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jamelchior's review against another edition
5.0
Roma is a historical novel that spans the history of Rome from the earliest times (pre-city, pre-history) to the end of the Republic. It does this by following the descendents of two people through the stages of history. The people themselves in each generation have mostly forgotten their family's past history, but we know it, and they know bits and pieces that have passed into legend or rumor, or morphed into something else. The book borrows freely from historical sources and archaeology to tell the best stories, with imaginative detail and threads that tie it all together.
I read this book in preparation for a trip, and it made me fascinated to see the layers of history in that place. Fascinated so maybe the fascinum in the book was working? Great read.
I read this book in preparation for a trip, and it made me fascinated to see the layers of history in that place. Fascinated so maybe the fascinum in the book was working? Great read.
aront's review against another edition
3.0
Good:
Easy to read. Saylor knows all the tricks of the trade to keep the suspense going, to keep the story line moving and to make his characters interesting. He also brings to life many of the "heroes" of Roman history and humanizes their motivations. He gives the reader a good feel for the day to day life of Rome at all levels of it's society. Finally he brings to life all the themes that led Rome to become a great empire along with the internal conflicts that eventually led to it's collapse: it's ruthless militarism, it's religious conservatism, the conflict between plebes and patricians along with the outsized egos of generals, senators and businessman.
Bad:
Didactic explanations of the missed decades between chapters to fill in the missing gaps. Surely he could have found a better way to do this. Also the trite "follow the family through the centuries" approach to historical fiction was just a hack trick. The Source is the granddaddy of all these but Michener is a much finer craftsman than Saylor and the rest. Some more innovative approach is needed.
And as some other review noted, turning the winged phallus into a cross was jarring and totally absurd.
Nonetheless worth a read. Rome is so central to human history and this is an easy way to pick up the basics.
Easy to read. Saylor knows all the tricks of the trade to keep the suspense going, to keep the story line moving and to make his characters interesting. He also brings to life many of the "heroes" of Roman history and humanizes their motivations. He gives the reader a good feel for the day to day life of Rome at all levels of it's society. Finally he brings to life all the themes that led Rome to become a great empire along with the internal conflicts that eventually led to it's collapse: it's ruthless militarism, it's religious conservatism, the conflict between plebes and patricians along with the outsized egos of generals, senators and businessman.
Bad:
Didactic explanations of the missed decades between chapters to fill in the missing gaps. Surely he could have found a better way to do this. Also the trite "follow the family through the centuries" approach to historical fiction was just a hack trick. The Source is the granddaddy of all these but Michener is a much finer craftsman than Saylor and the rest. Some more innovative approach is needed.
And as some other review noted, turning the winged phallus into a cross was jarring and totally absurd.
Nonetheless worth a read. Rome is so central to human history and this is an easy way to pick up the basics.
colorfulleo92's review against another edition
4.0
4.5 stars. This was a very engaging, interesting and fun to read. Spaning about 1000 years of ancient Rome's history following two family's through time this was much better then I expected. Thought it would be hard to connect with the story with all the time jumping but it was much more engaging and entertaining then I thought and I highly recommend it
sassyporcupine's review against another edition
3.0
This book explains how Rome was built. From its most basic origins as a salt traders path to the history we know of Caesar and Cleopatra. It basically follows to family lines through all that time period, even more importantly it follows one necklace through that time. I liked the way the book was laid out as small snippets, helped to keep from getting bogged down in history. All in all, a lite way to get some history learned.
jclin's review against another edition
3.0
Roma starts off strong, with the riveting stories of Italy's days before the founding of Rome and Romulus and Remus's tale. However, towards the middle, the book seems to lose momentum. For instance, the story of Kaeso seemed to abruptly stop without a definite conclusion. I feel that in the earlier chapters, Saylor was able to exercise his creative freedom more due to a lack of historical documentation from the time.
lakesbecky's review against another edition
4.0
What an amazing voyage through the history of Rome from it's origins to it's first emperor. Vivid story telling.
tracey_stewart's review against another edition
2.0
Roma is, as the title indicates, a history of the city following the tangled thread of two families’ stories through (usually) the eldest male child of the clan(s): the possessor of the amulet known as Fascinus. The book begins in 1000 BC (not BCE; huh), when it was simply a campsite among the used by salt traders and other migratory groups on their trade routes, follows the amulet and the families, united in marriage now and then, as they have the brainstorm of creating a settlement on the campsite, as the settlement grows and the name Roma becomes more permanent, as Romulus and Remus rise and fall and Roma becomes a city, as the city expands – all the way up through the first century BC and the murder of Julius Caesar and the reign of Octavius/Augustus. I find it a bit odd, some of the things that the rocks skip over – Caesar’s entire reign, for example…
The Potitii and Pinarii are never the largest figures in their stories, moving in the shadows of such as Scipio, Coriolanus, the twins … Hercules… The chapters are like stones skipped across a lake (or the Tiber), touching down every few years before they drop out of sight and the next one launches out, starting a few dozen or score years later than the last.
Prehistory’s a funny area between fantasy and history; there usually isn’t enough solid data to do more than speculate about the setting, given the fact that it’s called prehistory because it occurred before history could be written down … Five scholars could look at the same evidence from digs and later written sources and such and come up with five very different conclusions. This is speculative fiction at its, for me, least attractive. (I guess I’m just not a huge fan of stone knives and bearskins.)
Gladii and togas (togae?) aren’t my favorite, either, but fascinating when done well. And this isn’t done badly at all. The book is necessarily choppy as the stones skip over decades and centuries over 555 pages and 999 years, with the only constants being the place and Fascinus. The writing is stiff and sometimes redundant – almost unconfident, in the effort that is taken to make sure some points get across, which is strange in that a volume like this had to have taken a lot of sheer dogged confidence. “Show, don’t tell” is largely nonexistent here. The dialogue is fairly natural, but also fairly homogenous. I don’t think there’s much difference to be found between the dialogue of the early Potitii and the later ones, except in what they talk about. The characters … I don’t so much enjoy a book in which I can’t warm up to the characters, and I couldn’t here, between the brief rock-skips in which they appear and the fact that they mostly just (whether it’s the different mores and such of ancient Rome or simply a reader-writer disconnect) aren’t very likeable. Which in a way I suppose is just as well; it would be awful to love one set of characters only to be wrenched away to another set, and another, and another … So it’s not a bad thing that I just simply do not like these people.
The main thing I can’t enjoy is the sheer bloodthirstiness of the times. It’s easy to lose track of just how civilized we are now, until immersed in something like this. Two thousand years ago, apparently, it was perfectly fine to reassure a child by telling him that his uncle had escaped from the nasty pirates and then hunted them down and crucified them. It was also considered unfortunate but pretty much okay that three hundred men were executed here, a couple hundred men, women, and children there, heads placed on spikes and thousands enslaved. That’s the thing – it’s not only the blood and slavery and rape and mutilation – it’s the attitude toward all of this. It’s all normal.
The format of the book is much like Peter Ackroyd’s London, and Follett’s Pillars of the Earth, which I read last year and … felt very much the same about as I do Roma. I have a hard time looking at a book like this as a novel; but it isn’t a history either, despite what I’m learning. It’s an instructive time-travelogue.
The Potitii and Pinarii are never the largest figures in their stories, moving in the shadows of such as Scipio, Coriolanus, the twins … Hercules… The chapters are like stones skipped across a lake (or the Tiber), touching down every few years before they drop out of sight and the next one launches out, starting a few dozen or score years later than the last.
Prehistory’s a funny area between fantasy and history; there usually isn’t enough solid data to do more than speculate about the setting, given the fact that it’s called prehistory because it occurred before history could be written down … Five scholars could look at the same evidence from digs and later written sources and such and come up with five very different conclusions. This is speculative fiction at its, for me, least attractive. (I guess I’m just not a huge fan of stone knives and bearskins.)
Gladii and togas (togae?) aren’t my favorite, either, but fascinating when done well. And this isn’t done badly at all. The book is necessarily choppy as the stones skip over decades and centuries over 555 pages and 999 years, with the only constants being the place and Fascinus. The writing is stiff and sometimes redundant – almost unconfident, in the effort that is taken to make sure some points get across, which is strange in that a volume like this had to have taken a lot of sheer dogged confidence. “Show, don’t tell” is largely nonexistent here. The dialogue is fairly natural, but also fairly homogenous. I don’t think there’s much difference to be found between the dialogue of the early Potitii and the later ones, except in what they talk about. The characters … I don’t so much enjoy a book in which I can’t warm up to the characters, and I couldn’t here, between the brief rock-skips in which they appear and the fact that they mostly just (whether it’s the different mores and such of ancient Rome or simply a reader-writer disconnect) aren’t very likeable. Which in a way I suppose is just as well; it would be awful to love one set of characters only to be wrenched away to another set, and another, and another … So it’s not a bad thing that I just simply do not like these people.
The main thing I can’t enjoy is the sheer bloodthirstiness of the times. It’s easy to lose track of just how civilized we are now, until immersed in something like this. Two thousand years ago, apparently, it was perfectly fine to reassure a child by telling him that his uncle had escaped from the nasty pirates and then hunted them down and crucified them. It was also considered unfortunate but pretty much okay that three hundred men were executed here, a couple hundred men, women, and children there, heads placed on spikes and thousands enslaved. That’s the thing – it’s not only the blood and slavery and rape and mutilation – it’s the attitude toward all of this. It’s all normal.
The format of the book is much like Peter Ackroyd’s London, and Follett’s Pillars of the Earth, which I read last year and … felt very much the same about as I do Roma. I have a hard time looking at a book like this as a novel; but it isn’t a history either, despite what I’m learning. It’s an instructive time-travelogue.
jerihurd's review against another edition
3.0
Fun historical novel--each chapter deals with a different event in Roman history, from pre-founding days to...well, I'm not sure when it will end. I'm not that far yet!
mbondlamberty's review against another edition
Fun and easy reads through which to learn your Roman history.