Roma: The Novel of Ancient Rome

by Steven Saylor

Reviewed by Coral

From humble beginnings as a trading post, through the monarchy, Republic to the start of its Empire, the story of Rome is told in a series of interconnected short story following two of the founding families through generations.

I thought the idea of the short stories focusing on two families throughout the Roman ages was interesting, though I think there were some problems in how it was executed..

In order to tell a story encompassing such a long period of time, some of the short stories have one or more time jumps in them. After each time jump we got a summary of events that had happened during the time that was skipped over. The summaries were either too dry and matter of fact or they came about in dialogue that felt too unnatural.

I did like the author’s interpretations of the more mythical events, like the visit of Hercules and the childhood of Romulus and Remus.

As with all short story collections, there were some I liked better than others. My favourite was “The Twelve Tables”; I’m still feeling my reaction to it even days later. My least favourite were probably “The Twins” as I found there wasn’t much to empathize with in any of the characters.

There was one part of the story, near the end, that made me nervous for the direction that story line may take in the next book, but I will wait and see how it unfolds.

Grade: B