subtly undermined by demonstrating in a number of places how the Republic as it stood, limited the ability of the rulers to truly get rid of a powerful man. Caesar was only 'desperate' in the sense that he might be forced out of politics and have to work for a living. Later in his career, his life is largely endangered by circumstances he himself engineered in his quest for power. For example, his crossing the Rubicon. Most accounts of that decision point claim that Caesar faced certain assassination or execution if he gave up his army, therefore he had no choice but to march on Rome... which pretty much ignores absolutely everything Caesar did up to that point, including his association with any number of unsavory events, the war (and accompanying wholesale slaughter) he unilaterally started in Gaul purely for his own self-aggrandizement, and his own propensity for running roughshod over the constitution and established procedure and threatening his own opponents with death and torture whenever he held a position of power himself.

A conversation between Cicero and Caesar near the end of Conspirata, as Cicero's fortunes are falling, and Caesar is about to embark on the campaign that will begin his own ascent, makes explicit the difference between these two ambitious and highly capable outsiders who struggled to rise in Roman politics, and succeeded to differing degrees, largely according to their respective willingness to accept civilized limitations on their actions and authority. They even share a laugh over the irony of the applicability of the accusations made against Cicero (often by Caesar's allies and catspaws) to Caesar himself.

Characters like Pompey, Crassus and Cato are also prominent. Pompey for most of the series enjoys a larger than life stature, but his character falls short of his grandeur, being petty, vain, jealous and rather devoid of loyalty or gratitude, but not really as malevolent as his fellow triumvirs. He's something of a dumb jock who's out of his depth when he ventures outside of his specialty, but whose fame and fortune and the support they bring, are enough to let him coast to success after success. Kind of a forerunner of George W Bush, if you think about it. Crassus is a frequent antagonist, who is portrayed as sharing a mutual antipathy with Cicero, that nonetheless does not seem to track with several instances in which he behaves otherwise. Cato, while arguably the most virtuous and principled portrayals of the major figures of that time, is similarly balanced. His dedication and intractability are often obstructive and frustrating to Cicero, and there are scenes which undermine his supposed purity of principles, such as the suggestion that his inherited wealth and position make his adherence to abstract ideals practical, where men like Cicero lack that luxury. But he is still given credit for sticking to his guns when important, and Tiro discusses him with a kind of awe, while his more practical-minded colleagues, however he might exasperate them, respect him nonetheless.

Being a story of Rome and its politics, the female characters are not as significant, but a number of them do make an impression and are noted for their ability. Cicero's wife Terentia is one, as is Clodia, the sister of his arch-enemy, Clodius Pulcher, and Caesar's mother and mistress, Aurelia & Servilia stand out in their handful of appearances.

I really recommend all three books, together or separately (I read them in order, so I'm not 100% percent sure the sequels can stand alone, but the later books do a decent job of catching you up), whether or not you're a history buff or just have a passing curiosity about daily life or politics in ancient Rome, or maybe just wondering what the deal with that background guy in the toga who has like three lines in your favorite biopic of Caesar or Antony or Augustus.