The October Horse
A Novel of Caesar and Cleopatra
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $1.99
Publisher Description
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Thorn Birds comes the sixth volume in the epic Masters of Rome series retelling the fall of the Roman Republic and, ultimately, the fall of Caesar.
Grand in scope and vivid in detail, McCullough’s gripping narrative thrusts readers headlong into the complex and fascinating world of Rome in the tumultuous last days of the Republic. At the height of his power, Gaius Julius Caesar becomes embroiled in a civil war in Egypt, where he finds himself enraptured by Cleopatra, the nation’s golden-eyed queen. To perform his duty as a Roman, however, he must forsake his love and return to the capital to rule.
Though Caesar’s grip on power seems unshakable, the political landscape is treacherous—the returning hero has no obvious successor, and his legacy seems to be the prize for any man with the courage and cunning to fell Rome’s laurelled leader. Caesar’s jealous enemies masquerade as friends and scheme to oust the autocrat from power and restore true republican government to Rome. As tensions rise, it becomes clear that with the stakes this high, no alliance is sacred and no motives are pure.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Caesar may be the nominal protagonist of this last novel in a series of six chronicling the demise of the Roman Republic, but the presiding spirit is that of Octavian (later Augustus), Caesar's successor and Rome's first emperor. McCullough's Octavian is as complex and gifted as her Caesar, but far less moral, just or merciful a fitting ruler for a Rome grown too unwieldy for republican government. Blessed with the same immediacy and breezy style that made the tumultuous first century B.C. come alive in previous volumes (The First Man of Rome; Caesar: Let the Dice Fly;etc.), McCullough's heady novel begins with Caesar as dictator of Rome. Brilliant, ruthless, ascetic in his habits and devoted to the welfare of Rome, he enacts a series of reforms while consolidating his power and fathering a son with Cleopatra. The Egyptian, here portrayed as spoiled and shortsighted but passionately in love with Caesar, is just one in a panoply of richly imagined characters: Cato, obdurate republican and traditionalist; Mark Antony, a crass brute with a streak of animal cunning; decent Brutus, batted between his mother, the poisonous Servilia, and Porcia, his vengeful wife. Caesar is a bit too perfect in McCullough's telling, and Antony too monstrous; the novel also suffers from a sameness of voice throughout. But the skillfulness of McCullough's portrait of Octavian will make readers wish more novels were in the offing. Introduced as a guarded, talented youth, he is transformed by Caesar's assassination into a merciless, retributive man or perhaps he simply shows his true colors. The book ends in a dark blaze of vengeance with his pursuit and destruction of Caesar's assassins.
