Caesar is in the prime of his life & 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 & subtle Egyptian ruler Cleopatra. He is at once a great general who commands the instinctive loyalty of Romes legions & a man who wishes to bring to an end Romes endless civil & external wars a man not only conscious of his own power & contemptuous of lesser men but respectful of the republic & determined not to be worshipped as a living god or crowned as an emperor a man whose very greatness attracts envy & jealousy to a dangerous degree. With her extraordinary knowledge of Roman history Colleen Mc Cullough brings Caesar to life as nobody has ever done before & surrounds him with an enormous & vivid cast of historical characters portrayed here not as literary figures but as real living people trying to control & master enormous political events & survive.