Augustus cover image

Augustus

A historical epic set in ancient Rome from the bestselling author of Stoner

 Listen to a sample

Get 30 days of Standard free

€6.99/mo after trial. Cancel monthly.
Try for €0.00
More purchase options

Augustus

By: John Williams
Narrated by: Robin Field
Try for €0.00

€6.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for €21.04

Buy Now for €21.04

Season's Savings | 0.99 €/mo for 3 months

6.99 €/month thereafter - terms apply. Cancel monthly.

Brought to you by Penguin.

By the author of Stoner, the surprise international bestseller

After the brutal murder of his great-uncle, Julius Caesar, Octavian, a shy and scholarly youth of nineteen, suddenly finds himself heir to the vast power of Rome. He is destined, despite vicious power struggles, bloody wars and family strife, to transform his realm and become the greatest ruler the western world had ever seen: Augustus Caesar, the first Roman Emperor.

Building on impeccable research, John Williams brings the legendary figure of Augustus vividly to life, and invests his characters with such profound humanity that we enter completely into the heat and danger of their lives and times.

©2023 John Williams (P)2023 Penguin Audio

 Biographical Fiction Classics Genre Fiction Historical Fiction
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1

Critics' reviews

Weir’s sympathetic and detailed biography reassesses the life of a woman whose role in public life…has been underrated by historians
The finest historical novel ever written by an American
It would be easy to over-praise this novel; but there does not seem any adequate reason why this temptation should be resisted
A novel of extraordinary range, yet of extraordinary minuteness, that manages never to sacrifice one quality for the other
Williams has fashioned an always engaging, psychologically convincing work of fiction - a consistent and well-realized portrait
A highly imaginative account of the life and times of Augustus-a brilliant novel
A brilliant epistolary novel about Octavius Caesar and ancient Rome...all three [of John Williams'] novels show a similar narrative arc: a young man's initiation, vicious male rivalries, subtler tensions between men and women, fathers and daughters, and finally a bleak sense of disappointment, even futility.
Exquisite...brims with great lines
A vividly imagined re-creation of classical Rome, but its intuitive grasp of the experience of immense power makes it an unusual, and superior, novel
There could be no better year than 2014 to rediscover this one (Mary Beard)
All stars
Most relevant
An epistolary novel that, to me, clearly is a continuation of Thornton Wilder's "Ides of March". Both novels have the same core problem: They are literary monuments of admiration for their main characters Julius Caesar and Augustus Octavian. Both, Wilder and Williams, depict their "heroes" as highly reflected, sophisticated, philosophically modern/rationalistic genuinely good people who are the only ones able to see through the presumably idle beliefs and rites of their contemporaries. The authors even let them make correct predictions of the future - I mean, please, how cheap is that? In fact, these guys were cold-hearted, self-centred mass murderers. Both authors' depictions are problematic on so many levels, and of course ahistoric - frankly, I found both novels rather childish.

Glorification of a butcher

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.