At the age of forty-eight, Cicero—the greatest orator of his time—is in exile, his power sacrificed on the altar of his principles. The only way to return to Rome is to pledge his support to a charismatic and dangerous enemy: Julius Caesar. Harnessing his political cunning, unrivalled intellect, and the sheer brilliance of his words, Cicero fights his way back to prominence. Yet no public figure is completely safeguarded against the unscrupulous ambition of others.
Riveting and tumultuous, Dictator encompasses the most epic events in ancient history, including the collapse of the Roman Republic, the murder of Pompey, and the assassination of Caesar. But its central question is a timeless one: how to keep political freedom unsullied by personal gain, vested interests, and the corrosive effects of ceaseless foreign wars. In Robert Harris’s indelible portrait, Cicero is a deeply fascinating hero for his own time and for ours.
At the age of forty-eight, Cicero—the greatest orator of his time—is in exile, his power sacrificed on the altar of his principles. The only way to return to Rome is to pledge his support to a charismatic and dangerous enemy: Julius Caesar. Harnessing his political cunning, unrivalled intellect, and the sheer brilliance of his words, Cicero fights his way back to prominence. Yet no public figure is completely safeguarded against the unscrupulous ambition of others.
Riveting and tumultuous, Dictator encompasses the most epic events in ancient history, including the collapse of the Roman Republic, the murder of Pompey, and the assassination of Caesar. But its central question is a timeless one: how to keep political freedom unsullied by personal gain, vested interests, and the corrosive effects of ceaseless foreign wars. In Robert Harris’s indelible portrait, Cicero is a deeply fascinating hero for his own time and for ours.
Critiques-
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November 30, 2015
The closing volume of British bestseller Harris’s Ancient Rome trilogy, following Imperium and Conspirata, is as skillful as it is sobering. In 58 B.C.E., Cicero, the brilliant 49-year-old author and orator who was Rome’s undisputed leader only five years before, is punished with exile for his principled resistance to the triumvirate that now controls Rome. Making a reluctant peace with the trio—most notably Julius Caesar—allows him to return to Rome and his family, but even his political genius cannot return the republic to stability. The triumvirate collapses, civil war ensues, and Caesar seizes power, declaring himself dictator and god. Cicero lauds Caesar’s assassination as an act of liberation; though he is swept back into power afterward, he can neither restore the Roman government he views as “mankind’s noblest creation” nor save himself from betrayal. The perfect foil to the passionate and sometimes paradoxical protagonist, Cicero’s quietly capable secretary Tiro (a slave Cicero frees in one of the book’s most poignant scenes) remains an appealing narrator, offering readers a shrewd and stable perspective on the tumult Cicero embraces. With its complex historical context and searing scenes of violence, Dictator is not easy reading. Yet its gripping dramas and powerful themes—the fragility of democracy and the fallibility of human beings among them—richly illuminate the conflicts of its era and our own. 100,000-copy first printing. -
Starred review from December 1, 2015
Set during the last gasp of the Roman Republic, the final volume of Harris' Cicero trilogy chronicles the great Roman statesman's fateful encounters with both Julius and Augustus Caesar. Harris has written smart, gripping thrillers with settings as varied as England during World War II (Enigma, 1995) and the contemporary world of international finance (The Fear Index, 2012), but his Cicero novels are more akin to Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall in their subjects--men of towering intellect and humanity--and in their visceral evocation of history. The first two books, Imperium and Conspirata, recounted events familiar only to classical history buffs--Cicero's rise from relative obscurity to become one of Rome's leading lawyers, orators, and writers and, in 63 B.C.E., getting the top job, consul. This third book starts with his exile after running afoul of Julius Caesar, the brilliant general whose dangerous ambition Cicero alone seems to grasp. The plot hurtles toward the most famous incident in all of Roman history--the assassination of Caesar. Cicero is not involved in the plot, but he assumes a major role in its aftermath as Mark Antony, an enemy, and Octavian (later Augustus), a young friend who is also Caesar's adopted son, vie for leadership of the empire. The book is charming as well as engrossing, largely due to the immensely likable person of Cicero, who is wise but not pedantic, moral but not sanctimonious, courageous but wary of the grandstanding of the martyr. In Harris' hands, the other principle actors emerge fully rounded: Cato, the uncompromising stoic; Pompey, brave but vainglorious; Crassus, greedy and self-serving; Brutus, whom Cicero feared "may have been educated out of his wits"; Julius Caesar, whose "success had made him vain, and his vanity had devoured his reason"; and Mark Antony, who "has all of Caesar's worst qualities and none of his best." Unfortunately for Cicero, his assessment of Octavian--"he's a nice boy, and I hope he survives, but he's no Caesar"--proves fatally wrong.COPYRIGHT(2015) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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December 15, 2015
Following Imperium (2006) and Conspirata (2010), Harris offers this thrilling final volume of his trilogy about Cicero, ancient Rome's most skilled orator. The novel opens as Cicero is forced into exile in 58 BCE, following Catiline's conspiracy. His story will powerfully stir the heart and mind, for it presents the coda to a life lived with intelligence and courage. A fierce defender of the Roman republic and the rule of law, Cicero struggles to promote his principles amid marital discord and increasingly volatile political circumstances. He's flawed but entirely human as he makes several disastrous mistakes and is obliged to make compromises to serve a greater goal. As before, his thoughts and exploits are rendered via the lucid narration of Tiro, his loyal secretary. Spanning 15 years, Tiro's account covers significant ground, from the breakdown of the First Triumvirate through the civil war between Caesar and Pompey, Caesar's dictatorship, and the blood-soaked chaos after his assassination. The cast is extensive, but the plotting is brisk, and Harris never loses sight of his themes, or his protagonist's relevance for today.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.) - Maxwell Carter, The Wall Street Journal One of the Best Books of the Year: The Guardian, The Herald (Scotland), The Sunday Times (London), and The Spectator "Harris is incapable of writing an unenjoyable book. . . . He captures the senselessness of triumviral intrigue magnificently, not relenting as the players meet their gruesome ends."
- Tom Holland, The New York Times Book Review "To render convincingly a period as remote as that of Cicero's is a stiff challenge for a novelist to meet, but it is the measure of Harris's achievement that we experience a 2,000-year-old crisis as though we were reading about it in a contemporary memoir. . . . Yet the real triumph of Dictator is how successfully it channels what is perhaps the supreme fascination of ancient Rome: the degree to which it is at once eerily like our own world and yet profoundly alien. The challenges faced by Cicero will be recognizable to many a contemporary senator: welfare dependency; the legacy of illegal wars; anxiety that a venerable constitution is no longer fit for its purpose. . . . If it is indeed a mirror that Dictator holds up to the present, then the reflections it offers are unsettling and admonitory. This is historical fiction that is the very opposite of escapist."
- Dennis Drabelle, The Washington Post "Harris gives ancient history the feel of an ongoing thriller, a true-life Game of Thrones. But for all the pyrotechnics, his depth and fidelity put him in league with Marguerite Yourcenar." --Boris Kachka, Vulture "Cicero's was a life rich in gravitas and drama, and Harris depicts it with erudition and élan. . . . Harris seems to have mastered every telling aspect of the world and the conflicts he dramatizes. . . . The new novel's predecessors--Imperium and Conspirata--made ancient history exciting. Dictator goes even further, imparting wisdom and consolation."
- Publishers Weekly "Masterly . . . Harris's version of the events preceding Caesar's assassination is persuasively realized, and he renders the terrifying uncertainty of its aftermath with such skill that the ensuing betrayal and destruction of the Roman Republic can almost draw a tear. . . . the emotional heft is deeply satisfying." --Toby Clements, The Telegraph (London) "[Harris] has a pitch-perfect ear for class snobbery, hypocrisy, parliamentary posturing and bluster. His best episodes bring crucial behind-the-scenes moments in Roman political skullduggery to colourful life. He writes with swaggering confidence. . . . Harris does not disappoint. His Caesar is a menacing, genocidal psychopath, but so charismatic that everyone in Rome, including Brutus and the other assassins, is left strangely bereft in the days of eerie crisis following the Ides of March. . . . I enjoyed Dictator enormously. Harris loves Cicero and communicates his own fascination with the epic showdown that constituted the fall of the Roman Republic. . . . A sensational political thriller . . . It is often funny and touching. I could not put it down." --Edith Hall, The Guardian "[This is] one of the best political-military events in history and Harris takes full advantage of the time, the place and the events. . . . this superbly structured and fast-paced novel brings the epoch alive, ties it in to current events and brings the cast of living characters--Caesar, Cleopatra, Mark Antony, et al. --to vivid brawling life. . . . Compared with this series of perfectly true events, Watergate really was a fifth-rate burglary and Richard Nixon's henchmen simply a gang of plumbers. You will read every one of its pages with relish." --Margaret Cannon, The Globe and Mail (Canada) "A remarkable literary achievement . . . A trilogy that is likely to stand alongside the works of Robert Graves and Mary Renault as an enduring imaginative vision of the ancient world." --Stephanie Merritt, The Guardian "There's a huge amount to enjoy in this Roman romp." --Sam Leith, Financial Times "A tremendous creation . . . Harris always tells a great story." --Na
