Rome Returns

Newsweek, September, 2006 by Tara Pepper

When a band of pirates ravaged the Roman port of Ostia in 67 B.C., the Roman general Pompey the Great was granted extraordinary powers to manage the crisis. Despite vehement opposition from the aristocracy, who suspected his motives, Pompey was handed absolute control of the sea and the coast for 50 miles inland.

"The pirates' raid on Ostia was a kind of 9/11," says author Robert Harris, whose new novel "Imperium" (416 pages. Hutchinson ) is climbing Britain's best-seller list. "A precedent was set of special military commands and the suspension of liberties, which was applied first to Pompey, then Caesar, then the whole constitution. You can make a strong case that was beginning of the end of the Republic." Compelling contemporary resonances leap from the pages of Harris's...

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