[Antoninus]

I see him as a man to be feared, hated, despised, admired and pitied. More importantly, I see him as a dire warning of the extremes which even a possibly good man can go to as his civilization dies. Since I consider it greatly possible that we ourselves are well on the way down that road, we must take his career as a warning of the temptations which may come to us, and a path to avoid.

Excellent points and ones that I've made myself from time to time. I believe that it would be well if more Americans were familliar with that period of Roman history. I often mention it to liberals and libertarians alike - anyone who proclaims that private morality and ethics has nothing to do with public government. When enough people believe that, and the sense of personal ethcis and civic duty in society as a whole is degraded, the endurance of a free republican form of government is severely taxed. Society is given a choice of anarchy or authoritarianism. Rome chose the latter, but other republics chose the former - and then proceeded to fly apart, or else be gobbled up by their neighbors.

Hopefully, we'll never have to make that choice.

And I believe the author you're talking about is Colleen McCollough. I read one of hers - Caesar. I wasn't thrilled with it - It was ok in terms of her descriptions of military campaigns, but her understanding of Caesar's motivations were uninspired and left him one dimensional. I much prefered I, Claudius and Claudius the God by Robert Graves.

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

Colleen McCollough. I read one of hers - Caesar.

I haven't read all of them, but the Sulla - Crassus books at the beginning of the series were very interesting -- possibly due in part to the neglect of this period previously.