Added by: intmain | Karma: 151.41 | Fiction literature | 14 November 2009
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Masters of Rome is a series of historical fiction novels by author Colleen McCullough (b. 1937) set in ancient Rome during the last days of the old Roman Republic; it primarily chronicles the lives and careers of Gaius Marius, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, Pompey the Great, Julius Caesar, and the early career of Caesar Augustus. It spans from January 1, 110 BC through to January 16, 27 BC.
Increasing tension between Julius Caesar and Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great) after the death of Marcus Licinius Crassus soon degenerated into military conflict.
With his hand considerably strengthened by his election as Dictator by the Senate in Rome, Caesar knew that power would only be a reality once he had militarily defeated Pompey.
These 16 collected essays open with a contribution by Fergus Millar in which he defends the continuing significance of the study of Classics and argues for expanding the definition of what constitutes that field.
In this volume he also questions the dominant scholarly interpretation of politics in the Roman Republic, arguing that the Roman people, not the Senate, were the sovereign power in Republican Rome.
