Brandon Winningham

Catiline Brandon Winningham

The Greek and Roman classics belong to everyone. Brandon Winningham has amply demonstrated that with his stirring novel about Catiline and Cicero. Dr. Susan Wiltshire Professor of Classics Vanderbilt UniversityIt is now August, 70 BC, and for the past twelve years Catiline has hidden his atrocities from the public and enjoyed his marriage built on lust and murder, all the while deciding on what his next accomplishment should be. His political career had taken a near-devastating blow when three years before he had found himself before a jury of Roman knights for allegedly having sexual relations with a Vestal Virgin, something forbidden by Roman law and thought to bring consequences from the gods. Once again, his connections with the dregs of Rome and carefully placed bribes had earned him an acquittal, and the virgin, Fabia, had been buried alive for her promiscuity. Lucius Catiline had walked the streets of Rome, freely consorting with prostitutes and the drunken crowd. Murder and deceit have not quenched his appetite, but politics and power definitely could.