Empire by Steven Saylor
A book review
Empire covers the sweep of ancient Rome's history from 14 A.D. to 141 A.D. as experienced by four generations of a fictional patrician family introduced in Roma. The family has dwindled, but fathers still pass down to the eldest sons a curiously shaped golden pendant, its meaning and origin long forgotten. Young Lucius receives it the day of his examination to become an augur, a professional reader of omens and portents. The same day, an obscure member of Caesar Augustus's family, the stuttering, drooling Claudius, also takes the examination. Their friendship begins a generations-long association with the Roman emperors, offering readers a close look at Rome's rulers from the perspective of less exalted citizens.
After Augustus died in 14 A.D., Rome fell into the hands of emotionally disturbed men who used their position for self-gratification. Tiberius, Caligula, Nero and Domitian may have been the worst, but they were not the only emperors who plundered Rome's treasury for self-indulgent feasts, palaces, artworks, and bloody exhibitions ranging from gladiatorial games to mass executions. Romans lived in fear of being summoned by a capricious, easily enraged emperor who might execute them in a torturous public display or terrify them at length before releasing them. But these years also saw the rise of a disreputable foreign religion, Christianity, and the pagan philosophies of men like Epictetus and Apollonius of Tyana which can still comfort and inspire.
A well-researched panorama of Imperial Roman history, Empire falls prey to some typical weaknesses of time-sweep novels. Dialogue, frequently used to convey background information, tends to be stilted, but the information is interesting, the dialogue sometimes dryly humorous. A playwright comments of Euripedes, "Despite the antiquity of his subject matter, his outlook is remarkably modern; the darkness and violence of his stories resonate with present-day Romans." Some scenes in the novel are exceptionally vivid, bringing readers right inside the characters to share their fear, horror, joy or hope. (2010; 589 pages, including an Author's Note discussing the historical and archaeological sources behind the novel)