Keenly researched. Such compelling, complicated story lines ... exactly my cup of tea, or rather, pots and pots of tea. ( )

A list of illustrations at the beginning essentially gives up the entire plot; reader beware, if your aim is to learn Roman history the fun way. I skipped past those and was subjected to an unlikely story full of traitors, massacres, madness and chaos that nobody would ever believe if the author wasn't so closely adhering to actual history. McCullough operates under some serious self-imposed constraints, the toughest being that she is forced to kill off her characters with the timing and manner of their actual deaths. That could be disastrous to the entertainment factor if not accounted for, and she accounts for it by making the right people sympathetic. Drusus unexpectedly became a new favourite of mine, and some earlier favourites less so.

The first book was good but I liked this sequel even better, probably because I had the correct expectations going in. The dialogue didn't feel as silly (even when it was silly), and the setting drew me in just as effectively despite her spending less time on it. There are sufficient events in this one volume to fill up two more of equal size, but McCullough has a schedule to keep and packs it all in, thick and fast - maybe a bit too fast in places, particularly during a certain complicated siege. In other places she can't help shoveling in more research than she strictly needs to. Several of Mithridates' scenes border on farce, especially his conversation with the high priest of Cos about the Egyptian royal family (the silliest dialogue bar none).

Good outweighs the bad, sewing everything together better than any textbook lesson can and placing the reader in all the best scenes at the right times, whether it's a battlefield or a dinner conversation. Possibly the closest thing to time travel back to this rough-and-tumble period that you're ever going to (or would ever want to) get. ( )

Feels like the author lived in ancient rome. The details about the political and social life are intriguing. ( )

This book is better than its predecessor (The First Man in Rome) to my mind, and well worth reading if you are interested in ancient history. The writing is very engaging, and McCullough does a good job of filling in the historical blanks with plausible characterization and storylines. ( )

The second book in the series Masters of Rome. Once again wonderful story telling, especially the dialogue between people like Sulla and Mithradates, Aurelia and Sulla, Marius and Young Caesar. This book covers the continued rise of Marius and Sulla, and the sad decline of Marius which -according to the author- is the principal reason for the start of the civil wars. ( )