I just finished a story about Cicero, Conspirata, by Robert Harris, © 2010, 334 pages, Simon & Schuster, NY. It calls itself a novel, but I can’t quite see that. Rather than the colorful, dramatic style of a novel which explores the personalities of the characters, it is told in the stilted passive voice of Tiro, Cicero’s slave and secretary, who recorded much of the history and invented shorthand, including the symbol: &. Perhaps it is an effort to capture the way a man who was brought up Greek and worked in Latin would sound in English. But it contains a lot of accurate history and its rhythm is hypnotic and soothing. The many dramatic events somewhat make up for the style. It follows, Imperium, © 2006, 403 pages, Hutchinson, London, that covers Cicero’s early career which includes much hard work and less drama. Imperium is not a made up word, but a Latin term for the life and death authority of a general or ruler.
My background in ancient history is a little sketchy, because I had always thought of Cicero as a philosopher first and politician second, but I had it backwards. This second of three planned volumes, leaves Cicero on the road south out of Rome into exile in the company of only a few slaves, as Caesar starts north with his army to Gaul. I am anxious to discover whether the third volume will follow his career all the way, until his severed head and hands are nailed on a platform outside the Senate, after Mark Anthony has him declared an enemy of the state. The hands were included because they wrote words spoken against Mark Anthony. His wife poked hatpins through the tongue of the severed head in revenge for the speaking of them.
But, think about politicians who know of from recent history; Nixon, LBJ, even Churchill. Would you want to live the life of one of them—or your own?
