I am Rome A novel of Julius Caesar

Known for Roman epics on Scipio Africanus and Trajan, Posteguillo returns to Rome for the event that, in this biographical novel, launches Julius Caesar as a political player. The framework is 23-year-old Caesar's prosecution of Roman governor Gnaeus Cornelius Dolabella for heinous crimes against the Macedonians. Dolabella's acts in Rome and all parts in between there and Macedonia are no less odious. Dolabella, Sulla, and their ilk are effortlessly hateable villains who elevate Caesar by contrast. The plotline jumps about in time, using "Memoria" from Caesar's uncle, Marius, his wife, Cornelia, and others to provide a detailed background on Roman politics. Posteguillo is an academic, and the prose, while approachable, has a decidedly didactic tone--footnotes and explanatory asides abound. The result is reminiscent of one of the BBC miniseries of old, with a leisurely pace, an expansive scope, and a detached feel. Certain character relationships, such as that between Caesar and his tirelessly loyal wife, offer a counterpoint to balance the history lesson. Recommended for those who like their historical fiction to wear its research as voluminously as a toga.

Posteguillo, a bestseller of crime and historical fiction in Spain, makes his English-language debut with a bold series opener about the early life of Gaius Julius Caesar. It's 77 BCE, and Gnaeus Cornelius Dolabella, governor of Macedonia, has been charged with corruption. His prosecution in Rome falls to 23-year-old Julius Caesar, who beats out many older and more experienced lawyers for the honor. Complicating matters is the fact that Dolabella will be co-defended by Caesar's maternal uncle, Aurelius Cotta. The plot thickens when several prosecution witnesses turn up dead under mysterious circumstances and a spy in Caesar's camp leaks other witness testimony to the defense team. The narrative is broken up with many flashbacks: Caesar's coming-of-age under the tutelage of his paternal uncle Marius; his first time meeting Cornelia, whom he will be arranged to marry, when he is 12 and she is eight; and the time he outsmarted the hostile Sulla, dictatorial Consul of Rome. There is action, oratory, and spectacle galore as Caesar awakens to his world-changing destiny. Posteguillo tends to stray from historical accuracy, writing with a surfeit of vulgar gusto. The result is less Mary Beard or Robert Graves than French author Christian Jacq in his novels about Egypt's Ramses II, though it amounts to a lively depiction of young Julius Caesar. It's an engrossing narrative of Caesar's rise to power. (Mar.)

Young lawyer Julius Caesar takes on an impossible case that threatens to end his career and his life. "They chose you because you are, by far, the lesser man, the lesser orator. Because you don't know what to say or when to say it." Thus says the great Roman orator Cicero to 23-year-old Julius Caesar, who's competing against him to be selected to prosecute a case. Thanks to hindsight, we know Cicero's assessment couldn't be more wrong, but Posteguillo takes us back to a moment long before Caesar was undisputed master of the world. Though it's easy now to say Caesar was destined for greatness, Posteguillo shows his fate was far from certain. Caesar is chosen over Cicero to prosecute the corrupt former Macedonian governor Gnaeus Cornelius Dolabella, and it's an impossible situation. Though clearly guilty of plunder and rape, Dolabella is a favorite of Roman dictator Sulla and a member of the optimates, an exclusive group in the Roman Senate unwilling to concede power to anyone, especially a young upstart from a lower-level patrician family. The novel traces the history leading up to Dolabella's trial in 77 B.C.E. and depicts the hidden grudges and motives behind the efforts to ensure Caesar's defeat. The author describes invading barbarian armies in Gaul, rebellions in Greece, and the brutal silencing of anyone brave enough to speak the truth. He also shows us the hypocrisy of a society that embraced high ideals but accepted violence as part of the political process. What hampers the story is a plodding narrative style and the author's penchant for cliffhangers that seem better suited for TV. He puts too much potted history in his characters' mouths, too much language that seems unrealistic or verging on the soap operatic. And yet, at other times, his writing has a strikingly contemporary sound, especially when Caesar makes his closing argument in the trial: "We may call our form of government a 'democracy,' but to truly be democratic, our laws, as Pericles points out, must defend the interests not of the very few, but of the majority." Posteguillo's story is a reminder that, though more than 2,000 years separate us from ancient Rome, some conflicts haven't changed. A book that's far more interesting for its insights into Roman history than for its style or storytelling. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Prooemium The Western Mediterranean Centuries II and I B.C. Rome's growth is unstoppable. Since the fall of the Carthaginian Empire, Rome has become the dominant power in the Western Mediterranean region. Already controlling Hispania, Sicily, Sardinia, Italy, and parts of northern Africa, it has begun to set its sights farther, on Cisalpine Gaul, the Celtic lands north of Italy, and Greece and Macedonia to the east. Rome's expansion has filled the republic's coffers to the brim, but the distribution of wealth and conquered lands is far from equal. A small group of aristocratic senators accumulates ever more territory, ever more riches, while the vast majority of those governed by Rome remain deeply impoverished. All confiscated lands, gold, silver, and slaves are controlled by a few landowning senators from patrician families. Such blatant inequality leads to conflict: the Assembly of the Roman People demands a more equal allotment of wealth and power. A few bold men speak out in favor of redistribution. Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus is among them. Son of famed Roman mother Cornelia and grandson of the great statesman Scipio Africanus, he is chosen as plebeian tribune, the people's highest representative, and sponsors a law of land redistribution in the year 133 B.C. But the Senate ambushes him on one of the city's main thoroughfares, beating him to death in broad daylight and tossing his body into the Tiber, without a proper burial. His brother, Gaius Sempronius Gracchus, is later elected plebeian tribune and attempts to further Tiberius's reforms. In response, the Senate passes an unprecedented decree granting the Roman consuls, top leaders of the Senate, the authority to detain and execute Gaius Gracchus or any other plebeian tribune who supports the redistribution of lands. In 121 B.C., finding himself surrounded by the Senate's assassins, Gaius Gracchus asks a slave to kill him so that he does not fall into his enemies' hands. Supporters of the Gracchi brothers and their thwarted attempts at reform join forces to create a group that calls itself the populares, "in defense of the people." The more conservative senators, in turn, form the party of the optimates, meaning "the best," since they consider themselves to be superior and favored by the gods. Rome is officially divided into two opposing political factions when a third group emerges. The socii, inhabitants of Rome's allied cities in broader Italy, demand Roman citizenship and the right to vote so that they might take part in decisions that affect them directly. The Assembly of the Roman People, time and again, elects new plebeian tribunes who, over and over, try to pass reforms like those initiated by the Gracchi years prior. All of them are systematically killed by the optimate senators. Finally, a young Roman appears, patrician by birth but sympathetic to the demands of the populares and the socii. He understands that a fourth group has entered the fray: the inhabitants of the new Roman provinces that have been annexed from Hispania to Greece and Macedonia, from the Alps to Africa. This young man believes that it is time for things to change once and for all, but he is only twenty-three years old, with few supporters. In fact, hardly anyone in Rome has even taken notice of him. That is, until a trial in the year 77 B.C. when this man, despite his youth, agrees to prosecute a powerful senator. The defendant, accused of corruption during his term as governor of Macedonia, is none other than optimate senator Gnaeus Cornelius Dolabella, who amassed unthinkable wealth and power as a close ally to the tyrannical Lucius Cornelius Sulla, former dictator of Rome. Sulla, during his dictatorship, decreed that senators could only be tried by a jury of their peers: other senators. This means that the tribunal set to hear Dolabella's case is composed entirely of optimates and is expected to fully exonerate Dolabella, who has also hired the two best defense attorneys in Rome: Hortensius and Aurelius Cotta. Seeing the case as a lost cause, no Roman lawyer will agree to prosecute Dolabella. Only a madman or a fool would bring charges against such a powerful senator under such disadvantageous circumstances. Until one man finally steps forward. Dolabella laughs when they tell him who has agreed to serve as prosecutor in the trial against him. He continues his endless series of parties and banquets, secure in the notion that his case has already been won. The name of the inexperienced young lawyer who agrees to prosecute him is Gaius Julius Caesar. Excerpted from I Am Rome: A Novel of Julius Caesar by Santiago Posteguillo All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.