Talk:Masters of Rome

New book?

who told u that there will b a new book? i have hoped there would be, but she said there wouldm]nt be

Source?

Like my grammer-challenged college, I'm curious - is there a source on her writing another book? I just finished The October Horse again, and I'd be pleased if she put out another one.

She stated she had changed her mind in recent interviews. The new novel, Queen of the Beast, was announced by Harper-Collins in January 2007, with an expected publication date of September 2007. It is already up for pre-order at amazon.co.uk. 71.244.17.49 16:47, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

The new novel has changed its name to Antony and Cleopatra.

According to chapters.indigo.ca: Format:Trade Paperback, Published:October 1, 2007, Dimensions:386 Pages, 6 x 9 in, ISBN:1552786714, Published By:McArthur & Company BroMonque 23:29, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Caesar, Nephew of Sulla?

I've only read the first two novels of this series, but unless McCullough has taken liberties rather more serious than I should have thought her capable of, I'm fairly certain that the text in this article that reads "such as Sulla, and his nephew Caesar" must have been written in error. Caesar was the nephew of Marius, not Sulla. Actually, as I'm typing this I'm remembering that the series does actually suggest that Sulla's first wife was the younger sister of the Julia whom history records as both aunt to Caesar and wife to Marius— but, nonetheless, Sulla was hardly a reformer. This ought to be changed.--LordSnow 20:56, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Ok, so you acknowledge that Sulla was Caesar's uncle in the novels. (Yes, McCullough is taking a small liberty with the ancient source in infering that Sulla's first wife was that Julia.) Perhaps we should just rephrase the sentence to read 'such as Sulla and Caesar'. Yes, that's what I'll do.

Spoiler Warning

Sulla was very much a reformer. Much more so than Marius. Whereas Marius wanted to lead the state to military victory and tried to do so by dominating politics, Sulla actively reformed the government as well as the state religion. This is very obvious by the end of Fortune's Favourites. Nick 21:28, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Sulla reorganized the government to reinforce the rule of the Senatorial class. He did not, as the article suggests, try "to reform the old ways." He rather used his sweeping powers as dictator to return Rome to the old ways. Or at least, I should say, that's what history records. I believe the last novel that I read in the series ended before his return to Rome from fighting Mithridates, so perhaps McCullough decided to cast Sulla as a misunderstood radical—somehow. Or perhaps she cast him in exactly the right light, and the article as it stands reflects a misunderstanding. I suppose that I'm not really in a position to say. But you're right, by a strict definition of the word "reform" he was "very much a reformer"—just not in any sense that the article suggests.--LordSnow 01:39, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Can anyone recommend historical fiction in a similar style? I loved the Masters of Rome series. I've read other Roman historical fiction but none of it is as realistic and scholarly as McCullough's. I'm wondering if people can recommend other historical fiction, from any period, which is detailed and realistic and which also takes the major historical figures and events as its subject.

Martha Rofheart: The Alexandrian.ALu06 23:21, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Reviews by historians?

As a big fan of the series, I'm glad it has its own page. Since it is so much praised for its "meticulous research", I would very much like to read what historians have to say about it. I just watched an 8-part documentary (Ancient Rome: Power & Glory, Discovery Channel) that would turn every McCullough-nursed Rome buff into a "lies!!!"-screaming lunatic. This article would also profit from a few links.
I was looking for something really damning (like the best comments on imdb are usually the 'hate it' ones), but so far all I managed to find was an essay by Margaret Malamud (Historian) in "Imperial Projections: Ancient Rome in Modern Popular Culture". I'll have to pay for that one. Here is an except from a review:

"Most interesting here is the observation that these novels are essentially conservative: bloodlines determine social class, and correctly so; women are weak and subordinate; homosexuality is an identity and an indication of moral degeneration; eastern characters are effeminate and luxurious; and so on. [...] McCullough infantilizes her characters, producing upper class Romans who are all Id. Finally, the essay critiques the marketing of the novels themselves, and the ways in which the novels re-make Roman history into a supermarket Romance."[1]

Malamud has a point there. But that's all about characterization and not the intricate backdrop that makes the series such a good and convincing read. ALu06 23:09, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I do hate to be anal, but McCullough observed that she wrote the novels from the point of view of those who actually lived during that time, not from our own modern perspective. She strove to avoid anachronisms. So yes, bloodlines certainly determined social class, or else Marius and Cicero would not have had such a time to get their consulships. Women were supposed to be weak and subordinate, though that didn't stop Aurelia, Cornelia Mother of the Gracchi, Fulvia, Servilia, and other women a patriarchal society saw fit to record, and not just for womanly virtue. Ancient Romans (in Caesar's time, at least) certainly viewed homosexuality as damning to a political career, and viewed Easterners as effeminate and luxurious, though I'd be delighted to hear Malamud explain how Mithridates VI was characterized as an effeminate pansy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Black Sword (talk • contribs) 17:55, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

McCullough's version of Roman homosexuality is colored by her own prejudices. The Romans, well before Caesar's time, did not make any moral distinctions between hetero and homosexual intercourse. The distinction was all in sexual roles. It was a disgrace for a man of standing to allow himself to be taken, but not to take another male. Thus, when both Caesar and Antony were reported to have engaged in homosexual adventures, it was their supposedly passive roles that were much ridiculed by their contemporaries; not the gender of their partners. This is a fact supported by a complete absence of condemnation in Roman literature. The Romans despised effeminancy, not homosexuality. Lorzu (talk) 10:25, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Sulla’s Politics

The article as currently written makes Sulla appear to be a member of the populares. Both historically, and in the context of the novels, this is false; Sulla was very much an optimate. However, the novels have some sympathy for his politics, as opposed to most other optimates portrayed. Not quite sure how to fix this in the article, where populares/optimates are mixed up with good guys/bad guys. Murr (talk) 00:02, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

- I see your point. I removed the reference to "Popularis" since it does not apply to Sulla, AND because calling it a 'ticket' as in a modern political party is incorrect. Ratagonia (talk) 04:33, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Macular degeneration as preventing further entries in Rome series

The article oddly concludes that it was unlikely in the years after publishing her last entry in the Rome series that McCullough would return to it given the macular degeneration she suffered before her death. Antony and Cleopatra, the last installment in the series, was published in 2007. Entries in the murder mysteries she wrote in the last years of her life were published in 2006, 2009, 2010, 2012, and 2013. She also published Bittersweet, a novel set in the 1920s, in 2013. McCullough died in 2015. According to an obituary in The Sydney Morning Herald, "Her publisher at HarperCollins Australia, Shona Martyn, said McCullough had been dictating a sequel [to the novel Bittersweet], set around World War II, into an old-fashioned dictaphone but had only completed a third of the novel when she died." I infer that eyesight trouble did not prevent Colleen McCullough from writing and that the main reason she stopped writing novels about Rome in the period 2008-2015 is that she wanted to write about other subjects. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:844:4100:392E:8AD:DA3A:2283:AF4D (talk) 04:32, 22 April 2018 (UTC)