Discover Colleen McCullough's Rome: Fiction or Reality? We Analyze Her Famous Saga and Most Iconic Characters
Colleen McCullough is one of my favorite writers. The first novel I read by her was The October Horse, which deals with Julius Caesar, his conquest of Gaul, and the civil war.
To be honest, that first novel didn't completely satisfy me. I sensed my ignorance about the Roman Republic was partly to blame, but there was something else: the narrative expected me to care about nuances and emotional payoffs I simply couldn't grasp.
I dismissed the thought until a friend mentioned The First Man in Rome. That’s when it clicked: the book I had read was actually the grand finale of a massive saga. All those emotional gaps I felt were masterfully built up in the previous books.
I bought the entire saga (at that time, you could still find them in Venezuela): The First Man in Rome, The Grass Crown, Fortune's Favorites, Caesar's Women, and the one I already had, The October Horse (or Caesar, depending on the publisher).
I started with The First Man in Rome (a smile still appears every time I open the novel to reread it). It's about the rise of Gaius Marius and the introduction of Lucius Cornelius Sulla. It's fantastic.
I'm not going to talk about each novel individually, but rather the saga: it covers everything from the rise of Gaius Marius during the Republic and the various civil wars, right up to the death of the Republic under the dictatorship of Gaius Julius Caesar. The author later added books about the Triumvirate and Octavian, but due to my prejudices against the Empire, I haven't enjoyed them as much.
The entire saga is a delight, as long as you don't expect strict historical exactitude. The author presents the characters who, broadly speaking, shaped Western culture, but in a very human way and according to her own criteria. History and fiction (the proven fact and the humanization of the characters) coexist wonderfully. You can read actual senate debates on laws while Marcus Aemilius Scaurus's intelligent blue eyes silently suggest how his followers should vote across the room.
This saga has die-hard fans and fierce critics. Fiction versus reality. The truth is that any historical work, no matter how respectful of the events it tries to be, is a work of fiction: it's the author's interpretation of an event, and often of the human motivations that caused it. It's a fiction, even if you're writing about your own brother. Much more so when we are talking about characters and events from classical antiquity.
Others claim it sets up the good guys against the bad guys. That the author, sympathizing with the Populares faction, portrays them as perfect. Nothing could be further from the truth. In the writer's words, I discovered thousands of complexes, quirks, and vices within that perfection, and of course, virtues in the supposed villains. The historical facts speak for themselves. There are still many who judge some of the changes brought about by Gaius Marius as highly valuable—including the author—while for me, they mark the beginning of the end of the Republic. That doesn't stop me from admiring and enjoying her novels.
Either way, they are novels. Using stereotypes and dividing people into good and bad is a writer's tool to drive sales. It's what the public wants. As a writer, I understand that.
Others argue she doesn't delve deeply enough into the characters. Oh, please! This is a work that brings together dozens of real historical figures plus some fictional ones, over the course of many years. Some are developed more than others, and even so, I think she does it adequately. Some of them are my absolute favorite characters.
Anyway: if you like historical fiction and want to understand where we come from, I highly recommend the saga.
Later, I read The Song of Troy. It's The Iliad, enriched by the author's fiction. I liked it a lot too. And we must start from the premise that The Iliad itself is a work of fiction (I'm sure more than one person will complain that it doesn't respect history).
Finally, I read Morgan's Run. It's about the founding of Australia and New Zealand by the British Crown using convicts: intellectuals, freethinkers, troublesome businessmen, murderers, thieves. There was a bit of everything.
The first time I picked it up, I lost interest around the fifth chapter. I don't know if it was because I was expecting monumental historical and military events, like in the Rome saga; because of my age; or because I just couldn't concentrate on any novel at that moment.
The second time, I read it in three days. It's a more subdued novel, dealing more with patience and persistence than with struggle and heroism.
And that makes me think that Achilles, the hero of The Iliad, had he actually existed, wouldn't have left any descendants or built anything. Colleen McCullough is a descendant of Morgan, the patient and persistent character. Funny, isn't it?
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