Masters of Rome

About the Masters of Rome series

Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome novels are a seven-book chronicle of the last decades of the Roman Republic, from the rise of Gaius Marius in 110 BC to the aftermath of Antony and Cleopatra's defeat in 27 BC — the century in which the Republic tore itself apart and Rome became an empire in all but name. Beginning with The First Man in Rome, the series tracks an enormous cast of real historical figures — Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Crassus, Cato the Younger, and eventually Julius Caesar himself — through civil wars, political assassination, proscription, and the slow collapse of a system of government that had run Rome for centuries.

The appeal is scale and rigour: McCullough, a trained scientist before she was a novelist, researched the series for years and appends extensive historical notes and glossaries to each volume, rendering Roman law, military structure, and Senate politics in exacting, immersive detail. It's less about battles than about power — how ambitious men bend or break a republic's institutions — with Caesar's rise, from Caesar's Women through Caesar to his assassination in The October Horse, forming the series' central arc.

This is the series for readers who want ancient Rome rendered with academic seriousness rather than pulp adventure — dense, doorstop-length novels (many run past 1,000 pages) that reward patience with an unmatched sense of how the Republic actually worked, and why it fell.

How to read this series

Read the seven novels in publication order, which is also strict chronological order: The First Man in Rome, The Grass Crown, Fortune's Favourites, Caesar's Women, Caesar, The October Horse, and Antony and Cleopatra. McCullough wrote it as one continuous multi-generational history, so there's no alternate reading path or optional companion volumes to consider.

Be prepared for length and density: these are among the longest historical novels in print (several exceed 1,000 pages), packed with a huge cast of real Romans and extensive appendices on Roman institutions. Readers who want Caesar's own story specifically can technically start around book four (Caesar's Women), but the earlier Marius-and-Sulla-focused volumes set up the political world Caesar inherits, and most fans consider them essential rather than skippable.