Dictator is the final volume in Robert Harris’ fictionalised three-volume biography of Cicero, covering the years up to his death and with it that of the Roman Republic.

Cicero did have a biography written by his secretary Tiro, the inventor of one of the first systems of short-hand which still echoes into contemporary English, for example, e.g. Fortunately for Harris, that biography has been lost to history, so he has constructed his own trilogy as if it were Tiro’s biography of Cicero, with Tiro as narrator.

As with the previous two volumes of the trilogy, Imperium and Lustrum dealing with earlier phases in Cicero’s career, Dictator is a gripping political thriller, covering the period from Cicero’s exile to the downfall of the Republic with the establishment of the second triumvirate of Antony, Lepidus and Octavian.

 Contrary to Goldsworthy’s Caesar, or Massie’s fictionalised accounts of the period, with Harris Cicero is presented as a hero, albeit a flawed one, a proponent of rule of law against arbitrary and tyrannical rule in spite of personal threats and the moral cowardice of his contemporaries.

Unlike Goldsworthy who typically tries to explain his subjects in the contexts of their own time, Harris deliberately seeks parallels with the present. Here he presents a warning for a polity that disdains basic principles of rule of law.

But, Harris does not allow the vital political-philosophical points to interrupt the narrative, which is gripping, as Cicero with only logic and argument in the face of shocking violence seeks to maintain constitutional principles in the face of the vanity of warlords.

The result is a fine political thriller, with much to recommend it for the student of the ancient world.