Customer Reviews

The First Man in Rome

5 star:		(118)
4 star:		(37)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

Nothing prepared me for the complexity, depth and shear sense of reality that Colleen McCullogh's The First Man in Rome provided. I have read a lot of historical fiction and was used to authors routinely ignoring the real nitty gritty of daily life in previous ages in order to get on with their story. McCollogh manages to infuse a lively plot with a significant amount of period lore, domestic detail and even hitorical exposition without ever losing the reader's interest. Her characters and their story - taken straight from history - manage to be both larger than life and believably human at the same time.

Among the devices she uses to achieve a kind of verisimilitude are imagined conversations, letters, and maps (drawn by her own hand). Where there are unknowns in the historical record, her inventions are based on careful research and are, if not correct, certainly plausible.

I can't praise this book (and the four that follow it in the series) highly enough. Standing in the remains of the original forum in Rome last year, I felt as if I had actually experienced that place before. So much of the story told in these books takes place in the limited confines of the forum and the nearby Palitine and Capitoline hills, and her description of the space was so accurate - even with the passage of two thousand years - that it was easy to imagine how it must have looked then.

Anyone who loves historical fiction - that is, real history presented in novel form - owes it to themselves to experience this book. It is both a work of scholarship and a great imaginative achievement written by a master of language. No story totally invented could be half as interesting as this tale of real people that McCollough brings to life in these pages. A great book.

This is a great book. It presents the reader with a dazzling image of ancient Rome, in fact I literally felt transported back to the Rome of the time of Marius. After reading all of McCullough's "Masters of Rome" books (those written as of this date) this one is still my favorite. I've read a fair amount about Rome, but no book that I have read has ever explained Rome's politics and social structure half as well as this one.

Marius is shown as what he was: a giant. I'm not sure that I'm comfortable with McCullough's portrayal of Sulla, but each reader can make that decision for him or her self. This book covers the time period as from shortly before the Jugurthine War (which I never really understood until I read this book) to slightly after Marius' conquest of the German tribes. But this isn't just a book about wars. McCullough takes the readers into the Senate, into private conversations of Roman (and foreign) leaders, and really tries to get at the guts of what was going on in the Roman Republic at this critical stage of its history. Mostly, she succeeds brilliantly.

I throughly enjoyed "The First Man in Rome". It is a great historical novel with timeless appeal. So far, I have read three novels in the Masters of Rome Series, the other two were "Caesar's Women" and "Caesar: The Novel". Of these three, "The First Man in Rome" is the best.

I especially enjoyed the characters in this novel. While "Caesar", for example, was completely devoid of character development, this novel is overflowing with wonderful and well-structured character portraits. I was particularly impressed by Sulla. Instead of portraying him as a wild psychopath that he undoubtedly was, Colleen McCullough turned him into a psychopath with a tender side. Her description of his childhood and especially his relationship with his tutor brought tears to my eyes. Although Sulla is quite despicable in his action, McCullough uncovers a complex person under all the madness. A great achievement!

I also appreciated her depiction of Gaius Marius. In history class, I learned that he was extremely lucky but rather unremarkable in his talent. That never sat well with me because I thought that even if he wasn't a genius, he must have been capable enough to secure the number of consulships that he had. McCullough very nicely goes into Gaius Marius' head and examines how and what is driving him.

Not all the characters were well-developed. Julia or Julia Major was extremely boring and could have used more complexity because she appears to be such a paragon of virtue that she does not seem human. Jugurtha also suffered because in the book he is too one-dementional. That's too bad since he is quite fascinating.

Most other characters are sublime: from Metellus Numidicus (Piggle-wiggle) to Scaurus to Saturninus to Julilla or Julia Minor to Drusus to Aurelia. At first, I was against the idea that McCullough create Julilla but after reading "The First Man in Rome" I realized how well she served the author's purpose. Also, her ordeal is quite heart-breaking.

I was a little bit disappointed by Colleen McCullough's depiction of the political scene. Everyone who read Masters of Rome series said that the best political novel in the series is "The First Man in Rome". I disagree. Although McCullough writes wonderfully about political squabbles in Rome, she mostly uses letters and dialogues between characters to relate these events to the readers. Although she is extremely good at letter- and speech-writing, in "Caesar's Women" she actually describes what goes on as it happens. This helps with absorbing the atmosphere and also captivates the readers better.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Roman political history or Ancient history in general. The Masters of Rome series is superb and I hope Colleen McCullough will continue to add on to the series for many years to come.

This is the first book in a (so far) 5 book series on ancient Rome. I highly recommend the entire series. As has been mentioned previously, the level of detail (and hence research) is amazing and highly engrossing. I know some folks who have given up on this book because of the detail and sheer number of charachters (for shame Mom). To combat this, McCullough has a great summary in each of the subsequent novels and an interesting glossary, defining Latin and other hard to recognize terms (I wish Patrick O'Brien would do likewise). But this book is really focused on Gaius Marius, a remarkable general and a real man's man. While he had nowhere near the pinache or number of victories as Caesar, he was equally as facinating and deserving of the title of a founder of Rome. His victories were a result of tremendous training, a use of spies that would make Sun Tzu proud, weapons innovations, and inspired leadersip. If you are a fan of Roman history or historical novels in general you must read this book. However, throughout the series McCullough's plot lines involve the women, merchants and slaves of Rome as much as the political and military leaders - the intrigue in the bedroom is equally entertaining. This makes the book a great read for any fan of great fiction.

It seems almost churlish to even presume to subject Colleen McCullough's work to criticism. After all, she's made enough money to live on an island in the south Pacific, and has enough clout to get a major publishing house to agree to issue a series of thousand-page historical novels on ancient Rome, of all things. You can't look at the maps (which, along with the portraits of key characters, McCullough drew herself) or read through the 130 pages of appendices-glossary appended at the end of "The First Man in Rome" without being swept away by her evident enthusiasm for her subject -- one that must have seemed remarkably non-commercial when she first embarked on it. But she persevered, introducing lord knows how many people for the first time to the intricacies and intrigues of late Roman republican history, while obviously having a ball herself and -- I suspect -- making yet further piles of money. So to even presume to criticize McCullough seems to call for the rejoinder, "If you're so smart, why aren't you rich -- and also making a living off your love for history?"

Still, it's interesting to assess McCullough's strengths and weaknesses as a novelist, if only by way of tipping your hat to her for the persistence and skills that have brought her to where she is today in terms of mass readership. Her strengths are not as a stylist, word poet, or painter of verbal pictures (as opposed to those in pen, ink, and wash). At the end of the 900+ pages of "The First Man in Rome," there wasn't a single sentence that stood out in my mind as especially memorable - - which is not something I would typically say after completing one of James Michener's tomes, for example. Also, McCullough doesn't have a particular gift for writing authentic dialogue. I guess every historical novelist has to ask themselves whether they're going to try to write dialogue in the way their historical characters actually spoke, or whether they're going to write in the vernacular of their readers to make it easier to follow. McCullough plainly came down in the latter camp, and there were times when I found the modern colloquial speech put into the mouths of characters like Sulla jarring and false.

McCullough does have two things going for her. The first is a definite knack for creating memorable characters. This book is full of them -- not only the major figures like Marius and Sulla, but there are any number of vivid secondary characters as well. The abundance of memorable figures in this novel is downright Dickensian.

The other big thing that McCullough has going for her is the freshness and intrinsic fascination of her material. Even those history buffs who may know a reasonable amount about Caesar and Pompey often know little about Marius, Sulla and their contemporaries. And this book is crammed full of wonderful stories that, amazingly enough, all reflect historical fact -- the gold of the Volcae Tectosages; the fifteen-year migration of the Teutones and Cimbri; the manueverings of Mauretania's wily King Juba to preserve his power and independence; the appalling Roman defeats in their initial encounters with the migrating Germans; and the remarkable rise from poverty and obscurity to power of Cornelius Sulla.

The flaws I have noted should therefore not detract unduly from McCullough's accomplishment. Read, enjoy, and learn.

I found this book extensively researched. McCullough even explains, in the glossaries and author's note, why she made the conclusions she did (e.g., the otherwise-unknown existance of Julilla). But the prose is thick and sometimes difficult to parse. This is partly due to the pseudo-Latinate style (many subordinate clauses, etc., which aren't as rhetorically pretty in English as they are in Latin) and partly to just a natural awkwardness of language. So, while the characters and story are interesting, especially the attempt to humanize characters like Sulla and Marius and make them heroes, rather than the villains who history books tend to make them, the book is hard to fight through (and not because of its length; the pacing isn't oppressively slow). I would recommend this to people who would like to learn more about Rome, but don't have the patience to poke through translations of ancient literature.

So often I read novels with some modest historical references where the author expresses thanks to the "little people" who helped with the research. Sometimes these include dozens of names. Astoundingly in "The First Man in Rome" Colleen McCullough says that is was basically a one woman show. Honestly, this book is such a comprehensive study of an era of Roman history that I think it would be worthy of someone working on a doctorate dissertation. The detail is breathtaking. And Ms McCullough even does the (very good) maps and other illustrations!

It is hard to explain the story of a 1000+ page historical novel. But it basically chronicles the political and military struggles in and around Rome circa 105 BC. The detail to which the author describes these events can be a bit beyond the interest of most readers but at least her prose is very rich and enjoyable to read. And she entertains the reader with several vignettes into the personal lives of the Roman leaders. Rather than dwelling on debauchery and crude aspects of their lifestyle she focuses on aspects on what is important to the Roman citizen: honor, status, money, and power.

Bottom line: a long and sometimes heavy read which is quite simply a masterpiece. Compulsory reading.

A great peice of historical fiction. You will feel as if you live in Republican Rome. The authors recreation of this period is flawless. From the villas of the Palatine to the desert of Libya this book IS history. If you have ver quetioned if war was an extension of politics this book will set you straight. The two main characters are both excellent Generals and Politicians, and yet are extremely different people. I am too poor a writter to put into words the charecterizations in this book. You will love Mariu, hate Numidicus and respect Scaurus. Sulla you will both love and hate, but respect most of all. This book got me so interested in the period I read the first hand account by the historian Sallust on whose The Jugurthan War half of this book is based. If you have read this book take heart that the snail merchant's rout up the mountain strongold of Jugurtha actually happened. This book is simply exceptional.

This "Rome" series of books, of which this novel is the first, is the best read I have ever had in my entire life! The words compulsive and fascinating are simply too flat and characterless to do justice to this series. If I was ever stranded on a desert island with only one thing to read for the rest of my life it would be this series of novels, they are that good. One of my very real epiphanies in reading this was how similar the politics of Rome were to our politics today. I think anyone reading this will be similarly struck and it is not hard to envision dropping the Roman senate down in Washington and not seeing any real change in our daily lives. The headlines would all be the same, the debates as sharp, the slandering and pandering, the demonizations, and the partisanship and bickering would go on without the slightest flicker of disruption!

I first read these books about seven years ago, and then read them all over again last year when the last installment came out. After I finished reading them the second time I nearly started over again at the beginning for a third go round, but decided instead to go and read other works relating to Rome and some works of the ancients themselves, including Caesar and Cicero.

These novels cover the period of Rome from about 110 BC to roughly 40 BC, a period of great change and upheaval for the republic that eventually led to the empire (sounds a bit like the star wars series, doesn't it? I think George cribbed a lot of notes from Roman history). This first novel deals with Gaius Marius and his rise to incredible power even though he was not one of Rome's "inner circle of elite". Gaius was a military innovator and was responsible for some sweeping changes in the legions that improved their deadly efficacy and transformed the nature of what it meant to be a legionaire; from gentleman farmer to professional soldier. The new legion structure was actually similar in many respects to our military organization today.

This is a grand book, with characters that seem more alive and more real, than many flesh and blood people we deal with in our daily lives. The character development McCullough achieves is nothing short of mind-bending and indeed may make you a pickier reader in the future.

I would whole-heartedly recommend this book, and the entire series, to any reader. It is difficult to pick a favorite out of the series, and I don't think I could, but I really, really enjoyed this first novel as much as any of them.

One cautionary note, since some of my friends are ancient history buffs, is that while the known "facts" in McCullough's series are extremely accurate and she did an incredible amount of research for these books (will someone give her an honorary doctorate please?), people's personalities and their daily lives between the big, recorded facts of history are not as well established. I love McCullough's impression and interpretation and I think few could gainsay her much in her works. Her Caesar and Sulla though may get more favorable treatment from her than other commentators and novelists might elect to award. That, however is one of the greatest things about these books: after the compulsive reading is over comes the compulsive conversations, the debating with friends about this or that, and the further exploration of one of the most facinating periods in history.

A delightful, gripping account of the first domino to fall leading to the end of the Roman Republic. The plot unfolds perfectly, however one must read through the next novel in the series ["The Grass Crown"] to reach that proverbial last domino. Still, "First Man" sets the stage beautifully, and is a great novel in and of itself -- drama, tragedy, and comedy all wrapped up into a neat package.

The indepth, intricate portrayal of the relationship between Gaius Marius and Lucius Cornelius Sulla (as well as that between Marius and the Senate) is necessary to understand the transformation of Rome from Republic to Empire. Still, the author manages to make it vastly entertaining. The character development is superb, particularly that of the two aforementioned main characters. Notably, McCullough brings forth a particularly fantastic grasp of the most complex character of the times: Sulla. He is decadent, deceptive, ruthlessly selfish and wicked, yet likable and charming. McCullough does a superb job of painting this complex caricature... oh, she had a grasp on him alright... one feels like one knows Sulla, understands him and the fountainhead of how he came to be what he is. This is no mean feat by this talented writer.

The book is one of the best (if not the best)researched historical fiction novels I have ever come across... and I have read many. Kudos to Ms. McCullough for this gift, and for all of the novels of the Masters of Rome series. The only way to improve on these brilliant tomes is to write another.

I'm waiting patiently.