The grass crown - Colleen McCullough (Masters of Rome #2)

From the author of The Thorn Birds and The First Man in Rome, the grandest saga of an extraordinary career continues. The First Man in Rome was the most popular and critically acclaimed historical novel of 1990. In it, Colleen McCullough established for millions of readers her enthralling vision of Ancient Rome and the larger-than-life characters who were the greatest of all Republican Romans.

Now comes The Grass Crown, second book in the six-novel series. The general who saved Rome from barbarian invasion and consul an unprecedented six times, Gaius Marius, has moved into decline. However, it has been foretold that he will be consul seven times, and Marius believes in the prophecy. Lucius Cornelius Sulla, formerly his highly valued right-hand man, has found it necessary to withdraw himself from his commander’s circle in order to grasp at a political and military success at least the equal of Marius’s. These two men also become the most powerful early influences on their famous nephew, Gaius Julius Caesar.

In The Grass Crown, the rivalry between Sulla and Marius blossoms into a deadly enmity, and a competition for prominence which is set against Rome’s own battle for survival – first against the neighbouring Italian states which comprise the foundation of Rome’s fledgling empire, then against a barbaric Asian conqueror.

Sometimes enormously moving, sometimes horrific, The Grass Crown takes the reader inside the skins of people who together are responsible for the fashioning of an empire. Here are the women who carry on their lives because of – or in spite of – their men; here are the children who will shape the future of the western world; children who will also contend for prominence.

But rising above these human characters is Republican Rome herself, the embattled home which is, for these towering characters, more sacred by far than riches, family or god.