Imperium: From the Sunday Times bestselling author (Cicero Trilogy, 4)

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Harris has a slave, Tiro as his narrator, who we can accept has more limited knowledge than Cicero, allowing Harris to get away with some info-dumping.

Harris was of the opinion that we need "more politicians like Cicero rather than Caesar" - a view you will certainly agree with if you are Gaulish, and that he thought that "Winston Churchill was as close as we've got in a long time" to having a Cicero type in British politics - having read the first part of the trilogy I find that an unusually bleak evaluation of Churchill for somebody in British public life to make, and when asked if Britain is in want of another Cicero type politician Harris' answer was "definitely". On the last day, a Sicilian named Numitorius tells the story of Publius Gavius, flogged to death in public despite saying 'I am a Roman citizen' at every stroke of the lash. Y no quiero revelar tampoco mucho más pues, aunque tampoco nada de lo que diga puede considerarse un destripe, no voy hacer una mejor semblanza del personaje protagonista en esta reseña que la novela.Al igual que aplaudí el cuidadísimo uso del lenguaje de Susanna Clarke en Jonathan Strange y el señor Norrell, la forma en que hablan los personajes de Harris no me llevan a su Roma republicana, por lo demás, perfectamente descrita y convincente. He took on a risky case against Verres, the corrupt former governor of Sicily on behalf of the island's citizens.

Cicero is shrewd and not entirely clean himself, in the sense that, as a politician, he often has to do business with people he finds detestable. Tiro, we are told, invented the concept of shorthand which provides a credible basis for him to be able to transcribe everything that he sees and hears as he follows Cicero around. I believe it's safe to say that Hollywood has been successful in reducing this time period to sandals-and-swords-gladiator narratives.

Imperium is an epic account of the timeless struggle for power and the sudden disintegration of a society. Rome is in a panic with the burning of Ostia by the pirates and when the Latin Festival finishes, Gabinius mounts the rostra to demand a supreme commander. In effect, the author has mixed known historical events with fragments of real speeches and extracts from letters to weave a compelling account of this time.