One of my favorite authors, Robert Harris is doing a Goodreads “Ask the Author” Q&A mid January and I’ve just posted a question about his latest novel “Dictator”; fingers crossed that he answers!

My question is about the historical character, Roman lawyer, politician, orator and consul Marcus Tullius Cicero, who is the central character in Harris’s latest trilogy, although he is surrounded (and intrigued) by historical heavyweights such as Julius Caesar, Augustus, Mark Antony and Pompey the Great.

Would an enormously clever and talented, but relatively humble orator like Cicero rise to the top echelons of government today?

Cicero was a very talented, largely self-made man in a key period of history  that was dominated for the most part by men with an aristocratic or very wealthy background. My question to Robert Harris was, does he think that there is, or could be a public figure like Cicero today, and if so, is there someone he would identify as being that person?

One of the main themes for me in reading Robert Harris’s historical first century BC novels is that politics is timeless, as are the scheming, betrayals, uneasy alliances and real-politik that dominates it today. Would an enormously clever and talented, but relatively humble orator like Cicero rise to the top echelons of government today, or as in the time of the Roman republic, would that require huge financial backing? Has much changed? The 20th century featured one or two very ambitious orators who had humble beginnings, and that didn’t work out so well for humanity.

If I do receive an answer I’ll post it here, and if this type of historical/political fiction is your thing, please do check out Robert Harris’s novels if you haven’t already.

Margaret