The Judgment of Caesar: A Novel of Ancient Rome (Hardcover)

Cleopatra and Ptolemy both use every persuasion possible to encourage Caesar to chose them as the singular ruler of Egypt. In the course of this persuasion, Gordianus's estranged son, Meto, is accused as an attempted assassin and Gordianus realizes that he will lose his son forever if he doesn't do his best detecting ever. Unfortunately, if Meto isn't the poisoner, either Ptolemy or Cleopatra probably is--and Caesar is unwilling to allow either of them to be accused.

Author Steven Saylor spins a convincing and gripping tale of Egypt in the dying days of the Roman Republic. Egypt's wealth makes it a treasure that Rome must have, but its mysterious religions and its concepts of god-king make it anathema to republican Romans like Gordianus. Saylor deepens the mystery and the reader's emotional involvement in the story by making Gordianus a fascinating and complex character. His love for his wife (despite an affair), his torn feelings for Meto, and his wish for the republican virtues of a vanishing Rome engaged my sympathies and increased my investment in the story and in Gordianus finding a solution to what seemed an insolvable problem. Indeed, the actual Judgment of Caesar comes down to solving the unsolvable.

Saylor's strong writing and fascinating insights into history add to the book's appeal. THE JUDGMENT OF CAESAR is a winner.

I have noticed, particularly since his "Last Seen in Massilia," that Saylor seems to have lately gone beyond simply writing a good historical mystery, which may account for some reviewers' who don't like this book for precisely the reason I find it one of his best.

Saylor no longer hangs his entire plot around a murder, but has branched out, as his fictional characters have developed, into a more mature and complex web. At the same time, the actual historical period he's entered is one of the most amazing periods in all world history - the Civil War brought on between Caesar and the Republicans, after Caesar crosses the Rubicon. Many long books ago, Gordianus' adopted son, Meto, became a staff aid to Caesar when he was just another ambitious general in the provinces. Now, of course, it's 48 BC and Caesar, having destroyed Pompey's armies, rules the Roman world. Personal events bring Gordianus and his wife, Bethesda, to Alexandria just at the time that Pompey has fled there after his defeat by Caesar at Pharsalus, seeking to grasp Egypt's riches to save his cause. Caesar follows hot on his heels, with much the same plan. Gordianus, Meto - even Bethesda - are caught in this web of shifting allegiance, lies, betrayal, high politics, and stunning world characters; thus this book becomes much more than just a simple murder mystery. Gordianus is strengthened in his character of the staunch Republican who prefers truth to diplomatic truths and integrity to self-aggrandizement - but you will see what it brings him in this new, raw, Roman world.

I've studied much about Alexandria in Caesar's time, but I recall no book that made me 'see' its magnificent streets and temples, its tempestuous mobs and tortuous rulers, as clearly as Saylor does in "The Judgment of Caesar." Just as his plots are much richer than before, so the very title speaks to many facets of the plot - the most important being, how Caesar's judgments, large and small, right or wrong, are now capable of changing the Roman world. Whether adversaries succeed in twisting his judgment, is part of the fun of the story. The murder is integral to the story and I found it well written and well solved; but it's only one of the pleasures of this book.

I've written at length on Caesar, Pompey, and Cleopatra in my own web site, but Saylor also finds a fascinating twist in his view of King Ptolemy - and deftly weaves that into the facts of history as we know it, as if he was painting in the backdrop for historical characters to strut before.

I would highly recommend this book for those who want a good touch of mystery, but far more well-written fictional history. Saylor just gets better.

S. Cross
Web Author, Julius Caesar: The Last Dictator