Synopsis
From the bestselling author of Pompeii comes the most provocative and brilliant novel of Rome and its power struggles since I, Claudius.
Of all the great figures of the Roman world, none was more fascinating or charismatic than Marcus Cicero, the greatest orator of all time, who at the age of twenty-seven was determined to attain imperium -- supreme power in the state. At his side was the everpresent Tiro, the confidential secretary and slave, whose celebrated biography of his master was lost in the Dark Ages. Imperium is the re-creation of Tiro's vanished masterpiece, recounting in vivid detail the story of Cicero's extraordinary quest for glory.
Tiro's cautionary tale begins on a cold November morning, when he opens the door to a terrified stranger, a victim of Sicily's corrupt Roman governor, Verres. The stranger's arrival sets in motion a chain of events that will eventually propel Tiro's master into one of the most suspenseful...
The Washington Post - Dennis Drabelle
Toward the end comes a walk-on by Publius Clodius Pulcher, the most beautiful man in Rome, who figures prominently in another splendid novel of antiquity, Thornton Wilder's The Ides of March. I can think of no better endorsement of Imperium than to mention those two books in the same breath.