The Cicero Trilogy Hardcover – September 16, 2021

Reading the trilogy as a single extended novel I a marvellous experience. Cicero was lawyer, orator, philosopher and politician in the turbulent final years of the Roman republic. Harris beings him and his contemporaries to life through the imagined biography of his assistant and amanuensis Tiro, a slave who became a free man and (allegedly) lived to be 100. Tiro really did write such a work, now lost, but Cicero's recorded speeches. letters and other work remain. Harris has done a great service to Tiro and to Cicero through this brilliant recreation. Caesar, Pompey, Antony, numerous other men and women of the time step out of the pages and we are carried along through small details and great events. The story moves at pace but is full of telling observation and Harris uses his own experience in politics to draw fascinating parallels with modern politics and with the realities of political life in any society at any time. I loved this work, do give it a try!

The dying decades of the Republic are vividly brought to life as Harris weaves some literary magic centred on one of the late Republic's most noted politicians - Cicero.Beautifully written with phenomenal attention to historical detail, Harris lays out, in fascinating detail, Cicero's career and the events that led to the birth of Imperial Rome.Utterly brilliant and an absolute must read for those fascinated by Roman history.

A great history lesson told by a real pro. Interesting, great story, very enjoyable reading.

I have enjoyed this series so much that I have no words to describe the joy it has given me for so many hours.

Perhaps one of the most engaging, eye-opening and informative books I have read. Transported me into history and alluded to adages of: 'History repeating itself'; 'if you want to know the future, learn about the past'. Aside from our contemporary technological skin - humanity really has not changed a lot. Cicero by Robert Harris is like a mirror to ourselves - what we are, what we may become and what we might aspire towards. Highly readable, highly recommended.

A paced and compelling read which I read over an extended holiday and which entertained and educated as well as lucidly bringing to life the dusty personalities of a troubled period in history. Cicero was drawn in a very human light with all his vices as well as virtues, his genius and his vanities laid bare.

Most readers like myself will probably have learnt much of their history relating to this period from Shakespeare – Julius Caesar, Anthony and Cleopatra. This book brings a somewhat different slant, and probably more accurate, on the same historical period.

A great work of historical fiction, grounded in history. The trilogy takes you along the rise and fall of the greatest orator of the Roman Republic. I was swept away aling the tides of history.