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Historical person
116 BCE–54 BCE
Marcus Licinius Crassus was one of the wealthiest men in the Roman Republic and built influence through property, patronage and military command. He defeated the revolt of Spartacus, then formed the political alliance known as the First Triumvirate with Caesar and Pompey.
Seeking comparable military glory, Crassus invaded Parthia in 53 BC without adequate preparation. His army was destroyed at Carrhae, and he was killed during a failed negotiation. Marcus Licinius Crassus was born in Ancient Rome and died in Harran.
Steven Saylor’s Arms of Nemesis brings Crassus into Gordianus’s investigation as the wealthy Roman who threatens collective punishment for an enslaved household while the revolt of Spartacus destabilises Italy. Colleen McCullough’s Fortune’s Favourites follows his rise through the same slave war and the rivalry with Pompey that helps shape late-Republican politics; Caesar’s Women places him within Caesar’s network of wealth, debt and alliance as the First Triumvirate takes form. Peter Darman’s Carrhae reconstructs Crassus’s disastrous invasion of Parthia and death in 53 BCE. Ben Kane’s The Forgotten Legion uses that same expedition as the catastrophe that carries Roman survivors east after the destruction of Crassus’s army.
Series
The Emperor series is a highly fictionalised retelling of Julius Caesar’s life and the violent end of the Roman Republic. It follows Caesar from youth through war, political ascent and conquest, then continues beyond his assassination into the struggle between Octavian, Antony and Caesar’s killers.
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The Parthian Chronicles follow Pacorus, a fictional Parthian prince whose life stretches across the violent politics of the first century BCE. The opening novel places him beside Spartacus during the Third Servile War; later volumes return him to Mesopotamia, where he becomes ruler of Dura and is drawn…
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The Masters of Rome series reconstructs the final century of the Roman Republic from the rise of Gaius Marius in 110 BCE to the settlement that made Octavian Augustus in 27 BCE. Across seven novels, military commands, elections, family alliances, provincial wealth and personal patronage become instruments in…
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Robert Harris’s Cicero Trilogy reconstructs the final decades of the Roman Republic through Tiro, Cicero’s enslaved secretary and eventual freedman. Imperium follows the advocate’s prosecution of Verres and campaign for the consulship; Lustrum places his consulship inside the Catilinarian crisis; and Dictator carries him through exile, Caesar’s civil…
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The enslaved twins Romulus and Fabiola are separated when Romulus is sold to a gladiator school and Fabiola to a brothel. Romulus comes under the protection of the Gallic gladiator Brennus and meets Tarquinius, an Etruscan warrior and seer. The three men are forced into Crassus’s army and…
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Epic Historical Adventure is Colin Falconer's publisher-defined collection of stand-alone historical thrillers rather than a continuous narrative sequence. The novels range from Alexander the Great, Cleopatra and the Mongol Empire to the Ottoman court, the conquest of Mexico, colonial India, shipwreck and twentieth-century Palestine. Most volumes can be…
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The Roma Sub Rosa series follows Gordianus the Finder through the last generation of the Roman Republic. His investigations begin in the aftermath of Sulla’s dictatorship and continue through slave revolt, aristocratic trials, Catiline’s conspiracy, Caesar’s civil war and the assassination of Julius Caesar. The series uses murder…
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Standalone books
Non Fiction
Biographies, histories and other non-fiction are listed separately from the historical novels above.
