If I could have sex with this book, I would.Nothing I write can really do justice to why I love this book so much. I've just finished it for at least the 4th time (most likely the 5th), and the series will probably serve as my comfort read whenever I'm in a book slump. They're great and awesome and a guaranteed satisfying read. They've spoiled me for pretty much all other HF out there, no matter the time period. Apart from Patrick O'Brian, no other author has seemed to capture an era so brilliantly with mere words.The setup is rather simple: Gaius Marius is a very rich man from the Italian provinces with political ambition and military experience. But he lacks one thing: he's not a patrician, and in the very snobbish political circles of Rome, it's not enough to have the citizenship. You have to have the right blood in your veins. Marius sets out to best them at their own game. He marries well in blood (if not in money), he slowly accrues undeniable success in foreign wars, and he never gives up. By the end, he has been elected consul an unprecedented six times (a 7th term looms in the future) and rocked the established order to its foundations. From this point on, the later autocracy of the Roman Empire is inevitable. The immense size of their territory makes the contained ideals of earlier centuries impractical and unpracticable. Marius' willful prominence in a society that prides itself that no one in the Senate stand above his peers opens the door to other men with singular gifts. Cue Julius Caesar....It might sound heavy and complicated, but it's really not. Learning about the evolution of Rome from republic to empire has never been so much fun. There is red meat drama with backbiting, dysfunction, cutthroat ambition, and soap opera passions. People harangue each other, commit suicide, are brave or cowardly, lead armies into certain slaughter or save them through cunning, and exhibit the ideals of Roman behavior or plumb the depths of immorality. I want to hug them, slap them, strangle them, lick them, and keep them in a special box with a fancy little bow to pull out and play with whenever I want a grand old time.Why I Re-Read This Book Over And Over:1) The Style. It's really hard to describe it, but I would liken it to Roman farce. They were a rude and bawdy folk, those Romans, yet also insufferably smug and pious about their lineages and onerous duty to be a shining beacon of light for the rest of the world. McCullough obviously holds these people in great affection for their strengths as well as their weaknesses. It all comes through in a style that is accessible while at the same time being illuminating. The characters seem impossibly unreal and all too human at the same time.2) Publius Rutilius Rufus' Letters. This is partly related to the Style issue, but these really are a highlight of the book. A patrician with a grudging respect and love for Gaius Marius, he takes it upon himself to keep the perpetually-abroad-on-campaign Marius informed of events in Rome in witty, long letters written from the peanut gallery. He has opinions about everything and everybody, goes off on tangents, and keeps warning Marius that Rome's established order can only be pushed so far so fast. It's through his letters that lots of the "infodumpy" material gets conveyed in a way that's both entertaining and easy to consume. (Wish more authors would learn how to do the infodump so well.)3) The Scope. The story covers Roman life from the heights of power in the Senate to the stews of the Subura, where Julius Caesar's mother is resident landlady of a tenement building (her dowry). Sometimes it seems there are more layers to the Roman social and political strata than stars, but McCullough follows characters from different backgrounds (from ossified aristocrats to back alley assassins) to paint a canvas of Rome in all its infinite variety.4) The Arc & Theme. Marius begins as a man trying to distinguish himself by working within the existing system. When that proves nearly impossible because of solid opposition to him from the Old Guard, he upends the system to favor himself and what he believes is the best interest of Rome. At the end of the book, when the tribune of the plebs Saturninus demagogues a popular revolt, Marius sides with his old enemies because mob rule is not in Rome's interest. While he has fought endlessly for years to earn fame and recognition for his own feats, in the end Rome is supreme and must be preserved at all costs. No one man is worth more than Rome, because Rome isn't about people and buildings, material things. It is about ideals and a state of being. Try reconciling that with the need to feed the grumbling belly that is Rome while staving off restless, wandering barbarian tribes 800,000 strong. The theme of the book is ideals vs. pragmatism, and the men who adhered to one school of thought or the other, and the successes or disasters that resulted from those decisions.5) Lucius ("Call Me Luscious") Cornelius Sulla. Saving the fangirlish for last. There's no other way to say it: Sulla's a sexy bastard. *liiiiiiiiiiiiiick*While not quite fitting the alpha hero mold in the bodice rippers I read (you know, committing murder and all), he is a take-charge guy with that attractive evil/darkness about him. His very red-gold/pale complexion is a stark contrast to the demons that gnaw on him. He has no scruples about anything if he thinks it'll get him closer to his perceived destiny. His ability to do some pretty awful things without getting caught only convinces him that Fortune has got his back. He's acutely aware of his flaws when working close with Marius, but he also sees the Great Man's weaknesses and is determined to succeed where Marius fails since he has the blood and family ties that Marius lacks. The two men work together for the good of Rome, but a submerged rivalry is born that plays itself out bitterly in the next book. As this book ends, Marius's sun is setting while Sulla's is on the rise and eventual success is in the hopeful offing. After all, he learned from a master.And if the stick-up-the-ass blue bloods in Rome think they had trouble with Marius, just wait until Sulla's in charge. But that's for the next two books. I really shouldn't look forward to another book slump because they really suck and are a downer, but I can't help but hope the next several books piss me off so I can eagerly grab The Grass Crown. Oh, when Sulla wins that crown on the battlefield, bloody and weary and riding a high of triumph and finally realizing his destiny... *fans self*Ahem. I've gone on and on, but I really haven't scratched the surface of why this book is one of the best novels ever written about the era. Make that ever written. Period. If you have even a remote interest in the time period, you should pick this up and lose yourself in an unbelievable drama over 2100 years old. McCullough does the reader the huge favor of putting a wiki and pronunciation guide in the back of the book, which includes everything from geography to Latin slang, so no need to interrupt your reading to run to the internet. It's all there.And believe it or not, you'll see that superpower governing hijinks haven't changed much over the millennia. They no longer wear those snazzy togas and orate so marvelously, but the players are still a bunch of preening, self-important, bickering pricks who need to be slapped with the Big Picture every so often. It's truly timeless.
The first thing that really struck me about this book was the amount of hard work, research, and love the author put into it. It's stuffed with every possible tool she could have used to bring ancient Rome to life: illustrations of the characters taken from their actual Republic Roman busts (when available; when not, she used plausible choices from the faces), tons of maps ranging from a layout of one character's insula (a Roman apartment building) to a diagram of the Germans' migrations and routes of Italic invasion, a glossary, and even pronunciation guides. The coolest thing about all of this stuff is that it's all created solely by the author, even the illustrations. Colleen McCullough is an obviously gifted person and this isn't solely limited to all of that info-y stuff.The author uses all of this detail to really bring Rome to creepy life in this book. The story flings the reader all around the awe-inspiring city from the noble Palatine to the seedy Subura. It's kind of a corny cliche but the city is really a character in itself. This Rome that McCullough recreates so convincingly is filled with a ton of characters that are just as nuanced and convincing as the city itself, most all of them real people. Ultimately though, the story is about two guys; Gaius Marius and Lucius Cornelius Sulla. They're both smart, capable and supremely ambitious guys but they have wildly divergent personalities. Getting to know these characters was a pleasure so I'll leave the details out, but suffice to say both men will probably polarize the reader in one way or another, which is always fun.The plot also offers a ton of similarly varied and detailed events; the book covers the years 110-100 BC and people familiar with this period in Roman history will know there was a ton of turmoil and huge events. I can't count the number of times I thought to myself, "That's crazy. It couldn't have happened like that!" and I'd look it up and it was true. Again, for anyone unfamiliar with the history any specifics will be spoilers and ruin a lot of the surprise and tension so I'll just say that there's lots of cool stuff going on that you get to experience first-hand through the characters. As much as I love HBO's Rome, if you want to really create an epic narrative about the often-violent transition from Republic to Empire it should start here. The seeds of a lot of stuff that later happened with Caesar and Antony and Octavian and all of those people were really sown in this specific period of time. If this book is any indication, McCullough may have created the definitive fictional recreation of this period of time.Review edited 5/6/2013 for incoherence.
What do You think about The First Man In Rome (1991)?
This novel was highly recommended to me by a co-worker who knew I'd liked I, Claudius and Imperium: A Novel of Ancient Rome. He said that although Colleen McCullough is best known for The Thorn Birds, she is actually a well-respected authority on ancient Rome.I have to admit that I approached The First Man in Rome with a lot of skepticism. It sat on my shelf for two years before circumstances compelled me to start it... and within 10 pages I was hooked. I found it to be a compelling read, so much so that it's the first book I've read in a long time that has interrupted my normal routine (skipped exercise to read, stayed up late, ignored the TV...). I can't wait to read the next book in the series.Now, this book won't be for everyone. In fact, I'd be hard-pressed to recommend it to most of the readers I know. While there's certainly a lot of action and intrigue, much of it concerns political wrangling and debate. I enjoyed these sections immensely, but I believe many people would find them dull. Still, I loved this novel and have high hopes for the others in the series, and sincerely hope other Goodreads members will give it a shot.
—Miss GP
I want to register my displeasure with this series of books, and this place is as good a forum as any. The series begins with the lives of Sulla (Dictator of Rome) and Gaius Marius, and culminates some time after the death of Caesar (hope that isnt a spoiler). While Ms. McCullogh has done an admirable amount of research and the books are exceedingly accurate historically, the books quickly become bogged down in minutae of Roman life in general and the Senate in particular. The series devolves into serious hero-worship once Caesar takes center stage. The dialogue is mediocre as well and there are absolutely no sympathetic women characters. And yes, I own all 6 books in the series, why do you ask? Apparently I have a masochistic streak I wasn't aware of myself.
—Vikram
This book is just...a collosal achievement. The Thornbirds is just "eh" for me, her take on P&P made me really appreciate her as a skilled author and storyteller...but THIS book makes me revere and idolize her as one of the best authors in existance.This is an almost 1000 page book about the ancient Roman senate, and I was addicted to every single word. How awesome is that? I was terrified to start it, when I glanced over the almost 300 page glossary, all I could think was "man, what if I'm not smart enough to read this?" I shouldn't have worried! All you have to do is trustingly place yourself in McCullough's hands, and her book will entertain as well as inform. She made this story so captivating that I was on the edge of my seat more than once-over such things as a massive grain shortage and the passing of a bill to grant basic Roman citizens (the 'Head Count') land.These people with their 3 and 4 word ridiculous names will quickly become real people, and by the end you'll feel like you've been reading about them for years.Totally awesome.
—Allison (The Allure of Books)
