Masters of Rome
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"It is no business of Rome's!" [...]
"Everything in the world is Rome's business"
Mithridates and Sulla(Page 315)
A very exciting novel, very long but never heavy. It was hard to read it in English but it was worth it! The setting is beautifully reconstructed, it is wonderful to immerse ourselves in the world of ancient Rome through the words of McCullough! Her work behind this novel is immense! In addition, the plot is compelling and exciting, among political intrigues, wars, cruelty, affections and dislikes: a world so far from ours but when we look at the psychology of the characters we see that human nature has remained the same! Speaking of the characters: they are beautifully built! Even the minor ones appear extremely alive, you love them or hate them or both, but always so intensely!
Can't wait to continue!
Quotes
"The most exciting thing that's happened during the last fifteen months," said Gaius Marius, "is the elephant Gaius Claudius showed at the ludi Romani."
[incipit]
"Well, that's certainly a good name for a Syrian pretender!" Marius remarked.
But the blatant irony was lost on Mithridates, who definitely did not possess a Roman or Greek attitude to words, and probably hardly ever laughed.
(Page 132)
[Julia]: "[...] How did you escape?"
Marius's expression changed to surprise. "Escape? It wasn't necessary to escape, Julia. Mithridates might be the ruler of the whole of the eastern half of the Euxine Sea, but he'd never dare to harm Gaius Marius!"
"Then why are we moving so fast?" asked Julia shrewdly.
"To give him no opportunity to start haboring ideas of harming Gaius Marius," her husband said, grinning.
(Page 143)
When she found the first crocus she knelt to look at its vivid yellow flower, rose again to gaze into the naked branches of the trees with an appreciation so new that trees might have been invented just for her.
(Page 181)
"Regret it if you must, but don't let it color today or tomorrow," she said, not mystically, but practically.
Aurelia
(Page 277)
"Rome is our king, Lord Orobazus, though we give Rome the feminine form, Roma, and speak of Rome as ‘her' and ‘she.' The Greeks subordinated themselves to an ideal. You subordinate yourselves to one man, your king. But we Romans subordinate ourselves to Rome, and only to Rome. We bend the knee to no one human, Lord Orobazus, any more than we bend it to the abstraction of an ideal. Rome is our god, our king, our very lives. [...]
We worship a place, Lord Orobazus. Not a man. Not an ideal. Men come and go, their terms on earth are fleeting. And ideals shift and sway with every philosophical wind. But a place can be eternal as long as those who live in that place care for it, nurture it, make it even greater.
Sulla
(Page 332)
How chastening, that it is the imperfect one finds most interesting.
Silo
(Page 357)
Words enchanted him. They could make his heart soar or stumble or gallop; there were times when, as with Homer, they painted for him a world more real than the one he lived in.
Young Caesar
(Page 660)
Pompey actually took it as a compliment; he had odd gaps in his intelligence where his personal beliefs were too strong to tickle, let alone undermine.
(Page 720)
You are lured on by promises of largesse or privilege which it is quite beyond the power of this State to grant—especially when you consider that these men usually arise at a time when this State is least able to grant largesse or privilege. That is why they succeed! They play upon your desires and your fears! But they do not mean you well. What they promise, they cannot deliver.
Sulla
(Page 872)
Men of ideals and principles are the ruin of the world!
Sulla
(Page 894)
This is Rome, not Alexandria. There's always a legal loophole in Rome.
Lucio Decumio
(Page 1016)
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