Life of Cicero by Anthony Trollope, Vol I & II

I'm winding down on the second volume of Life of Cicero, and decided to document some thoughts before they vanish from my brain.

I've ready many volumes on the history of ancient Rome.  But I honestly believe I've learned more about the history of Rome from this book than any other.

This is remarkable in a couple of different ways:

First of all, Trollope is a famous English novelist.  Ask anyone about Trollope and they will certainly refer to his fiction.  His Wikipedia entry doesn't even mention his historical writing, except to include his Life of Cicero among his list of works.  How is it possible that such a wonderful, meticulously researched, vivid and persuasive biography come from someone that doesn't even claim to be a historian?

Second, Trollope goes out of his way, again and again throughout the work to say that he is not writing a history of Rome, but only a biography on Cicero.  Granted, Cicero's life is inextricably intertwined with the Roman history of the 1st century BC.  But as I said above, I learned more about Rome itself through this book than any other, well beyond the scope of Cicero's life.

Perhaps a novelist is in a better position to write a history than other writers.  A novelist's use of narrative seems to prevent any "skipping over" of details that the historian might assume one already knows.  Maybe writing history (or biography) as a true story - as a true novel, so to speak - is an original idea?

Trollope must have been freakishly erudite.  For someone who makes no claim to being a historian, his knowledge of ancient Rome is voluminous, on par, it seems to me, with the most accomplished scholar of the present, including any specialist in ancient Rome.

One simple point that Trollope makes throughout the book - a point completely missed by each of the other history books I've read on the subject - is this: Although we now know how the transition from the Republic to the Empire turns out, that was not apparent at the time.  Cicero dedicated his life to the idea that the old Republic of earlier centuries could be restored to its original glory.

When Caesar crossed the Rubicon many in Rome still believed that the Republic could be restored; almost no one knew the Empire was actually coming, the knowledge of which now blinds us to the importance of Cicero's life.  There was real hope, and belief, that the recent struggles (think Marius, Sulla, Pompey and Caesar) were nothing but a temporary blight on the already-long history of the Roman people.  The Empire didn't have to be.

A wonderful, wonderful biography, this Life of Cicero.