One Step Closer To Finishing The Masters of Rome Series By Colleen McCullough

By PlainShadowSeal3

Just finished The October Horse, which is the 6th one in McCullough’s Masters of Rome series. It jumps around the 48–41 BC stretch, basically from when Caesar first connects with Cleopatra to the Battle of Philippi. I’m honestly still blown away by how much she can make Ancient Rome feel alive. A bunch of the characters share the same names, but somehow they all come across as different people. And it really got to me when some characters I’ve been following for the last few books finally meet their end. I knew it was coming because, yeah, it’s real history, but it still hit harder than I expected. Caesar’s death especially—there’s that hint that he might’ve been tired enough that dying wasn’t totally the worst thing, if that makes sense. The last chunk is mostly about Octavian taking over, and TBH I ended up liking him a lot. If Caesar is like fire, then Octavian is ice. They’ve got some parallels since he’s kind of modeled after Caesar, but he’s way more ruthless. If you want solid Roman historical fiction, this whole Masters of Rome series is definitely worth a try.