Steven Saylor's Roma Sub Rosa series has finally taken Gordianus the Finder to his well-deserved retirement, and a totally unexpected honor from Julius Caesar. Not to give anything away, but this honor will be bestowed by The Dictator during the Senate Meeting on the Ides of March. It's no mystery that things will not end well.
The last three books in this series have been about Gordianus at the opposite end of his life, as a youth touring the Seven Wonders of World under the watchful eye of his distinguished tutor Antipater of Sidon. They are full of action and youthful ambition. The Throne of Caesar (#755) provides a stark contrast in mood and subject matter. Saylor himself says in his Notes that it took him a long time to bring himself to write about Julius Caesar's assassination. The conundrum for him was how to place Gordianus so that he is once again a witness to history. His solution is ingenious, and allows him to inject a mystery into the plot concerning a lesser character.
The reader does not have to have read the previous books in this excellent series about Ancient Rome to understand and enjoy the story here. It can serve as an introduction. Steven Saylor does reference Barry Stauss' excellent work The Death of Caesar which came out in 2015. I made the mistake of lending this book to a professor friend of mine, and have yet to see it returned. Oh, well, at least I don't think it met the same fate as Cinna's work does in The Throne of Caesar!
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