Brenda's Bookshelf

While traveling in Italy I read about its history by reading novels by Robert Harris and Lindsey Davis. I learned a lot from each of these authors and am grateful to have had access to their insight and the massive amounts of research they did to produce these books. I was struck however by the differences in the way they approached their subject matter and thought it might be interesting to talk about that here.

Robert Harris’s three novels are about the the arc of Cicero career. Cicero was one of the greatest statesmen of his time, a great orator and a fierce defender of the Republic who was executed for treason because he refused to support Octavius’ bid to become Emperor of Rome. Octavius ultimately did become Emperor after defeating Marcus Anthony (and Cleopatra) and became Emperor Augustus. The series is a a political history, tracing Cicero’s beginnings as a lawyer and eventually a Senator of Rome. it is also about the Julius Caesar and the various ways Rome’s Republic ceased to function in the face of greed, corruption and populism. Although it is fascinating from a historic and political standpoint there is vary little in these books about how people lived, what they ate, what they wore, and their day to day lives. Harris gives us this wide arc over the course of three books about what Cicero thought, and said and did on the public stage but very little about his daily life or the things he did when he was not plotting, or caught up in some political fight.

On the other hand Lindsey Davis gives us a very insightful account of what it was like to be an ordinary person in Rome during a similar time period. Her series on Marcus Didius Falco, a  low level bureaucrat whose task it is to investigate tax evaders is filled with ordinary daily life. She describes in some detail the living conditions, the neighborhoods, the baths, the markets and the day to day interactions people would have had with each other. The book I read was 10th in the series and by this time Falco is married, has a child and gets caught up in investigating a gladiator school in which a lion, used in fights in the Coliseum, has been killed. The details were really interesting especially when I was able to stand in the arena of the Coliseum and walk through the gladiator gate and see how animals like that lion were raised from their cages below into the arena.

What I realized in reading these two authors is that they offered a very different way to understand Roman history. Harris concentrated on the man, Cicero, trying to tease apart what we know of him and to understand how a stalwart Senator of Rome died so ignobly. In that sense the details of life did not matter so much, it was rather the speeches he gave, the writings he left showing what he was thinking and the recorded history of that time that mattered if we were to understand this complex man, the way Republic failed and the Empire of Rome began. It was fascinating to over look the Forum where he gave many speeches and wonder what it must have been like to hear his words.

For Lindsey Davis and her fictional character it was important to ground him in a detailed reality to give him life. We needed that grounding to understand his motives and the decisions he made. In this Davis has excelled giving us a real sense of what life in Rome was really like.

Both of these authors helped me understand the places I was visiting, and gave me a sense of appreciation for the long and rich history of Italy. I highly recommend both authors and these books to you!

Brenda’s Rating: ***** ( 5 Out of 5 Stars)

Recommend these books to: Sharon, Martin, Ken and Keith

Book Study Worthy? Yes!

Read in ebook format.