The October Horse: A Novel of Caesar and Cleopatra

Sixth book of McCullough’s Masters of Rome series which covers the end of the republic from Marius to Antony, 110 BC to the Battle of Actium in 31 and Octavian’s assumption of the title Augustus in 27.

First class research, first class recreation of an alien culture.

A bleaker novel than the earlier ones in the series. Caesar is tired, and his assassination might just have come as a relief. Rome is tired, and the unending Civil Wars and succession of increasingly powerful Dictators is leading her to the Principate, the architect of which is introduced to us as a young man of 18, possessing some of Caesar’s superior abilities, but a different sort of man, cooler, far more ambitious: where McCullough presented Caesar as thwarted in his desire for his due within the normal parameters of a public career and recognition of his superior abilities, his actions directed towards political survival, she presents Octavian from the start as ambitious for great power and the rule of Rome and the world. Where Caesar awed and delighted us, Octavian chills.