Antony - Allan Massie

 Allan Massie, who died earlier this month, wrote a tetralogy about major Roman figures, Augustus, Caesar, Tiberius and Mark Antony.    Obviously there must be overlap between them, however Antony, the last to be written but the first I have read, gives no clue as to how Massie deals with it.

Antony certainly stands alone.   It starts with Caesar's murder and ends with Mark Antony's suicide, a period of fourteen years in which Antony ruled half the empire, won, lost and won back Cleopatra and got through several wives.   Yet it is a crisp, short book, only 210 pages.   In practice it is two books with shared content.   Antony, at the end of his career, is dictating a memoir to his slave and secretary Critias.   Antony is depressed and drinking heavily.   When he loses interest or passes out Critias takes over commentary and narrative.   Critias has been in Antony's service from birth; he has been all over the Roman world with him; but Critias is a slave not a warror, he plays a part in the politicking but no part at all in the warmaking.   Antony is an instinctive politician but a magnificent soldier.   Critias is a fastidious homosexual.   Antony is bi.

I was enthralled.   Yes, I am reasonably familiar with all these Romans with complicated names, less so with some of the battles they are involved in.   Massie is a reliable guide and an exceptionally gifted writer.   I shall be reading more.

Augustus - Allan Massie

I'd previously read Massie's take on Caligula, which was OK, but this is much better - a character, I feel, that Massie is naturally more comfortable with.  The novel presents as two separate tranches of autobiography, one covering Octavian's triumph over Antony and Cleopatra, the other a more sweeping account of everything else.  The free-form style of the second half compensates for the awkward structure and, being essentially about what comes after a forty-year benign dictatorship (a question more relevant today than when the book was written in 1985/6), is more about Tiberius than Augustus.  Certainly, I am keen to read Tiberius, the next in the sequence.  Another that caught my eye is Nero's Heirs.

Massie is a novelist in the classic tradition.  In Augustus and Caligula he ventures into territory comprehensively staked out by Robert Graves a generation earlier.  But, without in any way shaking the reader's faith in the historicity of his narrative, Massie manages to bring a fresh and distinct take to a relatively familiar story.