Review: Imperium

One of my favourite books of this year following the journey of young Cicero through the eyes of his secretary and slave Tiro.

The trilogy was recommended to me by someone and the first book has been so good, I will definitely read the rest.

The book starts in 79BC with Cicero already a senator, learning rhetoric and public speaking. The reader learns that though he is a natural speaker, he needs training to hone his talent so he finds the best teachers in Greece. Tiro also has political and philosophical intellect and interest. Together they make a very strong pair, along with Cicero’s support cast of his brother Quintus and cousin Lucius.

The first section of the book shows the stage where he goes through challenges to become Plebian aedile in 79BC. As a provincial equestrian class senator, the aristocratic senators and families were against him every step of the way and occupied all the top jobs of government. When a wealthy merchant from Sicily approaches him wanting him to be his advocate against the Roman governor of Sicily, Verres, Cicero sees the risky opportunity to advance himself to aedile. Because if he wins the case, by ancient Roman law he can take the position of the losing defendant and Verres was an aristocratic praetorian. The case takes about two years to even get to trial because of the levels of roadblocks that the aristocratic defence lawyer puts in his way. Cicero has to change the rules to win, which he does by 71BC and becomes Aedile. When Verres flees to exile, Cicero takes Verres’ old position and sits on the praetorian bench by 70BC.

As a praetorian aedile 68-64BC he gets a ministerial department to look after. But Cicero has set his ambition to become Consul, the top job. At this time, Rome was a republic an the position of Consul lasted about a year and was a joint ticket with a running mate. Two consuls would be voted in together and each person will run the office for 6 months. Consuls were always from aristocratic families, sponsored by all the other aristocratic families. It was a collusion and very corrupt. Votes were bought through bribery and common plebian class or middle class equestrian classes were not either wealthy enough or have the network to cut through to win the votes to get into high office. So Cicero won over the aristocrats after decades of being the advocate for the common people. The way he won over the aristocrats was to expose a plot of the fall of the republic by Cesar, Crassus and some others to give public land to common people (land equated to wealth those days), annex Egypt and rule the empire through a group of 10 people that excluded most of the aristocratic families. We learn that Julius Cesar hated the aristocrats as he was of low class and that Cesar was sleeping around with many of the aristocrat’s wives running a huge risk of gossip, assassination and loss of credibility.

Cicero himself took many political risks that could have got him a beating by hired thugs or assassination. He liked to mock wealthy and well connected aristocrats and used his words as weapons which was insulting, humiliating and hurtful to the recipient and humorous to the public. Cicero had the formidable skill to work up or rile up the mob and mobilise them towards action. He was extremely popular with the plebeians and equestrians. But the patricians hated him as they were often the butt of his jokes and public humiliation.

The book ends with Cicero achieving the Consulship in 64BC after a landslide election and after having agreed to some demands from the aristocrats in exchange for their (and their networks’) votes.

There were an awful lot of elections when Rome was a republic; pretty much every 6 months. It was not an ideal government system because of the corrupt aristocratic syndicate at the top and poor people remained poor with their few effects stolen by the aristocrats. This was why there were so many plots involving Pompey, Crassus and Cesar to overthrow the chokehold of the aristocrats to run the Roman empire more effectively. But tyranny brings similar problems as we will find out in the later books in this trilogy.

What’s also interesting is how much of the ancient Roman government systems we still have in modern governments, like cabinet ministers leading the major government departments, elections for different leadership of areas and often two party systems with a few coalitions ruling countries. The Americans even copied the Greek and Roman style of architecture for their White House.

Tiro we learn invented stenography/shorthand to write long speeches fast capturing all the details. He invented a new language with symbols this way. Tiro is almost a hundred years old and is writing his scrolls (books) about the life of Cicero after Cicero’s death. It’s sad in the book there are a few times Tiro asks to be made a freedman or expects Cicero to make the announcement and it never comes. Tiro longs to live on a farm in the area he was born in and to be married with a family of his own. But Cicero finds him too essential for his own career ambitions and the book ends with both of them in their forties. The author shows through Tiro’s thoughts, Cicero’s fallibility in making enemies through his words and making decisions that harm others throughout his career based on his ruthless ambition to get the top job.

Cicero’s wife Terentia is about half his age, of Patrician class and wealthy. He married her so that her wealth could buy him his senatorship. Though it starts off as a marriage of convenience, he chose a smart wife that kept him sharp, rather than a docile domestic. They have many arguments and he has to beg her for money. The sections with Terentia were some of my favourites in the book. There are very few women mentioned in the book, so it is nice that the main one mentioned is a strong and interesting character. Cicero’s children Tullia and Cicero minor also make cameo appearances.