Author Description

Rome, 50BC: Tullia, daughter of the esteemed senator Marcus Tullius Cicero, is embarking on her third and most disastrous marriage, a marriage as corrupt and miserable as the decaying Roman Republic around her. Unable to leave her husband, the unscrupulous Dolabella, she begins an affair with the centurion Herennius, one of Julius Caesar's most loyal and deadliest soldiers. As they struggle to build a life together of peace and happiness amidst the chaos and strife of civil war and social upheaval, the consequences of their love will reverberate through history.To one extent or another, we're all familiar with the demise of the Roman Republic: Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon, has an affair with Cleopatra, gets assassinated by Brutus, and, 13 years later, his great-nephew becomes the first Roman emperor Augustus, right? This isn't that story. That story's been told in varying degrees of accuracy and poetry for the last 2,000 years. This one, Cicero's Daughter, hasn't.We know so little of Tullia. She never left her own thoughts and impressions for us to discover. What we do know of her comes from snippets of writings by her father in his voluminous correspondence, yet it leaves us with the impression of an intelligent, dedicated, and determined young woman who, like everyone in that period, found herself both imprisoned and participating in extraordinary times. She lived in the epicenters of both support for and resistance to Caesar's ambition, saw how both sides were rife with corruption and self-interest, and chose to break from them in a daring attempt to live her life on her own terms. She didn't make her choices from political conviction, but from her desire to love. However, as so often happens during times of violence and uncertainty, love--be it between friends, family, or romantic partners--becomes a victim of the turmoil. This book is about her life. It's about how republics die, how ideals are twisted and strangled and left to wither for the sake of enmit