Cheops Books Offers Lots Of Roman Novels:
Historical novels like just about everything else started in ancient Rome with the publication of a series of Greek Hellenistic novels of the romantic sort. So in tribute to the people of the Tiber River who gave us the column, the arch, St. Peters, the Colosseum, and the Roman Forum, Cheops Books has published a series of thrillers about ancient Rome.
One such novel is Julius Caesar: A Novel. In old age and in exile Servilia, mother of Marcus Brutus, awaited the suicide order from the Emperor Augustus, Caesar’s heir, who put to death all of Julius Caesar’s enemies. But instead he asked her to return to Rome and advise him as she once advised his predecessor, whose mistress she was. He wanted her to help raise the daughter of her old enemy Cleopatra, whom he brought back from Egypt after the death of the Serpent of the Nile: “Rome … that great maw of cites, the eater of men that ground and chewed up lives as if they were mere sandy grit between its teeth and then spat them out again. Through endless cycles of the seasons, revolutions, civil wars, and lives always the same. Did I have enough strength in this feeble body to war with her again? The child looked up at me. The answer was on my lips.”
See what you think of this historical thriller from the point of view of Servilia, Julius Caesar’s lifelong friend and mistress. She provides her own perspective on the colossus among men caught between the Republican faction of old Rome and those longing for empire.
Another such novel is Julius Caesar: A Novel. Julia has every reason to wish that she had not been born the daughter of a Roman senator during the Roman Civil Wars of Marius and Sulla. Her father, Rufus, is trying to escape the proscriptions lists and save his life by betrothing his only daughter in marriage to Marcus Sisenna. Marcus Sisenna is the right hand man of Marcus Sulla, one of the leading men of Rome of the day. Rufus needs his armies and the protection both Sulla and Sisenna can provide. But Julia does not want to marry a man who has already had five wives and who is just marrying her for her father’s money and estates. She does not want to be added to his collection of trophies. Julia wants personal happiness despite the time period into which she has been born. Her father thinks only of keeping his wealth and estates together. Her divorced mother is interested only in her own lovers. To whom shall Julia turn for assistance? The answer may surprise you. For it is obviously just the opposite of what the desperate Julia might expect.
