Wednesday, March 27, 2019

Book Review: Roma, by Steven Saylor

One of four rereads for me on David MacClaine's list of 50 Historical Fiction novels set in Ancient Rome, I read Roma a few years back when I was reading Saylor's mystery fiction following his character Gordianus the Finder.

Roma takes place over more than 1000 years, from the earliest days of what would become Rome but was simply a good place to find salt, through its time as a trading post, a city, a kingdom, and eventually the Republic. The novel is basically eleven interconnected short stories following the ups and downs of a family line while also showing how Rome as a city grew over time.

As a follow up to Alfred Duggan's Founding Fathers, it gives a nice overview of where the first half of this fifty book list is going to cover, and also does a nice job of giving a flavour to the setting, but shying away from one simple character we get to follow priests, leaders, warriors, slaves, vestal virgins, and more, giving a much more complex picture that one protagonist could have given us.

A great way to introduce yourself to both the subject matter and Saylor's work (of which I'm a pretty big fan), Roma is an excellent read and well worth your time.

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