Excellent book, especially if one is interested in ancient Rome

Led as a novel by Richard Harris, author of thrillers including The ghost writer, this episode "improved" by R. Harris is seen by a key figure, as in the most recent D (An officer and a spy), the Case Dreyfus, fictionalized, is told by the Colonel Picquart.

Reads very easy and comfortable as all his novels. The atmosphere of the time is palpable and hopefully closer to reality: R. Harris is not deemed great Latin scholar, but his research work (or that of its environment) was probably serious enough.

Read for the unfolding of history with a small h, although it is not a connoisseur of that time.