Your Favorite Historical Roman Novel

[TifJC]

Hi Everyone! I thought this would be an interesting topic to post.
     My favorite Roman novel is "A Voice in the Wind" by Francine Rivers. I love it because it is based in the 1st century a.d. And I believe that that time era is one of the most significant in history, because of the wealth, corruption, beauty, drama, architecture...
     So, what is your favorite historical Roman novel, and what do you believe makes it so captivating?

[Optimo Principi]

I'll have to check that one out. As far as fiction goes I'd say my faves are "Pompeii" and "Imperium" by the wonderful Robert Harris. Both well researched, ripping yarns that really bring the early Roman Empire to life.

[David Atherton]

It's hard to choose just one, so I will name a few that I would consider my favorites.

The Antagonists by Ernest K Gann - Great telling of the Masada tragedy (though speculative).

Domitia and Domitian by David Corson - One of the best and most honest accounts of the Flavian era I've encountered in fiction.

Imperial Governor by George Shipway - Neat account of the Boudicca revolt told refreshingly from the Roman perspective.

[cliff_marsland]

Does anybody remember a certain Roman mystery?  I read it about 15 years ago, and I remember one of the characters was named Claudius Maximus, and I think a murder was done at a big dinner party held by Claudius Maximus (I think)..  It was set in the 2nd or 3rd century.  It wasn't one of the Falco or the Saylor character whose name escapes me.

[Robert_Brenchley]

'I, Claudius' and 'Claudius the God' by Robert Graves. I read 'Imperial Governor many years ago, when I was  a student, and remember enjoying it, but it's been so long I don't remember much about it. I used to read several novels a week back then. Maybe I should have stuck with trying to write!

[Andrew McCabe]

Hi Everyone! I thought this would be an interesting topic to post.
     My favorite Roman novel is "A Voice in the Wind" by Francine Rivers. I love it because it is based in the 1st century a.d. And I believe that that time era is one of the most significant in history, because of the wealth, corruption, beauty, drama, architecture...
     So, what is your favorite historical Roman novel, and what do you believe makes it so captivating?

The Steven Saylor series win it for me, the run of detective books involving Gordianus the Finder, with his non-detective novel ROMA which gives a complete span of Roman history from 1000BC to the Augustan age absolutely the best. I won't spoil the plot of the latter by hinting that the thread that links a 1000 years of history in a novel is a family heirloom passed through the generations. I find his books particularly fresh, not anachronistic in the way of many such novels, no Hail Caesars! or implausible valorous acts, but quite a lot of domestic, street and tavern scenes that feel real, and with complex characters that are neither all good nor all bad. And of course the best thing is that without knowing it you are absorbing some very accurate Roman history all the time.

Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic by Tom Holland makes second place. This is an intelligent a novel as a history book. Again, the writing feels fresh and real.

The Colleen McCullough Masters of Rome series wins third prize. More pot-boiler beach-reads than the Saylor or Holland books and it can be a bit tiresomely hero/villain right/wrong brave/coward (Julius Caesar has a character that is up their with the other JC, after 6 books I've yet to find anything he did that was uncertain, domestic, frail, indecisive or weak) but they give a special slant and strong characterisation to the many powerful women of ancient Rome that thread through all the novels.

I liked Pompeii, it felt fresh with a storyline that we can all relate the the Vesuvian remains, but Imperium felt very stale to me, a rehash of a well-known story of Cicero than has been done better before, with a storyline from the predictable sources. If you read Catalina's Riddle by Saylor, and then Imperium by Harris, both covering the same incidents, the latter feels like a school-history-book, and the former grips you with its complex and plausible characterisation.

[TifJC]

"I liked Pompeii, it felt fresh with a storyline that we can all relate the the Vesuvian remains, but Imperium felt very stale to me, a rehash of a well-known story of Cicero than has been done better before, with a storyline from the predictable sources."


"Vesuvian remains"!!! What an aweful way to put them!

[SVLLAIMP]

My favorite 's would probably the first few of Colleen McCulloughs Masters of Rome series.  I like the pre-Caesar Republic and the lives of Sulla and Marius.

[marandnumiz]

I don't know if Petronius' Satyricon qualifies, but this is a fascinating and very modern book.

[*Alex]

I've read all the Roman books written by Steven Saylor, Rosemary Rowe, Colleen McCullough, David Wishart, Simon Scarrow and Lindsey Davis as well as Robert Graves' I, Claudius and Claudius the God. I enjoyed them all except Steven Saylor's Roma which was a great disappointment to me and overall, a very poor effort from him when compared to some of his other novels.

However, one book which I have read several times over the years, and thoroughly recommend is "Eagle in the Snow" by Wallace Breem.

"Constantine" by Frank G Slaughter is also worth a read, although it is an old book, it is still readily available on Amazon.

Alex.

[Andrew McCabe]

I enjoyed them all except Steven Saylor's Roma which was a great disappointment to me and overall, a very poor effort from him when compared to some of his other novels.

It's just as well we've all got lots of choices! The book I ranked at the very top, you ranked a very poor effort! I guess for me Saylor's Roma opened up the early period of Roman history, before 300BC, bringing to life the period of the kings and the dawn of the Republic. But I guess the mechanism of the inherited heirloom could seem contrived and artificial.

[Philoromaos]

I do really like the stephen Saylor books but I do think that they started to tail off a little towards the lass couple of books, the early ones in the series are much more enjoyable in my opinion. The Collen McCollough books I think are much better, although I have only read The First Man In Rome, The Grass Crown and Fortunes Favorites.

[*Alex]

It's just as well we've all got lots of choices! The book I ranked at the very top, you ranked a very poor effort! I guess for me Saylor's Roma opened up the early period of Roman history, before 300BC, bringing to life the period of the kings and the dawn of the Republic. But I guess the mechanism of the inherited heirloom could seem contrived and artificial.

You are right Andrew we are all different, and anyway it's fun to disagree. Life would be very dull otherwise. The book was very popular, it is just that this testy old man didn't like it.   
For me, it wasn't just the fascinum, it was the characters in general. Gordian feels like he was a real person with the wealth of detail surrounding him and his family as written by Saylor. The characters in Roma by comparison seemed more like cardboard cut-outs and the writing style more akin to those books which my daughter reads and which are aimed at the "younger reader". I really enjoyed the Gordian books, particularly Catalina's Riddle and that was why Roma was such a disappointment. Had I not read any of Saylor's other works maybe Roma would have been ok.

Alex.

[commodus]

Actaully, I liked Saylor's Roma except for the last chapter, which was and overly contrived and somewhat silly way to end an otherwise fine effort. The book also got off to a slow start, but in between the first and last chapters was a fine book.
I like all of Saylor's novels but the last two, I agree, were weaker than the others. His first half dozen or so Sub Rosa novels and short story collections were his best.

[Jeremy W]

I also like the SPQR series by John Maddox Roberts.

[Joe S2]

I like the Emperor series by Conn Iggulden about Julius Caesar and Brutus.  He is very liberal with the story line and characters ages and such.....  But I still liked it regardless of how he changed a little history.

[commodus]

Yes, absolutely. Julian is one the greatest of novels based upon Roman history. Thanks for the reminder!

[marandnumiz]

Two more titles that I liked a lot among the 'classics' of the genre

Quo Vadis of Henrik Sienkiewitz
Julian the Apostate of Dmitri Merezskovskij

[Andrew McCabe]

Wow has no one really mentioned "Julian" by Gore Vidal?

From 1964. I read it as a child in the 1970s and loved it. I'd quite forgotten about, it was from a period when I merely dabbled in coins rather than being obsessed by them. I recall some sharp fresh flavours of a newly-built Constantinople and of Persian campaigns. I don't think this book has entered my mind in the last 30 years. It's time for a re-read.

[Podiceps]

I do not know whether I should call them my present favourites, but hugely influential in my case are 'I, Claudius' and 'Claudius the God' by Robert Graves. I was around 10 years old (around 1970) when I discovered them in the nearby bookshop in a wagon sale and bought them against the warnings of the good-meaning saleswomen who thought that they were unsuitable for children. They actually consulted their boss before letting me buy them. After reading them carefully I was quick to buy from an auction a Libertas As that I still have (https://www.forumancientcoins.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=2265&pos=0) and felt somewhat close to Claudius for a long time. I still remember some good details from those books and they provided a good basis for more serious reading much later. In those days the ideas of public morals (and book shops) obviously were quite different from today's world and I still wonder from what the saleswomen wanted to protect me from and whether they themselves had read the books.

[slokind]

I read Dimitri Merezskovki's Julian the Apostate when I was in high school, so about 1950-51.  I read the whole trilogy, having begun with the Leonardo one and finally the one on Peter the Great.  I liked the Julian best, but I haven't read it since.
Pat L.

[moonmoth]

It's hard to pick a single favourite.  I agree with Podiceps that "I, Claudius" and "Claudius, the God" are very absorbing, not least because they read as though they might be factual.  They led me on to read Suetonius and Tacitus.

Much earlier than that, though, as a teenager I read "Lest Darkness Fall" by L. Sprague de Camp, about the efforts of a man transported back in time to prevent the fall of civilisation in Europe in the 6th century, by stabilising an Italo-Gothic kingdom.  Written with a light touch but also with a detailed knowledge of the background. 

My current favourites are the Falco series by Lindsey Davis, full of very satisfying background details.  She also wrote a good book following the life of Antonia Caenis, Vespasian's mistress (called "The Course of Honour").

Bill

[slokind]

I had to find where I'd shelved it after reading it.  It is a wonderful work of literature as well as good reading.  You remember it.  I got it when a Forvm member recommended it to me:
• Mario de Carvalho (transl. Gregory Rabassa), A God Strolling in the Cool of the Evening, LSU Press, 1997.
And I didn't even know it, though I live in Baton Rouge, LA, and the Press took an image from my Teaching Files for the dust jacket; I just noticed that!  It won a Pegasus Prize for literature and had already won the Portuguese Writers' Assoc. grand prize.
It is Antonine.  Governors of Roman Portugal interest me not only because of the writing but because I'm delighted by a man who strives to bring the ruling class of the Roman far west to life.  I wish some Danubian writer of equal quality could do as well for the atmosphere and temper of ancient Moesia or Thrace.  It has a specific personality and atmosphere besides getting the detail right and in proportion.
I was able to buy a 'like new' copy.
Pat L.

[Romanorum]

I don't know that it qualifies as a "Historical Novel," per se, but Marguerite Yourcenar's "Memoirs of Hadrian" is to my mind the best novel ever written on the subject of Ancient Rome. More than a mere novel, it is an intense psychological and historical exploration of both Hadrian and second century Rome.
I've always been quite partial to Robert Graves's Claudius "duology," if you will, but the intensity of Yourcenar's portrayal is well above anything anyone ever achieved, in my opinion.

Saúl

[marandnumiz]

I don't know that it qualifies as a "Historical Novel," per se, but Marguerite Yourcenar's "Memoirs of Hadrian" is to my mind the best novel ever written on the subject of Ancient Rome. More than a mere novel, it is an intense psychological and historical exploration of both Hadrian and second century Rome.

Saúl

You are so right Romanorum! I think some of us overlooked 'Memoirs of Hadrian' because this is a spectacularly good novel in the first place, thus it was easy to forget that it also belongs to the 'historical novel' genre.