Download SPQR VII: The Tribune's Curse AudioBook Free
I was more pleased than any mere mortal has a right to be and I should have known better. The entire body of received mythology and every previous Greek tragedy ever before written have made one inescapable fact utterly clear: If you are supremely happy, the gods have it set for you. They don't like for mortals to be happy, and they will make you pay. In his comprehensive series presenting the detecting feats of Decius Caecilius Metellus the younger, occur the Rome of 70 BC, Roberts achieves an extremely believable modern sense along with his well-researched information of the experiences' record. This seventh instance, however, combines a familiar view of the requirements office-seeking makes on the candidate with a situation that is impossibly bizarre to us today. A whole city, versed in books, music, and the other arts, ruled democratically, because of its time, is tossed into stress by an enraged man's curse. The Consul Crassus, the wealthiest man in Rome, annoyed by the Senate's vote against his leading Rome in a warfare against Parthia, packages to march his private military to invade the united states himself. Almost all of Rome turns out to watch him perform his risk and lead his troops out of the city. But before he can, a robust tribune called Ateius leaps to the top of the city's gate and invokes all the gods to put a curse on Crassus and his military. Rome is terrified. Ateius has called down a forbidden curse - the most detrimental and most scary blasphemy ever before perpetrated. It seriously threatens the whole populace, and extreme steps to propitiate the gods must be studied immediately. Worse even, someone kills Ateius - perhaps in the vain anticipation that will lighten the curse? You won't. After signing up for the other men of the town in a daylong purifying ritual that left every able-bodied guy resident, Decius included, in a state of half-collapse, Decius learns that he has been chosen to uncover the person responsible for the murder. The culprit must be within order to complete the cleaning, and there is no-one better equipped to achieve that than Decius. Roberts skillfully blends the playboy and the serious sleuth in Decius just like he combines whatever we see as contradictions in the Rome of 80 BC. He spices his tale with humor and suspense, with heroes charming and sensible and foolish and very much like we are today. And he reveals listeners with a look into another world that has them eagerly awaiting more sessions.
