RESPUBLICA

Braccia tenders Cicero’s testament to his son about his thwarted ambitions in the Roman Senate.

The author has clearly done his homework into the life and times of Cicero, and even readers with reservations about the great orator’s beliefs and tactics will appreciate the honest hand he brings to the proceedings. Cicero was largely a decent man, given to private philanthropy rather than state handouts and love for the relative freedom of the senate. Readers may equally appreciate Braccia’s comfortably unhurried yet lively pace as he moves the story through reams of detail and enough three-barreled Roman names to choke a horse. The author lays bare the complexities of the Roman political process–with its power plays, privilege, influence pedaling, sedition, enmity and unscrupulous scheming–and it is easy to slip into the story and take sides. Cicero’s maturity in the Roman Senate came during the rise of Julius Caesar, a wonderfully intriguing time, and Cicero is not above indecision and vacillation, which gives him a gathering humanity. The author draws Caesar with the same clarity and passion–a brilliant soldier and demagogue, busy muzzling the Senate and Forum and just as busy in bed with almost every senator’s wife. (A tip of the hat goes to Braccia for handling the sex scenes with both color and restraint.) Cicero’s gradual estrangement from the optimates is sensibly unfurled, and his distaste for the ambitious, avaricious Caesar is ample: “I could not countenance his power because it was acquired through war on his fellow citizens; and the exercise of that power was not with the Senate and the People, but over them” An abundance of forcefully effective nuggets, such as the Parthians pouring molten gold down Crassus’ throat, gives the tale the drama it deserves.

For all its heft, a nimble piece of entertainment and an insightful historical recreation.