Render Unto Caesar

Rating:
Summary: Highly recommended for fans of the Roman era
Review: As a huge fan of any good book about Romans (especially Colleen McCullough's series) I eagerly snatched this one up and I wasn't disappointed. Although not grand in scale like many works set in Rome at its heyday, it is exceptionally faithful to the historical accuracy of the time (16 bc) and to the leading figures who interact with the main character, a fictional Alexandrian businessman from Egypt. The author is a gifted storyteller who immediately immerses you into Rome and the plight of this proud and honest "Greekling" who gets himself caught up in high-power Roman consular plots and intrigue. The author also does an excellent job of peering into the hearts of her characters, and deftly weaves the appropriate amount of loves lost and found into the plot, not to mention the ubiquitous greed and pride that goes with any Roman story. Believable and interesting from start to finish, it is very well written.

And my measure of a books success - I had great difficulty putting it down until I was done! Highly recommended for fans of the Roman era and lovers of a well-told story.

Rating:
Summary: Highly recommended for fans of the Roman era
Review: As a huge fan of any good book about Romans (especially Colleen McCullough's series) I eagerly snatched this one up and I wasn't disappointed. Although not grand in scale like many works set in Rome at its heyday, it is exceptionally faithful to the historical accuracy of the time (16 bc) and to the leading figures who interact with the main character, a fictional Alexandrian businessman from Egypt. The author is a gifted storyteller who immediately immerses you into Rome and the plight of this proud and honest "Greekling" who gets himself caught up in high-power Roman consular plots and intrigue. The author also does an excellent job of peering into the hearts of her characters, and deftly weaves the appropriate amount of loves lost and found into the plot, not to mention the ubiquitous greed and pride that goes with any Roman story. Believable and interesting from start to finish, it is very well written.

And my measure of a books success - I had great difficulty putting it down until I was done! Highly recommended for fans of the Roman era and lovers of a well-told story.

Rating:
Summary: simplistic and not realistic
Review: Gillian Bradshaw's newest, "Render unto Caesar," came yesterday and I just finished it - it's that good. I'm a fan of all of her books and admire her ability to create three-dimensional characters set in ancient Rome, Athens, Alexandria, or Britannia, but I think this book is at the very top of her form.

Set in the mid-period of Augustus' reign, Hermogenes, a young Greek merchant from Alexandria who has "purchased" and very proud of his new Roman citizenship, comes to Rome to settle the problem of a debt, inherited from his uncle, from a wealthy Roman who, it turns out, is now Consul of Rome Hermogenes thinks, as a respectable Roman citizen, he can politely demand payment under Roman law and all will be well. What happens, however, when he asks the powerful Lucius Tarius Rufus for his 450,000 sesterci debt, sets a plot in motion that is as enticing as any thriller while full thought-provoking historical questions that will intrigue and puzzle. Bradshaw's book is centered in a very real sense of just what real life might have felt like in ancient Rome, from what a wealthy man ate at a dinner party to the refuse and fleas of a fourth-rate insula room for rent. Hermogenes is a fascinating and ultimately admirable character, deeply committed to the idea of Roman justice, proud of his citizenship - yet a Greek from Alexandria in the generation just after Actium and Cleopatra when Greeks were despised as effete and Egyptians as subhuman. His adventures and dangers in Rome feel satisfyingly three-dimensional, without any of that unfortunate trend towards setting a "2003 plot in a toga" that mar some Roman efforts. Bradshaw's scholarship is impressive, and invisible. From the smells and sounds of the early-morning Roman market to what multi-millionaires do to recalcitrant slaves (feed them to the lampreys, which is historically accurate!), Hermogenes dwells in a concrete time, space, and growing danger. And throughout, the question resonates - what does it mean to be a Roman citizen? And is it more, or less, than being a free man in a free country?

The plot twists and turns with no simple answers but driven by the pacing of the characters themselves. If you only read one book about ancient Rome this year, make it "Render Unto Caesar." You'll never feel quite the same way again about the Rome of Augustus and the "Pax Romana."

Rating:
Summary: More from a favorite author
Review: Hooray, another Bradshaw historical! Gillian Bradshaw has a special gift for characterization that makes all her work a treat to read, but her historicals surpass the rest. As histories they make the ancient past not just vivid, but also human and comprehensible. Her readers become privy to mindsets vastly different from their own.

Bradshaw's novels also do what good fiction must do--grip the reader and never let go. Even better, her books bear re-reading, again and again. My absolute favorite continues to be _Island of Ghosts_, but this latest outing is another fine addition to the bookshelf.

Rating:
Summary: not simplistic
Review: The reader from Sandy, UT, is entitled to dislike this book, and as the author, I am not entitled to say anything except 'I'm sorry you didn't enjoy it.' However, I feel that I am entitled to respond to the accusation of anachronism and ignorance of ancient Rome.

Look, I have two good university degrees in Classical Greek and Latin and 25+ years of studying classical antiquity, and it really, really annoys me when I get accused of anachronism on the basis of what some twerp said in Classical Civilisation 101. If you have some evidence that what I've said is wrong, I'd like to hear it, but I very much doubt you do. For example, I could cite you primary sources from Plato to St. Paul, and secondary sources from Carcopino to Crook, to argue that Hermogenes' attitude towards his slaves, far from being anachronistic, is in fact the benevolent paternalism that was the Graeco-Roman ideal for a paterfamilias. (Sure, they didn't live up to their ideals--that makes them human, but does not constitute anachronism.) As for the question of female gladiators--I dealt with that in the afterword. That particular detail is in even the popular history books on gladiators, and if Sandy UT hasn't bothered to read any of them, he or she really shouldn't be sounding off in public about my ignorance.

In case my others readers think my standards of research are slipping--no, they're not: this book was as accurate I could make it.

Rating:
Summary: not simplistic
Review: The reader from Sandy, UT, is entitled to dislike this book, and as the author, I am not entitled to say anything except 'I'm sorry you didn't enjoy it.' However, I feel that I am entitled to respond to the accusation of anachronism and ignorance of ancient Rome.

Look, I have two good university degrees in Classical Greek and Latin and 25+ years of studying classical antiquity, and it really, really annoys me when I get accused of anachronism on the basis of what some twerp said in Classical Civilisation 101. If you have some evidence that what I've said is wrong, I'd like to hear it, but I very much doubt you do. For example, I could cite you primary sources from Plato to St. Paul, and secondary sources from Carcopino to Crook, to argue that Hermogenes' attitude towards his slaves, far from being anachronistic, is in fact the benevolent paternalism that was the Graeco-Roman ideal for a paterfamilias. (Sure, they didn't live up to their ideals--that makes them human, but does not constitute anachronism.) As for the question of female gladiators--I dealt with that in the afterword. That particular detail is in even the popular history books on gladiators, and if Sandy UT hasn't bothered to read any of them, he or she really shouldn't be sounding off in public about my ignorance.

In case my others readers think my standards of research are slipping--no, they're not: this book was as accurate I could make it.

Rating:
Summary: Good light reading for fans of Rome
Review: This fine work of historical fiction set in the Rome of Augustus. Hermogenes, an Alexandrian Greek and trader, travels to the capital city to settle a deeply personal matter involving a debt owed to him by a powerful "new man," the presiding consul Tarius Rufus. Hermogenes's uncle was ruined and his father met an accidental death because of this debt, and Hermogenes stubbornly pursues its redemption. Unfortunately, Rufus is both arrogant and desperately concealing the fact that he is in bad financial straits, and plots to have Hermogenes eliminated to conceal his secret.

Without giving too much more of the plot away, the result is an entertaining tale that takes the reader inside the travails that even a wealthy foreignor would encounter trying to speak to power in ancient Rome. The book is at its best in the way it handles slavery. Slavery, and in particular the relationships between masters and their slaves, saturates the book. As a fictional examination of slavery in Augustan times, it is an excellent work and is a highly entertaining story.

I found myself only able to give this novel three stars mostly because of my difficulty in classifying it. I disagree with "Publishers Weekly" in that strictly speaking, I do not regard this novel as a thriller. In thinking of how to specifically recommend it, I found myself hard put to do so in any terms beyond good historical fiction; I wonder how much appeal it would have beyond those of us who treasure the Greco-Roman world? I kept thinking that while this audience would find the novel very good indeed, anyone else would probably find it dull.

Rating:
Summary: and thanks for the afterword
Review: This was the most enjoyable work of fiction I have read in some time. I found the characters engaging, the plot interesting, and the little details concerning everyday life fascinating. Well researched! I especially appreciated the notes in the afterword. Thanks to Ms. Bradshaw's recommendation, I am now enjoying Mr. Carcopino's work.