Caesar's Women - Hardcover

Mccullough, Colleen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0712638512 ISBN 13: 9780712638517

Publisher: William Morrow & Co, Inc., 1996

Synopsis

New York Times bestselling author Colleen McCullough re-creates an extraordinary epoch before the mighty Republic belonged to Julius Caesar-when Rome's noblewomen were his greatest conquest. His victories were legend-in battle and bedchamber alike. Love was a political weapon he wielded cunningly and ruthlessly in his private war against enemies in the forum. Genius, general, patrician, Gaius Julius Caesar was history. His wives bought him influence. He sacrificed his beloved daughter on the altar of ambition. He burned for the cold-hearted mistress he could never dare trust. Caesar's women all knew-and feared-his power. He adored them, used them, destroyed them on his irresistible rise to prominence. And one of them would seal his fate. The first three novels in McCullough's Masters of Rome series--First Man in Rome, The Grass Crown, and Fortune's Favorites--have all led to this book: Caesar in his ascension. This dramatic novel tells the story of Julius Caesar and the Republic of Rome: a world that loved him, resented him, fought to destroy him--but never managed to ignore him.

About this title

About the Author:

Colleen McCullough enjoys worldwide renown, and her novels are bestsellers in a multitude of languages. She is the author of The Thorn Birds, Tim, An Indecent Obsession, A Creed for the Third Millennium, The Ladies of Missalonghi, The First Man in Rome, The Grass Crown, Fortunes Favorites, as well as Caesars Women. She lives with her husband, Ric Robinson, on Norfolk Island in the South Pacific.

From Publishers Weekly:

Senator and debtor, general and seducer, orator and would-be world conqueror, Julius Caesar, as depicted in this fourth installment (after Fortune's Favorites) in McCullough's epic re-creation of ancient Rome, is both a force of nature and something of a momma's boy. He worships his sophisticated mother Aurelia, "a fount of experience and a mine of common sense," while dismissing as "not important" his "expensive, idle, and monumentally silly" second wife, Pompeia. Its title notwithstanding, this marvelously researched and detailed novel focuses on traditional male pursuits-political intrigue, war, conquest-in the corruption-riddled late Roman republic even as it elucidates the behind-the-scenes influence of women in a repressively patriarchal society. Caesar, though tenderly loving and protective toward his daughter, Julia, pledges her as a child to the adolescent Brutus, with whose mother-the cruel, scheming Servilia-the future dictator of Rome has a purely sexual affair. Years later, Caesar cancels the betrothal in order to use his blossoming daughter as bait to forge a political alliance with the commander of the Roman legions. Meanwhile, Cicero, Caesar's main rival, is portrayed as an incurable vacillator and social climber who displays scant gratitude toward his "sour" and "ugly" wife, Terentia, despite her foiling a conspiracy against his life. With great brio, and ample attention to Roman customs and rites, as well as to the religious, sexual and social institutions of the day, including slavery, McCullough captures the driven, passionate soul of ancient Rome. Illustrations; maps. Author tour.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: William Morrow & Co, Inc.
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0712638512
• ISBN 13: 9780712638517
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 878