The Judgement of Caesar

Action-packed, and as thrilling emotionally as viscerally, this is perfect historical fiction writing, and head and shoulders above the slew of Roman novels now doing the rounds. Saylor's talent is one to be treasured, and here he is right back near his best.


The Judgment of Caesar   June 12, 2004
 61 out of 68 found this review helpful

'The Judgment of Caesar' opens shortly after the events of the proceeding novel, 'Mist of Prophecies'. Gordianus (suffixed, through his profession, 'The Finder') and his wife Bethesda are looking out for the light of the famed Pharos as they approach Alexandria in the period following Caesar's defeat of Pompey ('The Great One') at Pharsalus. What could be a long opening descriptive of arrival becomes, rapidly within a small number of pages, a diversion into a plot that will bring, for regular followers of Gordianus' adventures, strands from his past adventures.

Saylor gives as equal justice to bringing alive Ptolemaic Alexandria (a city of which little remains outside fable and ancient literary sources) as he has late Republican Rome in the other novels in the 'Roma sub Rosa' series. Some, on approaching this novel as their first exposure to Gordianus, could be critical of its lead character being known to the era's famous (or, taking a different point of view, infamous) characters. This just merely brings attention to the basic fact that the society most of them existed in was one (relatively, in comparison to that we now endure, small) city upon seven minor hills about a common market space in a valley on the banks of the Tiber. (And that most of the era's most famous characters lived on one, the Palatine, of those hills - go to Rome and see how small that area was.)

He also gives us, in Gordianus, a reliable observer upon events pivotal to the times. From the cursory references left to us he is able to provide fully descriptive narratives of both events and personalities - in such a fashion you feel you are standing just behind Gordianus as he observes them. From the heat of a meeting witnessed upon a barren shore to the perhaps one of the most famous first meetings history (and literature) have passed down.

Both these attributes are carried off with Saylor's usual style to such a degree that you can almost fail to notice that the main crime that needs investigating appears where it does (yet, when it does, it seems as equally almost predestined that it should - especially when you realize the clues were all there). In addition he provides a welcome realistic depiction of the much mythologized Cleopatra - that of a calculating political survivor in an oriental court, capable of turning any opportunity immediately to her advantage. (As is mentioned in both this and a previous novel in the series (in a conversation with the possibly as equally mythologized Marc Antony), a 'female Caesar'.) Also we get as fully developed portrayals of her brother Ptolemy and his mentors. With Ptolemy we are given both a political player equal to his elder sister and an adolescent in search of a role model in Caesar - a relationship that Saylor uses to expand on that which we know between him and Gordianus' estranged son Meto.

If there are two weaknesses with the plot they are are excusable. The first is the mechanism used to divert the ever enigmatic Bethesda (a character in Gordianus' adventures (other than the short stories) whose presence could be, at times, intolerable beyond the supporting - from the originally encountered slave cum concubine through to Palatine matriarch) from the main plot. In itself it can be excused on the grounds she does provide the necessary premise for bringing Gordianus to Egypt but needs to be absent for the plot (though, in itself, this does contribute a little too much of the melancholy his character 'enjoys'). The second is the change in Gordianus' son Meto. It comes too jarring upon previous experience; especially as its causes appear to be further back in his own adventures than previous encounters with the character have given.

Despite these, 'The Judgment of Caesar' provides a story that provides entertainment both for those versed with the characters and the times and those, since there is sufficient explanation of the background, picking it up as a detective story. A book as equally enjoyable in a single sitting as read in snippets. The only fear is, as he is now in his sixties, that we will not get to enjoy too many more of Gordianus' adventures (though students of the period will know that those years he must have left provide ample opportunity for him to both observe and get involved with; Saylor warns us "Beware the Ides of March!").

Sit on your terrace or recline on your couch and slip back to two millennium presented, without prejudice, as fresh as today.