[by Lynn C. Rees]<\/p>\n
Colleen McCullough<\/a> is dead (props Razib Khan<\/a>).<\/p>\n It’s a sign of George Lucas’ complete\u00a0incompetence as a storyteller\u00a0that he found the third greatest story ever told and left it an abomination. It is a sign of McCullough’s greatness as a storyteller that she took the third greatest story ever told and lifted it far enough to\u00a0almost glimpse the second greatest story ever told. When I see the fall of the Roman Republic<\/a>, I see it through McCullough’s eyes.<\/p>\n McCullough wrote seven books in her\u00a0Masters of Rome<\/em><\/a> series:<\/p>\n I’ve read the first six.<\/p>\n McCullough is given one of the greatest cast of characters in history and brings them to life:<\/p>\n Lesser-known characters given their due:<\/p>\n One aspect of history that McCullough’s novelizations allow her to highlight how interconnected<\/em> these characters\u00a0were, especially by blood ties. Genealogy helped and hindered the lives of prominent Romans in ways history books sometimes fail to capture. Servilia Caepionis, for example, was Caepio’s daughter, Drusus’ niece, Cato’s half-sister, Brutus’ mother, and Cassius and Lepidus<\/a>‘ mother-in-law as well as\u00a0Caesar’s long-time mistress.<\/p>\n McCullough uses fictional but plausible plot devices, arrived at through meticulous research, to plug\u00a0gaps in the historical record. She marries Sulla to an invented short lived younger sister of Julia Caeseris, making Sulla Marius’ brother-in-law and providing a rationale for why Sulla was on Marius’ staff in Numidia. She explains Caesar Octavianus’ chronic absence from the field of battle by making him asthmatic.<\/p>\n Vivid scenes I recall:<\/p>\n McCullough’s star though out is clearly Caesar, growing from a young boy learning at the knee of Uncle Marius, to the devoted husband of the daughter<\/a> of one of Sulla’s archenemies<\/a> who refuses to divorce her despite Sulla going into full beast mode to the rising politician to conquering general to assassinated dictator.<\/p>\n\n
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