Imperium: From the Sunday Times bestselling author (Cicero Trilogy, 4)

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At a meeting at Pompey's house, Cicero reads out the extract from the Annals and it is decided to use the same precedent – although a dangerous one for the health of the republic – to get Pompey the supreme command. I read a reasonable amount of non-fiction to fill the gaping holes in my knowledge but once in a while I like to pick up a book by someone like Robert Harris who is able to mix history with a little imagination. However, it falls short of being an engrossing storytelling and is lacking that hard-to-define quality that allowed Colleen McCullough and Robert Graves to pen those masterpieces they did set in the same period or soon after as Harris. Now this is historical fiction at its finest, as the book is allegedly derived from the scrolls of Cicero's personal secretary Tiro who wrote a history of Cicero. Cicero has an argument with Metellus, the Governor, over his appropriation of the records but is allowed, under law, to make a fair copy of them and is supported by leading members of the city's most eminent men.

Cicero is forced to borrow money from Terentia to support his case and leaves Rome on the Ides of January to seek evidence against Verres in Sicily. It’s more political intrigue, and beyond that, it’s more about electoral intrigue with a side of legal drama. At the embezzlement court, chaired by Glabrio, Cicero submits his postulates, an application to prosecute. The tale comprises the recollections of a first person narrator: Tiro was a slave and acted as secretary to Cicero. Harris presents an absorbing study of politics and the culture of power in the late Roman Republic and I find "Imperium" to be a worthy successor to Harris' "Pompeii".The confrontations in the courtroom, the senate and the frenzied voting pens of the Campus Martius provide as much tension as a Roman battlefield and Harris does a masterful job of peopling these scenes with memorable characters. Robert Harris has Tiro, Cicero's scribe/clerk, writing the linear in time progressions of his younger "coming up" to power years.

La historia nos la cuenta su fiel secretario -y esclavo- Tiro, inventor de la taquigrafía con que conseguía transcribir con precisión las largas peroratas de su señor y de los senadores romanos. La vida de este político y estadista, uno de los mejores oradores de todos los tiempos, que vivió tiempos convulsos de la república romana, da para no una, sino las tres novelas que RH le dedica. This is the kind of book that will appeal to fans of Roman history, but people who are unfamiliar with the historical characters might struggle a bit with all the Latin names, not to mention the ever-fickle alliances that causes them to switch allegiances constantly.Cicero has to fight it out at the Temple of Castor and eventually wins against a biased jury, surprisingly supported by Catulus, the hard and snobbish old senator who is, nevertheless, "a patriot to his marrow. Ahora me queda claro que los políticos no han perdido ni un ápice de su hijoputismo, solo su astucia e inteligencia. Compellingly written in Tiro's voice, Imperium is the re-creation of his vanished masterpiece, recounting in vivid detail the story of Cicero's quest for glory, competing with some of the most powerful and intimidating figures of his—or any other—age: Pompey, Caesar, Crassus, and the many other powerful Romans who changed history. But, Cicero had to request a loan from her through her business manager as if she was just another moneylender in the forum. The more you are acquainted with life in Ancient Rome and its legal system, the easier the book will be to follow.

Back in the extortion court he wins his case against the Gauls but is saddened by the death of his cousin, Lucius, who Tiro knows commited suicide, as well as the death of his father. The senator is Cicero, a brilliant young lawyer and spellbinding orator, determined to attain imperium - supreme power in the state.

After all don't we have enough Ciceros in politics all round the world, there doesn't seem to be any particular shortage of ambitious people who will change their allegiances, abandon principles, act at times with surprising naivety, and marry just to get a little closer to holding high political office.