Colleen McCullough Libri

Now, 25 years after it first took the world by storm, Colleen McCullough's sweeping family saga of dreams, titanic struggles, dark passions, and forbidden love in the Australian Outback returns to enthrall a new generation. As powerful, moving, and unforgettable as when it originally appeared, it remains a monumental literary achievement—a landmark novel to be read . . . and read again!

With the possible exception of the crucifixion of Christ no moment of history is more universally familiar and more often depicted than the assassination of Julius Caesar. Caesar is in the prime of his life and the height of his powers as the novel opens. A man of contradictions, Caesar is happily married yet at the same time the lover of the enigmatic and subtle Egyptian ruler, Cleopatra. He is at once a great general who commands the instinctive loyalty of Rome's legions, and a man who wishes to bring to an end Rome's endless civil and external wars, a man not only conscious of his own power, and contemptuous of lesser men, but respectful of the republic, and determined not to be worshipped as a living god or crowned as an emperor, a man whose very greatness attracts envy and jealousy to a dangerous degree. With her extraordinary knowledge of Roman history, Colleen McCullough brings Caesar to life as nobody has ever done before, and surrounds him with an enormous and vivid cast of historical characters, portrayed here not as literary figures, but as real, living people, trying to control and master enormous political events and survive.

In the long, fabled history of Rome, never was there one more adored -- yet more feared -- than Gaius Julius Caesar. Invincible on the field of battle, he commands the love and loyalty of those who fight at his side and would gladly give their lives for his glory. Yet in Rome there are enemies everywhere orchestrating his downfall and disgrace. Fanatical rivals like Cato and Bibulus would tear Rome asunder just to destroy her greatest champion -- using their wiles, position, and false promises to seduce others into the fold: vacillating Cicero, the spineless Brutus ... even Pompey the Great, Caesar's former ally. But only ill fortune can come to the "Good Men" who underestimate Caesar. For Rome is his glorious destiny -- one that will impel him reluctantly to the banks of the Rubicon ... and beyond, into triumphant legend.