I really like Robert Harris' writing so this was an easy 4 stars.

Mostly listened to this book on audio - which was narrated by David Rintoul. This was a change from Book 1 and 2 (which were done by Bill Wallis). This took me a little bit to get into as I read the book back to back; but, once I settled into the book, I thought the narrator did a good job overall.

This book probably did the best with the emotional family centre of Cicero’s family life - his relationship with his wife, daughter and of course Tiro. Part 1 especially, where Cicero is in exile, helped the author show more heart as part of the core because we were not on a public stage. That was well done but as a counterbalance - the political sphere felt a bit rushed overall.

There was too much that happened in this relatively short book to really get much focus. It all felt like a montage of the greatest hits of Cicero’s life rather than true insight into a living character. In this, Cicero as a character and not as a historical figure, felt weakest in the series.

Some of this is because of the choice to cover the entire life chronically. There is basically too much material to do it justice in one book IMO. Mr. Harris could easily have made this into two books. I don't think his interest is in contemplative decline of political careers so I can see why he didn’t do that but it left the book overstuffed for my tastes. His interest seem to lie in exploring the corruption and fall of democracy - which meant that he did tend to rush through events which don't serve that narrative.

For example, Harris needed to cover the entire Philippic speeches given their importance in late Cicero’s life. But for basically ~45 pages we got excerpts from the speeches - one after another. I get the historical context, I know how important those speeches are. But spending so much time basically quoting meant that I lost the world and the rest of the characters. This needed more space.

(Side note: this also could have been a problem with the audio to be honest. The chapters have these breaks in the middle which denote a scene change or passage or time. The narrator didn’t really pause there so we kept moving on at a more rapid pace than I think the book needed)

Now, this is only a relative criticism, as Mr. Harris can definitely write. This was still a very enjoyable reading experience with some lovely moments. They stick in my memory (especially his time with his daughter) probably more than the latter half of the book where Cicero has a bit of a political resurgence (the philippic speeches are worth checking out IRL too).

Overall, I’d give this 3.5 stars. For all my gripes there are some really moving moments sandwiched between a lot of other events. The ending especially moved me - it was nice to see Tiro happy if nothing else.

I wanted to learn about Cicero, the Roman life and bits of history. This was my first book to start with. I learned a great deal and it was a journey made smooth, thanks to the easy writing, captivating storyline and emotions involved as well as theories and themes included.