I AM ROME

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.