The First Man in Rome Quotes

“The law should not be a huge and weighty slab which falls upon a man and squashes him into a uniform shape, for men are not uniform.”
― Colleen McCullough, The First Man in Rome

“Wine, wine, wine! Nectar of the gods, balm for the sore heart, glue for the shredded spirit! How did I ever exist without it?” He laughed. “I don’t care if I never see another horn of beer or tankard of mead in all the rest of my life! Wine is civilized. No belches, no farts, no distended belly—on beer, a man becomes a walking cistern.”
― Colleen McCullough, The First Man in Rome

“There is something terribly reassuring about being in politics to enrich oneself. It’s normal. It’s human. It’s forgivable. It’s understandable. The ones to watch are the ones who are in politics to change the world. They do the real damage, the power-men and the altruists”
― Colleen McCullough, The First Man in Rome

“Great literature was never intended to be either facsimile or echo of real life; it was meant to shut out real life for a while, to free the harried mind from mundane considerations, so that the mind could holiday amid glorious language and vivid word-pictures and inspiring or alluring ideas.”
― Colleen McCullough, The First Man in Rome

“The Julian ancestry was so stellar, so august, that opportunities to fill the family coffers had passed”
― Colleen McCullough, The First Man in Rome

“The Julius Caesars are directly descended from the goddess Venus through her grandson Iulus, son of her son Aeneas.”
― Colleen McCullough, The First Man in Rome

“What can I do when there is no courage in me, Father? Where does courage come from? Why did I not receive my share?”
― Colleen McCullough, The First Man in Rome

“La buena literatura nunca había tenido por objeto ser un ejemplo o eco de la vida real, sino que estaba hecha para abstraer al lector momentáneamente de la vida, liberando su mente de consideraciones para posibilitar su solaz con el glorioso lenguaje de vívidas composiciones de palabras en forma de ideas imaginarias o fantasiosas.”
― Colleen McCullough, El primer hombre de Roma

“It was four hundred years since a Julius had sat in the consul’s ivory curule chair,”
― Colleen McCullough, The First Man in Rome

“There is something terribly reassuring about being in politics to enrich oneself. It’s normal. It’s human. It’s forgivable. It’s understandable. The ones to watch are the ones who are in politics to change the world. They do the real damage, the power-men and the altruists. It isn’t healthy to think about other people ahead of oneself. Other people are not as deserving. Did I tell you I was a Skeptic?”
― Colleen McCullough, The First Man in Rome

“distinguished his garb from that of his sons, Sextus and Gaius, who wore ordinary shoes,”
― Colleen McCullough, The First Man in Rome

“including that branch of the family called Caesar because of their luxuriantly thick hair.”
― Colleen McCullough, The First Man in Rome

“a safe and humble backbencher’s niche in the Senate was the inheritance of a Julius these days,”
― Colleen McCullough, The First Man in Rome

“and what is generally believed is far more important than what is actually the truth.”
― Colleen McCullough, The First Man in Rome

“True democracy is a Greek philosophic unattainable.”
― Colleen McCullough, The First Man in Rome

“¿Es que diréis acaso con toda sinceridad que preferís el gesto suicida de Leónidas a la brillante estrategia de Temístocles?”
― Colleen McCullough, El primer hombre de Roma

“forbearance down as virtues intrinsic to his own”
― Colleen McCullough, The First Man in Rome

“I think I'll wear the Chian outfit,' he said to his body servant standing waiting for orders. Many men in Marius's position would have lain back in the bath water and demanded that they be scrubbed, scraped, and massaged by slaves, but Gaius Marius preferred to do his own dirty work, even now. Mind you, at forty-seven he was still a fine figure of a man. Nothing to be ashamed of about his physique! No matter how ostensibly inert his days might be, he got in a fair amount of exercise, worked with the dumbbells and the closhes, swam if he could several times across the Tiber in the reach called the Trigarium, then ran all the way back from the far perimeter of the Campus Martius to his house on the flanks of the Capitoline Arx. His hair was getting a bit thin on top, but he still had enough dark brown curls to brush forward into a respectable coiffure. There. That would have to do. A beauty he had never been, never would be. A good face - even an impressive one - but no rival for Gaius Julius Caesar's!”
― Colleen McCullough, The First Man in Rome

“No one grovels to me, it demeans me as much as it does the groveler!”
― Colleen McCullough, The First Man in Rome

“The law should not be a huge and weighty slab which falls upon a man and squashes him into a uniform shape, for men are not uniform. The law should be a gentle sheet which falls upon a man and shows his unique shape beneath its blanketing sameness.”
― Colleen McCullough, The First Man in Rome

“Instincts are significant, I agree with you. They're like beacons: they light up whole fields of hidden facts, often long before logic can.”
― Colleen McCullough, The First Man in Rome

“And, with the trouble largely over and a feeling of peace within his heart, he looked out into that ocean of faces and saw what Lucius Appuleius Saturninus had seen: a source of power as yet untapped, innocent of the guile experience and education brought, ready to believe some passionately eloquent demagogue’s self-seeking kharisma and put themselves under a different master. Not for me, thought Gaius Marius; to be the First Man in Rome at the whim of the gullible is no victory. I have enjoyed the status of First Man in Rome the old way, the hard way, battling the prejudices and monstrosities of the cursus honorum.”
― Colleen McCullough, The First Man in Rome

“I do not require an apology from you for any of the rest of us, for you have lost our love and respect, and that renders apologies valueless.”
― Colleen McCullough, The First Man in Rome

“¿Y qué sucederá si el premio no vale la pena? Nunca vale la pena. Pero ninguno lo hacemos por eso. Corremos contra nosotros mismos. Soy capaz y voy a hacerlo. Pero es solo a mí a quién importa.”
― Colleen McCullough, El primer hombre de Roma

“I don’t believe it, thought Marius, eyes following the parting of the people-ocean. To hear them cheer, they adore the man the way they adore no gods. To them it must look as if I’ve put the creature under arrest. But what are they doing? What they always, always do whenever they see a line of lictors marching-along with fasces on their shoulders and some purple-bordered toga strutting at their rear—they’re standing aside to permit the majesty of Rome the right of way. Not even for a Lucius Equitius will they destroy the power of the rods and the purple-bordered toga. There goes Rome. What’s a Lucius Equitius, when all is said and done? A pathetic facsimile of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, whom they loved, loved, loved. They’re not cheering Lucius Equitius! They’re cheering the memory of Tiberius Gracchus.
And a new kind of pride-filled emotion welled up in Gaius Marius as he continued to watch that lictorial dorsal fin cleave the ocean of Roman lowly—pride in the old ways, the customs and traditions of six hundred and fifty-four years, so powerful still that it could turn a tide greater than the German invasion with no more effort than the shouldering of a few bundles of sticks. And I, thought Gaius Marius, stand here in my purple-bordered toga, unafraid of anything because I wear it, and know myself greater than any king who ever walked this globe. For I have no army, and inside their city I have no axes thrust into the rods, nor a bodyguard of swords; and yet they stand aside for the mere symbols of my authority, a few sticks and a shapeless piece of cloth rimmed with less purple than they can see any day on some unspeakable saltatrix tonsa parading his stuff. Yes, I would rather be consul of Rome than king of the world.”
― Colleen McCullough, The First Man in Rome

“She belonged to herself, and so she didn't burden me with herself. You're a lead weight chained about my neck. Hermana was a pair of wings strapped to my feet.”
― Colleen McCullough, The First Man in Rome

“Love is for the many. Sentiment is for the few,” said Marius. “A man must fight to save the many, never the few.” He brightened. “Unless, that is, he has the opportunity to do both.”
― Colleen McCullough, The First Man in Rome

“Ambition allied to no talent is the most dangerous thing in the world”
― Colleen McCullough, The First Man in Rome

“The strand of his life was so strong it rubbed all the life-strands it crossed until they snapped.”
― Colleen McCullough, The First Man in Rome

“There are those who maintain,” said Sulla, stretching his arms above his head, “that a man makes his own luck.” Marius opened his eyes wide, an action which sent his eyebrows flying upward. “But of course! Still, isn’t it nice to know one has it?”
― Colleen McCullough, The First Man in Rome