The writer Santiago Posteguillo has begun his “greatest literary challenge” with the first book of his project –there will finally be six written in a period of twelve years– about Julius Caesar, ‘Roma soy yo’ (Ediciones B), about the life and the work of the most famous senator of classical Rome.
“Caesar is the Zelensky of the time and his enemy Sulla – Roman dictator – is like Putin. The last thing Putin thought today was to meet a Zelensky who opposes him, he thought he was going to run away, but no. And that also happened to Sila”, the best-selling author has pointed out in an interview with Europa Press.
Posteguillo has dedicated his literary career to addressing Rome through the historical novel, but with Julius Caesar as a shadow character. Now, he has projected a work to recount the life of “the person who changed the history” of Rome in the next ten years.
“If I want to tell this in my own style, the story of someone around whom Rome was piloting, I couldn’t just make a trilogy: recounting his rise, the Gallic Wars, Cleopatra…”, reasons the Valencian writer. For this reason, at the moment six deliveries of this project are planned, but Posteguillo does not rule out any more.
In ‘Roma soy yo’ we talk about the most unknown Julius Caesar, when in his beginnings he decided to confront the corrupt political class as a prosecutor, embodied in Senator Dolabela. The Roman leader accepts the order of the Macedonians to end the political privileges in his area, even if that means putting himself in the firing line of the ‘optimates’.
In a civil-war and more violent Rome than ever, Julius Caesar will make his first public appearance in a decisive trial and, in part, dismantles that echo of “a tyrannical dictator” that has been forged throughout different eras.
“That vision of a dictator that people have of him I question, especially because of the connotations that word has today. We cannot know if he was going to continue in power when he had it, because they did not let him: they assassinated him. In addition , is much more complex than saying that he is a genocide because he killed many people in Gaul”, he defended.
In fact, Posteguillo has recognized the “admiration” he feels for the protagonist of his project, especially for his premonitory character. “I don’t want to soften his figure, but I can’t spend twelve years of my life with a character I don’t admire. Many of the things he did were done for the first time in history,” he admitted.
A FEMINIST CAESAR?
For example, in ‘Roma soy yo’ the future Caesar of Rome is shown with his first wife, Cornelia, with whom he was in love and to whom he read a funeral speech after his death that raised suspicions, since it had never been made for women before deceased youth.
“I’m not saying he was a feminist, because that was impossible at the time, but it did show how little he cared about conventions. It didn’t matter if there wasn’t a Ministry of Equality, if he believed his wife deserved a speech, he did it” , has defended.
This novel also captures the environment of rottenness in the actions of Roman leaders, at a time when the expansion of their empire caused tensions with the new citizens -with hardly any class privileges and high taxes to face-.
A COURT THRILLER
‘Roma soy yo’ ends up being a sort of “judicial thriller” that brings together many similarities with current judicial systems. “It is perfectly clear that our law is an evolution of Roman law, with recusals of judges: if justice fails, the whole of society suffers,” explained Posteguillo, who acknowledges drinking from literary influences such as John Grisham or Agatha Christie.
Again with the similarities with today’s society, the author of ‘I, Julia’ resorts again to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine to find “who is more similar” to Julius Caesar today: the Ukrainian leader Zelensky.
“I miss people in politics with the character, charisma and audacity of Caesar. And now I see that the only European leader capable of putting his life at stake for his beliefs has been Zelensky, with that Caesarian point of ‘I don’t give up and I fight to the death’. Both César and Zelenski give strength to their speech with the example”, he concluded.