Caesar by Colleen McCullough - 1998: A Novel

In good condition - has markings from use - has yellowing spots on dust jacket and end pages - due to differing weights on books, postage maybe adjusted at checkout.

The leaders of Rome grow ever more frightened, yet ever more obdurate: the brilliant, ruthlessly autocratic Gaius Julius Caesar must be crushed and sent into a permanent exile before he can overthrow government and set himself up as dictator. The events in Caesar chronicle the struggle for domiance between Rome's Senate its nemesis, Caesar.

The story opens in Gaul, where Caesar is engaged in the conquest of a fierce, brave and dogged people, the Celtic and Belgic Gauls who wear their hair long and their valour gloriously. The battles are titanic, the sides evenly matched. Except that no Gallic prince owns Caesar's ambition, and ambition wins.

When Cato and the Senate of Rome refuse to give Caesar his due, he crosses the river Rubicon and marches upon his country, an army prepared to die for him at his back. But between Caesar and victory there stands the ageing Pompey the Great, who must marshal the forces of the Republic and pit himself against the one man his instincts tell him cannot be beaten on a field of war.

What eventuates is one of the earliest recorded fiasco's so common in our own times - how impossible it is for generals to wage war when they are constrained by militarily inept politicians.

In the midst of which, life goes on: Caesar, his women and the series of personal tragedies which make his days lonelier, yet the Rubicon easier to cross; Pompey the Great and his last two wives, a bitter contrast; Brutus and his cousin Porcia learning to love; young Gaius Cassius fresh from saving Syria from the Parthians; the great advocate Cicero, busy recording history in his letters to friends; and many others, all trying to survive these tumultuous times.