Anny P. (wolfnme) reviewed The Grass Crown (Masters of Rome, Bk 2) (Audio Cassette) (Abridged) on + 3389 more book reviews
This novel is a continuation of the "Rome" series of books, of which this novel is the second. The first was "the First Man in Rome". Again, and with feeling, this is the best series I have ever read in my entire life! The words compulsive and fascinating are simply too flat and characterless to do justice to this series. If I was ever stranded on a desert island with only one thing to read for the rest of my life it would be this series of novels, they are that good.
This novel continues where the first left off and covers the decline of Gaius Marius, both in power and in faculty, and the meteoric rise of Sulla to the heights of power, and the titanic struggles that these erstwhile comrades ignited in the Roman world as their relationship slowly shifted from allies to enemies as each began to seek his own self-aggrandizement at the expense of the other. This is a fabulous book, and I found Sulla every bit as interesting as I did Marius, particularly since he was a more complex person with his difficult and impoverished youth, his cunning such a youth created, his difficulty with interpersonal relationships, his homosexuality, and the way he had to absolutely sublimate all of this in his quest for power.....and yet at the end, despite his more unconventional beginnings than Marius and his personal traits and habits (despised by most Roman senators), he is the far more conservative of the pair. Marius is born of rural and conservative roots but becomes a demogogue and populist, while the homosexual party-animal Sulla evolves into a rabid conservative along the lines of a Pat Buchanan. It's a lot of fun!
This novel continues where the first left off and covers the decline of Gaius Marius, both in power and in faculty, and the meteoric rise of Sulla to the heights of power, and the titanic struggles that these erstwhile comrades ignited in the Roman world as their relationship slowly shifted from allies to enemies as each began to seek his own self-aggrandizement at the expense of the other. This is a fabulous book, and I found Sulla every bit as interesting as I did Marius, particularly since he was a more complex person with his difficult and impoverished youth, his cunning such a youth created, his difficulty with interpersonal relationships, his homosexuality, and the way he had to absolutely sublimate all of this in his quest for power.....and yet at the end, despite his more unconventional beginnings than Marius and his personal traits and habits (despised by most Roman senators), he is the far more conservative of the pair. Marius is born of rural and conservative roots but becomes a demogogue and populist, while the homosexual party-animal Sulla evolves into a rabid conservative along the lines of a Pat Buchanan. It's a lot of fun!
