Imperium

 

Imperium – Robert Harris

The sign of a great historical fiction novel is one that makes you want to visit the place where the story takes place and, more importantly, the time.  Robert Harris’ novels aren’t necessary historical in the same sense of a James Michener, and Edward Rutherford, or a John Jakes, yet he focuses on key events in world history, and crafts very well done “what if” yarns.

This is his second novel that takes place in, of all places, ancient Rome; specifically the century before Christ.  Unlike his first novel of the Roman Empire, this book is part one of a trilogy.  It focuses on the real-life solicitor and statesman Marcus Cicero. It’s an incredibly well-told tale and teaches the reader an awful lot about the place and times.  To my knowledge, each of the three books focus on Cicero, and my knowledge of the man is quite limited, so I can only comment on the man based on how he is presented here.  The story is told by his servant/slave Tiro.  Tiro has an incredible secretarial gift of scribing in a sort of shorthand, which means that most everything that Cicero does and says can be recorded.  Quite the accomplishment when one thinks of the limitations of writing that existed two millennia ago.

Cicero’s ambitions are political.  We see that the politics of ancient Rome aren’t that much different than they are in many cultures today, and if one wants to succeed, they can’t simply ‘do good’.  There are a lot of palms to grease, a lot of promises to be made, and a lot of relationships that need to be culled; regardless of the likability of such individuals.  It can be a slippery slope.  We all know how politicians can be cruel and ruthless in trying to achieve their career ambitions. Fortunately, we don’t see that with Cicero.  We see mostly good things that he accomplishes yet we know not to kid ourselves.  His motivations are far from altruistic.

This book doesn’t have singular focus or story.  There are several different stories within the pages. If one were to make a visual representation of this story, it seems as though it would be adapted better if it was a tv series as opposed to a linear film.  The focus here isn’t to tell a story, but to immerse us in the world of the Roman Empire as seen through the eyes of Marcus Cicero.

In addition to paying great detail to the character, it’s also worth noting that the author succeeds in transcending his audience into the streets (roads?) of the actual empire.  One gets the impression that the society was much more advanced than we imagine a civilization 2,000 years ago to look.  It actually looks like a rather neat place to be.  Truth be told, though, there was only a small minority that lived in such luxury and comfort.  Rome did a lot of conquering, and the subjugated enemies are mostly now consigned to slavery (as our narrator Tiro), so the small number of fortunate citizens had an awful lot of other people doing the hard work for them.

The biggest fault of the book is that Robert Harris hurls constant Roman names of people at an uncomfortably breakneck speed.  I lost count of how many people were named something like Quintus, or maybe Quintius, or Quinterelous etc. and it’s awfully hard to keep all of these names straight in one’s head when reading.  To be fair, this has always been a weakness of mine, and perhaps other readers can adapt and assimilate better than I can, but I did find that if I made an effort to really try to remember who was who throughout the book, the story was much more rewarding.  Not really an easy feat, but worth the effort.

I’m eagerly waiting to continue the story.  A fascinating picture of one of the most famous periods of history that most of us know far too little.