Masters of Rome

Those who know me well have been privy to my frequent obsessions. When assailled with one, there is nothing much I can do except sail along until the obsession wears thin.

I have been obsessed with people (living and dead), theories, fields of study, schools of thought and activities. Nowadays with Wikipedia, the Internet and the easy accessibility that Singapore affords to to gorge myself, I get over my obsessions fairly quickly. In less enlightened times, these obsessions could last for years while I scoured libraries and books and classes.

Now and again I get enamoured with a historical period. Over the years, I have been obsessed with the Tudor period in England, the French Revolution, the Khmer Rouge period in Cambodia (go figure), England under Richard Lionheart (and his father before him and brother after him), the Crusades (in all its permutations including the Children's Crusade), France under Louis the XIII and Louis the XIV (fine fine, the Three Musketeers period if you must know) and India under the Mughals. I remember freaking out the 17-year old nephew of my Aunt when I was 12 by happily naming the Mughal kings in chronological order. Yeah, the obsessive trait started pretty early :-p

But one era of history I have never quite gotten over is Rome circa Caesar (and no I have not read the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, nor do I care to - I didn't care about the EMPIRE as such).

I can't quite figure out the attraction. Was it Caesar himself? I don't really think so as I was never completely taken with the whole Rome-had-become-too-big and-needed-an-Emperor-to-rein-it-in thesis. Was it the culture? (What culture really? An amalgamation of Rome in the time of the Kings and Greek culture at best) Was it the preponderance of long names? (Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus was my favourite. I remember fondly a boyfriend who would recite like a litany the FULL names of all the famous Romans).

I don't rightly know. Self-awareness has never been my strong suit :-p I do know, though, that there has never been a more exciting canvas on which so many incredible and larger-than-life men and women have been painted. After all, Caesar must have had something in him such that he is still deified in movies and books more than 2,000 years after his bloody demise.

So, when I came upon Colleen Mcculough's Masters of Rome series, I was completely enthralled. Finally an account of those wonderful personages! In palatable novel-form no less.

Mccullough's research was painstaking and she painted her numerous characters with a deft hand. In the appendix of each of her books, she even gives reasons for her decisions to depart from historical norms (it could be argued that creative licence was taken, but I agree with Mccullough in that history was not complete and occasionally we had to fill some gaps based on the information we were given) e.g.:

1) What exactly did Caesar say when he crossed the Rubicon?

2) How exactly did Caesarion die? (in McCullough's books he dies by the hand of the reluctant-to-kill-him-but-realises-he-must-if-he-is-ever-to-rule-Rome Octavian)

3) Was Cleopatra's and Anthony's famous sea-battle accurately rendered? After all the victors do re-write history and what we know could have been manufactured by the politically-savvy Octavian.

4) Why did Gaius Marius and Sulla have such a good relationship (initially at least)? How could such different characters (the soldier-politician and the bisexual-metrosexual-politician) meet and become such good friends? McCullough invents (quite plausibly) a younger sister (another Julia) to Marius' famous wife Julia (Caesar's great-aunt) who marries Sulla. So for a time there were brothers-in-law and HAD to co-operate

5) Why was Servillia such a bitch? Perhaps an abusive childhood had the same effect in antiquity as it does today.

In total there are 7 books in the series:

The First man In Rome (1990); spanning the years 110-100 BC

The Grass Crown (1991); spanning the years 97-86 BC

Fortune's Favourites (1993); spanning the years 83-69 BC

Caesar's Women (1997); spanning the years 67-59 BC

Caesar (1998); spanning the years 54-48 BC

The October Horse (2002); spanning the years 48-41 BC and

Anthony & Cleopatra (2007); spanning the years 41-27 BC

Mcculough had originally intended The October Horse to be her last novel as she opined that the Roman Republic ended with the Battle of Philippi and Brutus' death but fans (including the Prime Minister of Australia, apparently) lobbied for another novel.

In any case most historians are of the opinion that the Battle of Actium and the death of Mark Anthony truly sounded the death-knell for the Republic.

Frankly, I hope Mcculough goes on with the series and writes about Rome's first 5 emperors. Octavian (known as the Emperor Augustus) has always interested me more than Caesar anyway. A puny non-soldier-like asthmatic who purportedly hid during the Battle of Philippi; he went on to launch the Roman Empire.

Also, the scheming and intrigue during the time of the Emperors Augustus, Tiberius, Claudius, Caligula and Nero could rival any modern day soap-opera.

A case in point was Tiberius - strangely enough Tiberius was not even Octavian's (hereinafter Augustus) son. He was a step-son, the son of Augustus' wife, Livia Drusa with another man. Augustus fell in love with her when she was pregnant and despite the fact that both her father and husband were against him. The marriage lasted 51 years and Augustus cherished Livia Drusa and deified her as "Augusta", elevating her two sons from her previous marriage to his heirs (Augustus and Livia Drusa never had any children).

Anyways, back to Tiberius - he was groomed very early on by Augustus and proved worthy both in the arena of war and that of politics. He was married to Augustus' favourite general and best friend - Agrippa's daughter Vipsania Agrippina. The marriage was successful and the couple loved each other dearly.

Unfortunately, Agrippa died in war leaving his wife, Julia free. Now this Julia was a prize catch as she was Augustus' daughter (not by Livia Drusa, of course) and her husband would be the next Emperor of Rome. Augustus, out of love or the tyranny that he was soon to be known for, ordered Tiberius to divorce his beloved Vipsania, marry Julia and become his (Augustus') heir.

Apart from being the Emperor of Rome, Augustus was also the "paterfamilias" and his word was law. Tiberius did his bidding but he was never again happy ( he once even famously "ran away") and his governance of Rome after Augustus' death reflected his conflicting emotions.

The story is that Tiberius once ran into Vipsania again, and proceeded to follow her home crying and begging forgiveness; soon afterwards, Tiberius met with Augustus, and steps were taken to ensure that Tiberius and Vipsania would never meet again.

Julia turned out to be the original "whore of Babylon" flaunting her lovers in front of her father and her husband and thus began the decline of the Roman Empire - almost as soon as it was born.

One can only hope that Mccullough will one day decide to write about "Caesar's Descendants".

Addendum: Mccullough also does drawings and sketches of the characters based on descriptions or busts of the period which I should upload here but I am too lazy to :-p

Addendum2: When I first heard about Rome, the TV series, my excitement knew no bounds. But within a couple of viewings I was disillusioned. The liberties taken with history was just too much and worse still merely for the purpose of enticing viewers; it was not a case of piecing together discordant information to make a coherent whole. Really; Atia was the "whore of Babylon and had a relationship with her future son-in-law, Mark Anthony who she continued to sleep with after he married her daughter, Octavia? Atia who was known historically as the exemplarary mother. Well there is more but this is not a post about "Rome" so I shall quit snivelling and hope I have gotten Rome and the cunning, wily, beautiful Octavian out of my system once and for all.

Somehow I doubt that.