Eternity in Our Lips and Eyes
The final volume of Colleen McCullough's "Masters of Rome" series.

Reviewed by Ann Wroe
Sunday, December 9, 2007

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

By Colleen McCullough

Simon & Schuster. 567 pp. $26.95

Rome has seven hills, and Colleen McCullough, living in imagination among those hills for the past two decades, has now produced seven huge historical novels about the Roman republic. The October Horse, in 2002, was meant to be the final one, but then readers beseeched her to write another, and perhaps she herself couldn't bear to leave untouched the story of Antony and Octavian's struggle for power after the death of Julius Caesar; of Antony's bewitchment by Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt; of their tragic downfall and Octavian's triumph; and of the rise of Rome as the world's unrivalled power.

But times have changed since McCullough last wrote on this subject. Many of her would-be readers have now experienced a different Rome, courtesy of the HBO series. It is not just that they expect blood-soaked violence and graphic sex; they have vividly in their minds Mark Antony daubed with sweat and mascara, glassy-eyed Octavian with his chilling smile, minx-like Cleopatra in her gauzy nakedness, and good old Pullo riding stoically through it all. Any fictionalized account of Rome now has these strong shades to contend with.

McCullough cannot compete. Characterization is not her strong point. She has others: She writes clearly, keeps the action going and has a firm control of a sometimes dizzying assembly of satraps, battles, places, gods and army commanders. She seems never happier than when immersed in the sheer business of Rome, in a room piled with scrolls and papers, in the crowded Senate or on a harbor wall surveying the quinqueremes. But the characters who inhabit these scenes are either undescribed or grotesque. Anthony's shoulders and thighs are so muscled that he can hardly move. Cleopatra, on the other hand, is thin as a stick. Only the beautiful Octavian, later Augustus, is securely and lovingly evoked in his nimbus of light.

Conversations put no flesh on character: Instead, they strain at the seams with plots, motivations and explanations. Romance gets scant attention. "Here, have a grape," says the half-naked Antony to Cleopatra on their second meeting. "Here, have an apple," she replies. Shakespeare wept.

The time span of this book, from 41 to 27 B.C., covers some famous set pieces: the arrival of Cleopatra's barge; Antony's hopeless war against the Parthians; the naval battle of Actium; the denouncing of Antony in the Roman Senate; the double suicides of the main characters. A writer should be in heaven here, and McCullough does several scenes well, especially Octavian's pay negotiations with his mutinous troops, abacus beads flying, and his murder of Cleopatra's insufferable son Caesarion. Before Cleopatra's suicide, McCullough manages to make the Egyptian queen briefly affecting and pathetic -- and stages a genuine surprise.

But many smaller scenes prove disappointing. McCullough has a habit, almost a compulsion, of breaking off as soon as matters threaten to get interesting. Her battles are a few sword-thrusts, no blood, and much strategy before and after. Lovemaking usually ends as the couple get into bed; orgies consist of slaves placing chamber pots and bowls behind a screen. Early on, she builds up a great scene of Cleopatra's ship sailing off, filled with terrified Egyptians, most in peacock feathers, who have never been on the sea. They hoist anchor -- and the next thing we know, they are safely in harbor again.

Perhaps McCullough is writing not a novel, but dramatized history; her aim is not entertainment, but instruction. Her books contain glossaries and scholarly maps of cities and campaigns. Many of them, though not this one, have endnotes explaining and justifying her version of events. All through Antony and Cleopatra the reader is aware of a passion for details, from the right height of heels on Roman boots to the correct shorthand inscriptions on seals, from the marching formations of soldiers to the favorite vintages of wine. But everything is at the service of demonstrating the decline and fall of the Roman Republic.

The story has been told well enough, with straightforward confidence. Fans will be pleased to have another volume. But it seems a shame, after all this labor, that her book so rarely evokes the sounds, smells or even the sights of Rome and Egypt. Despite all the knowledge on show here, the reader seldom feels that he is in a startlingly different place, with views of the world, of life and of manners that he has never imagined. Extraordinary as the predicaments of the characters have been, they never touch the heart. The story careers along too brightly and briskly, propelled by the need to cram in as many events as possible.

Few can have tried harder than McCullough to bring ancient Rome to a broad audience. But perhaps she should have cared less about pleasing the historians, who can never be impressed, and settled for engaging and moving ordinary readers instead. *

Ann Wroe is the obituaries and briefings editor of the Economist and author of several books, most recently "Being Shelley: The Poet's Search for Himself."