At the close of Caesar's Women (1996), McCullough's fourth massive staging of the power wrests and wrestlings of mighty men of ancient Rome, Julius Caesar, a true colossus of skill and brilliance, had left for ``Further Gaul.'' Now, while mopping up the revolts in his detested Britannia of ``blue-painted relics,'' he receives word from Pompey the Great, First Man in Rome and husband of Caesar's lovely daughter Julia, that Julia and his mother are dead.
Again, the portraits are memorable-from Brutus (here, a money-mad ``wet fish'' with acne) to Cleopatra (scrawny, ugly, calmly plotting fratricide)-and the politicking is showy, sly, witty, and often deadly. The story of Caesar's Gallic Wars (roughly 5851 b.c.) and return to Rome warfare, followed fictively and, in the main, meticulously, from Caesar's Commentaries.
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