Customer Reviews

Empire: The Novel of Imperial Rome

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

"Empire" is Steven Saylor's highly anticipated follow up to his centuries-spanning historical fiction saga, "Roma". Both books trace the ancestral evolution of the Pinarii family as they bear witness to the foundation and growth of Rome and its Empire. "Roma" covered the earliest foundations of Rome through the civil wars, while "Empire" picks up at the end of the reign of Augustus in 14 A.D. through the reign of Hadrian in 141.

Roman history is made up of fact, rumor, and myth, and Saylor hits on all of those elements in "Empire". Each of four chapters tells a discrete and self-contained story set during key moments in the real or mythological history of Rome involving both fictional and non-fictional characters and events.

Saylor uses the Pinarii like stepping stones across a stream of time; each stone provides just enough footing to propel the reader onto the next rock of time. The chapters place a different Pinarii generation under the spotlight and provide enough drama to fill an entire book in itself.

The chapters are highlight reels of their respective periods. In the early years, Saylor gives glimpses of Livia's evil which is very reminiscent of the Livia from "I, Claudius". He opens a window on Tiberius's sadistic hideaway on an island off the coast of Italy where he purportedly kept young boys for his own pleasure. The second chapter runs the gamut of Caligula's psychoses and Claudius' dramatically failed marriages. Readers also get a surprisingly poignant portrayal of Nero "fiddling" while Rome burns. In the third chapter, Saylor provides a historical discourse that includes the explosion of Mt. Vesuvius, the history of the development of the Flavian Amphitheater (known now as The Colosseum), and the rise and fall of the Flavian Emperors. In the final chapter, Saylor takes readers to the building of Trajan's column and the Pantheon and gives an all too brief glimpse of the philosopher-emperor Hadrian.

The biggest frustration with "Empire" is the vastly inconsistent development of Saylor's primary characters. The Pinarii are like castles made with wet sand. Just as they gain a bit of definition, substance and depth, they either fall apart or are washed away. It's almost as if in trying to hit all events in a given era, none are enough of a focus to allow time for the solid development of members of the Pinarii clan. I felt very little emotional pull towards the members of the family, neither particularly liking nor disliking any of them. This void of raw human drama significantly reduces the cohesion of each generational chapter and no amount of historical activity is able to overcome that vacuum.

The strongest character in the book is Emperor Nero whom Saylor paints as a subdued version of any Nathan Lane character. Nero ranges from sadistic to dramatic to regal to shockingly out-of-touch-with-reality. Though his end is predictably tragic, Nero and his era are the most interestingly interpreted. I have a bit of a bias towards Hadrian, but Saylor also did a fine job representing the erudite, introspective, and insecure monument-building Emperor.

Saylor's dialogue often feels stilted, unnatural, and boring when used to provide historical background, whereas his integration of history and fiction works well while events are actually taking place. The most awkward moments come during a series of dialogues providing background on Rome during the reign of the Flavian Emperors. In some cases, Saylor uses this approach to set up future scenes; in others, it's as if he's trying to shoehorn in as much history as possible.

Saylor doesn't go for the Hollywood endings when it comes to the Pinarii, and I enjoy his sense of tragedy. Without giving too much away, the Pinarii clan is admirably (yet naively) staunch in their loyalty to their Emperors and friends, and it's enjoyable to be spectator to the historical train-wreck of such an amazingly varied group of personalities and events.

Each story is connected as one generation of Pinarii gives way to the next. An interesting device that Saylor uses is having one or more characters transition a new Pinarii generation from the old. Claudius carries over from the first chapter to the second. Several of Nero's inner clan are close with Titus Pinarius in Chapter 2 and remain close to Titus' son Lucius is Chapter 3. Emperor Trajan is the transitional character between Chapters 3 and 4.

Saylor touches on a number of themes throughout his stories including freedom of speech and religion, human rights, philosophy, and other high- and low-lights of Roman culture. And while there's already a lot going on in this 600-page novel, cameo appearances of Rome's' historical luminaries like Suetonius, Apollodorus, Dio, Sejanus and many others make for nice surprises.

"Empire" is a fun, light-weight introduction to Ancient Roman history. The writing style is smooth and simple, and Saylor hits on most of the major themes and incidents in each of the respective time periods. For those looking for a consumable introduction to and exploration of Roman history, "Empire" is a good starting point.

It's hard to conceive that this book was written by the same person as Roma. It is such an amateur work. Roma was far from the best book on the period and the writing and characterizations were not exceptional, but it was highly readable. This books feels like a high school effort. I learned absolutely nothing I hadn't read elsewhere about the period. But even assuming the person who read this was new to the period and did learn a little, the writing style and characters were so poor that it still would not be a great read. It's too bad too because there was so much potential for this post-Augustus period of Rome that doesn't get nearly the attention of the pre-Caesar and Caesar period.

First, far too much of the story is doled out as unrealistically long exposition by the characters conversing with each other. Entire periods of history are covered this way with one sequence after another of characters sitting around at parties recalling events they often experienced first-hand but told as if they were lecturing small school children in history they had never heard. This is such a freshman writing mistake it is shocking it would come from such a seasoned author. There is no fathomable reason he couldn't have structured the story to actually have the characters in the action in real-time instead of just sipping wine and conversing on it.

Second, and related to the first, almost nothing happens to these characters. With one exception, they are almost entirely observers of events and not meaningful players. Or if they are shown to contribute, it is usually of no consequence to their person or status. In Roma, there were frequent, and more typical of multi-generational epics, reversals of fortunes. From one generation to another the family went from prominence to slavery to, middle class, etc. Here the family seems to only slightly and gradually decline due to nothing more than the complete apathy of the lead characters, and despite improbable repeated run-ins with sociopathic emperors. I kept waiting for more dramatic reversals that never came.

Third, as a result of the above issues, we really get so little perspective on the history and what happened during this period of Roman history which was constantly dramatically fraught with changes of reign and global expansion. Someone relying primarily of this story would walk away thinking that all the emperors after Augustus were preoccupied with nothing else but attractive young, usually castrated boys, with occasional building projects thrown in. This is vastly over-simplistic and, again, not indicative of the previous novel in the series. This is a huge missed opportunity to take the characters out of Rome and to the action all over the world as Rome ruled it in the time. It's staggering how limited and lacking in imagination this take on the period is.

Finally, the dialogue and characters themselves are just so shallow and unrealistic. Right from the start we are introduced to our first generational protagonist as a man in his mid-twenties who comes across with all the maternity of a 12-year-old, which is not to say childish but ultra-naïve and innocent. By the time Caesar was that age he had already traveled the world, conquered pirates, held a sacred religious office and participated in the Senate, and this boy comes across as if he hasn't left the confines of his house for the first time in his life. Similar simplicity follows through-out, with dialogue that always strains of the overly simplistic.

The only time the book remotely rose to the level of interesting was when it attempted to convey the various philosophies popular at the various periods it covered as its lead characters and their convenient friends grappled with them. That was mildly interesting.

Overall, a major disappointment. I have to believe the author phoned this one in. Either his heart wasn't in it or his was distracted. Either way, not a work to be proud of.

I am a big Steven Saylor fan. I have read and enjoyed his entire "Roma Sub Rosa" series, and I very much enjoyed "Roma," to which this piece, "Empire," is the sequel. Unfortunately, I found "Empire" to be a disappointment. The characterizations were flat and unconvincing, and there is very little by way of a plot here. The main theme is that most of Imperial Rome's emperors were morbidly bad rulers and in its way Imperial Rome was every bit as unstable as Republican Rome. This has the potential to be a great theme, but in my opinion Saylor misses his chance to harness this potential. There are long dreary passages about eunuchs, various types of gay love, etc., which can be entertaining and thematic in the right context, but Saylor fails to provide the context. (He does this with various degrees of greater success in some of his "Roma Sub Rosa" novels.) Here, these things are very much in the reader's face, and simply slow things down. About mid-way through the book they become an excruciating and intolerable distraction from what should have been the novel's main theme: life and politics in Imperial Rome.

I desperately wanted to enjoy and like this novel, but in my opinion Saylor scores a clean miss with this one. It goes off the rails and never gets going. Not recommended. RJB.

If you love Steven Saylor's historical mysteries (I do), or you love historical fiction, or you are fascinated by the history of Ancient Rome, you will adore this book. It is somewhat similar in conception to books like James Michener's HAWAII (published years ago) and more recent works like NEW YORK the novel by Edward Rutherford, though those cover much wider swathes of time. Rather than staying in one time period, this novel gives you the broad sweep of history by linking together several stories or novellas set in the reigns of different Roman emperors. The link in this book is the history of the Pinarius family, who we met in Saylor's terrific earlier novel ROMA. We follow seceding generations of this family and see them work out their destinies against the backdrop of Roman history from the waning of the Augustan age until the reign of Hadrian.

This sort of historical novel has its strengths and limitations. It gives you sweep and a sense of a long period of history. It does not give you the pleasure of snuggling up with a single cast of characters for six hundred pages. I usually prefer novels to short stories because I like to live with one character for a while, but just the same, here I was along for the ride. Saylor hooked me in each chapter. He sketches character with a deft hand, and his evocation of the ancient setting makes Rome come alive. Both the fictional Pinarius family and real historical figures such as Nero were vivid and interesting to put it mildly. Saylor has the skill with plot that you would expect from a leading writer of mysteries, making this a great read.

You can agree or not with Saylor's take on historical personages. He obviously draws on exhaustive research using ancient sources. I do want to say a word for Livia. who historical novelists make into such a villain. Cassius Dio tells us that after she died the Senate voted to build an arch in her honor, for among other things saving "not a few" lives. Recent biographies by Mary Mudd, Anthony A. Barrett, and Matthew Dennison give accounts of her as a brilliant, powerful woman in a society in which women were not supposed to exercise power. Unsurprisingly she became the target of nasty rumors. They don't hold up under serious scrutiny. I, CLAUDIUS was great fiction.

I enjoyed this book tremendously and am eagerly waiting for the next installment. Thanks to the publisher on two accounts--making this quickly available on Kindle--I loathe having to wait past the publication date for a book I really want--and publishing it with text to speech enabled. That is a real plus with a novel you don't want to put down. I read most of this, listened to some while doing chores, devoured it all in almost one gulp, and truly had a ball.

Having thoroughly enjoyed Roma, and as a long standing fan of Gordianus, I eagerly awaited the delivery of my copy of Empire. I was disappointed, not totally, but, still, significantly, disappointed. Saylor seems to have had an attack of hubris. Much of the story-telling seems to be mechanical. The lectures on Roman history that he puts into the mouths of the fictional and historical characters in the book sometimes cross the border into artificiality and tedium.

Three aspects of the plot especially call out for mention. Firstly, in the story of Lucius the Seeker we have a re-working of the betrayal of her vows by a Vestal. Anyone who has read Roma, will have been able to predict the outcome of this sub-plot from the very moment that Lucius and Cornelia first exchanged glances in the Flavian Amphitheatre. The way in which the existence of the inevitable son is dragged out definitely passes into tedium. By the time that Lucius discovers it, the reader is thoroughly bored by the whole thing. As we are repeatedly told that Lucius is ignorant of his family history, perhaps he author means to be clever by reminding us that those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. If so, it does not work, at least for this reader.

The second aspect concerns homosexuality. This is the first time that Saylor, to my knowledge, writes openly and exhaustively about homosexuality. The subject was coyly skirted around in some of the Gordianus novels, but here it becomes a major feature of the novel's background. This, I thought, was all to the good, until he suddenly drags us into 20th century American politics by labelling the religious policy of Trajan as "Don't ask; don't tell." Although he uses it to describe a religious policy, the juxtaposition is too close to escape the conclusion that the author is making a political point here. This is cheap and crude, and one can only assume that it was done to make the book more 'relevant' for his, famously uninformed, compatriots. For his fans, and the informed denizens of the world outside America, it is anachronistic and practically a turn-off.

Thirdly, the overall scope of the book is too large. It covers the reigns of thirteen emperors over one hundred and thirty years in just under 600 pages. Albeit that four of those emperors came and went in a single year, these were years of hugely detailed historical developments and world-changing events. The inevitably "potted" versions of the reigns of people like Nero and Domitian weaken the structure of the book as a whole and the device of cherry picking significant dates such as AD 79 does not really work. Perhaps a separate novel for each of the Pinarii would have been a solution? But then the story of Lucius the seeker rears its regurgitated head and scotches that idea. In reality, this reader is left wondering why Empire was written at all.

Sadly, the overall impression I have come away with is that Saylor has now passed into the ranks of "successful and tired authors" who just churn the stuff out to keep the royalties coming in. For me, this novel lacks the passion of his Roma and Gordianus novels. His editor also seems to be a little tired as there are occasional typographical infelicities scattered throughout the book.

In summary, if you are Stephen Saylor fan, you will want this on your bookshelf if only for the sake of completeness. If you have never read Stephen Saylor, do not begin with this book. Seek out the Gordianus stories and Roma first.

I am a fan of Mr Saylor, but this book seemed amateurish. An author so obviously intelligent as he ought to know the difference between 'enormity' and 'enormousness.' I was not put off by the near constant, and usually homosexual, undercurrents in this book; but it read a little like that awful vampire series which so recently dazzled the pre-teen audience. Did every character have to be handsome, or good-looking? And possibly most egregiously, the story ended before we could catch a glimpse of Marcus Aurelius. I hope any future books are better plotted and characterized.

The famous song about leaving one's heart in San Francisco with the odd line in it about Rome seems apt for the title of a review of Steven Saylor's "Empire." Rome really was weird, and it really also was a glorious time in ancient Western history. Saylor's book captures much of both in his rather ordinary "Empire." The writing is overly simplified. Other reviewers are more cruel, calling it high-schoolish. Not that bad, but not exactly an intellectual's dream novel either.

Yes, there is the usual cast of very weird players from the infamous Nero to Domitian to Trajan to the famous Hadrian. Yes, there were also all of the famous and calamitous events from the great fire that destroyed so much of Rome in A.D. 64 (Nero's fiddle-playing) to the volcanic eruption of Vesuvius to the building of the Coliseum. There is (too) much emphasis on inhuman practices, the homosexual underground, and the conniving and machinations of these borderline psychotic rulers. It reads like a soap opera, which it probably was in real life. But, salaciousness goes only so far. I want depth of character also. I want some intellectual challenge. Mere reporting on the miniscule advances in civil and human rights is not sufficient.

Saylor traces these monumentally interesting 114 years by way of the literary technique of following one family - the patrician Pinarii. They are traced from generation to generation through the passing on of the family trinket (fascinum), a phallus-shaped amulet worn around the neck like a necklace. A son, reaching manhood, is bestowed by his father with this trinket. It symbolizes the passing of generations. It's an old technique, and in this instance the technique wears a bit thin.

The main problem I had with "Empire" was staying interested in the novel aspect of the story. It's a stirring history lesson. But, it is much less a novel that moves the reader systematically from page 1 to the end. Just when I got interested in a character or era, we jump to a later period, 2 years or 20 years later and dramatically change characters and situation. I found this disconcerting, and I didn't like the style. Is this really a novel, where one becomes embedded in the lives of the major characters, or is this a history lesson made readable by the use of clever emphasis on all the strange people by glimpses into their weirdness and problems? I contrast this book's ability to keep me interested in the people with Ken Follett's new book, "Fall of Giants," which starts out like a house on fire and continues that way throughout. Saylor fails to match Follett here, though both rely heavily on sex to keep reader interest.

I found Saylor's own voice in much (too much?) of the philosophical and political discussion, particularly via the person of Marcus Pinari and later to a lesser degree Lucius Pinari. While I trust in Saylor's being a true scholar of Roman history enough to believe that he was reporting on the actual historical writings of the people of the time, I hear the personal voice of Saylor loud and clear throughout, almost independent of his sources.

The life spans chart at the beginning of the book is simply incomprehensible. I referred to it 50 or 60 times during my reading of the story, and each time I was frustrated by its structure. It never made sense to me. The maps are better, but I hardly ever referred to them.

I have read every word published by Saylor. He is much, much better in his Roma Sub Rosa mystery series, featuring the Roman detective, Gordianus the Finder. Except for the excellent history lesson in "Empire," I was disappointed in its attempt at being a novel. It reminded me a little bit of Arturo Perez-Reverte's recent work "Pirates of the Levant," in that the only thing holding the "plot" together was the history it reported, thus casting doubt on whether or not it satisfied the criteria of what constitutes a novel. However, "Empire" is worth reading -- definitely. As a history lesson it is a 5+. As a novel it's a 2+. Thus, on average, I give it an overall rating of 3+.

I was given "Empire" as a Birthday present and read the first two chapers .. I then decided to download "Roma" on my kindle... "Roma" is a 5 star book ..i was enthusted by the style of writing. Although, i though the charaters where mostly weak .. the plots where great and i loved the way it all peiced and threaded together. The known historical accuracy and the focas on the people of Romes theological beleifs and architecture over the usual milatary and political adventures which are the norm for writers of that period.

On compleating "Roma" i returned to "Empire " with high hopes.

then slowly the story became derailed .. Mr Saylor became obssessed with the naked male form , and sex between old men and young boys .

I found large chunks of the book to be uncomfortable reading ..I nearly gave up the book three or four times.

However i enjoyed the previous book so much i persisted and enjoyed much of it .

Whould I by another Steven Saylor book ?... maybe!!! but please Mr Saylor.. cut out the sexual stuff ..it was totally irrelivent and unnecesary to the story you where telling so well.

I am a fan of Steven Saylor's novels, especially his detective stories. He is a wonderful writer, historian and manages to bring "Roma Antica" to life in a vibrant and wonderful way. But this new novel is not as great as "Roma", I feel that it was written quickly and that the soul of the story was lost. I understand that a writer's perspective on life and love seeps through the words but I think the description of some characters sex life was a bit to much and long, it didn't add any interest to the story. Even so I look forward to his future books.

I love Steven Saylor. I have read every one of his Roma Sub Rosa series, and love them. I read Roma, and enjoyed that, too. Empire was a huge disappointment. The characters are not believable, and entire dialogues consist of various characters summarizing Roman history for the reader.

There are some fascinating characters here, or characters that would have been fascinating if Saylor had allowed them to be real, passionate human beings. Lucius Pinarius, for instance, falls for a Vestal, then becomes a follower of Apollonius of Tyana. Had such a character appeared in the Roma Sub Rosa series, he would have been exciting, memorable. Here, his plight gets lost amidst long paragraphs describing the political situation in Rome. At one point, he and his Vestal lover, who has just miraculously survived Catullus' accusations, sit down, and summarize for one another Diocletian's cruel excesses as a censor.

WHY??? Would two lovers really behave this way, either in real life, or in fiction?

Sadly, in Empire Saylor sacrifices his characters for a history lesson. It did not work for me.