Caesar’s Avenger
Alex Gough
** spoiler alert **
Collapse of a Republic and rise of an Empire
When I was a kid, my family used to read the account of the birth of Christ from the Gospel according to Luke, which begins as follows, "And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed." In High School we read Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (or perhaps just extracts thereof). We also heard quotes from his Antony and Cleopatra. My point is only that, if there is any bit of ancient history that even people who profess to know nothing about history are likely to have some familiarity with, it is the dramatic period from Julius Caesar's assassination through the reign of Augustus.
This makes sense, of course. It was this period that saw the replacement of the Roman Republic with the Roman Empire. The events are not just an incredible story in themselves -- they are fundamental to the rise of European civilization (which even Gandhi admitted would be a good idea).
Alex Gough's Mark Antony series tells this story from behind the eyes of Mark Antony. Gough points out that Antony's point of view is surprisingly neglected for so prominent an actor in such a storied time.
Book 2 of the series, Caesar's General, ended with Caesar's assassination. Book 3, Caesar's Avenger recounts the complicated mess that followed. Caesar's death left a power vacuum, which everyone who was anyone in Rome tried to fill. It all got very complicated, but after most of the dust settled, the battle was between Caesar's assassins, who called themselves the Liberators, and those who had supported Caesar in life and rued his murder, who called themselves the Caesarians.
There were two principal Caesarians. The first, of course, was Antony. The second, who more or less came out of nowhere, was Caesar's great-nephew Octavian, whom Caesar adopted posthumously in his will and left his wealth to. Octavian was a sickly young man with no military or political experience. But he was clever and able. Indeed, he eventually took the name Augustus -- we still honor him in the eighth month of every year -- and became the first Emperor of Rome.
There is little doubt that Caesar chose well when he picked Octavian as his heir. If you look up rankings of Roman Emperors (these are as easy to find as rankings of US presidents), Augustus consistently ranks near the top, most often at number 1. This is not to say that Antony would have been a bad emperor, but he never got there.
Octavian and Antony managed to remain on the same side of the struggle for power as long as they had a common enemy -- the Liberators. Caesar's Avenger ends when the Liberators have been decisively defeated. The final book, Caesar's Nemesis will take us through the struggle between Antony and Octavian, and not incidentally Antony's alliance with Cleopatra. Since it's history, we know that Octavian will win and Antony and Cleopatra will die.
This was good. Recommended.