I, Julius Caesar

Thank you to The Experiment and NetGalley for the ARC — all opinions are my own.

The premise (spoiler-free)

Julius Caesar tells his own life story here, from cradle to grave, in his own words. A sickly, penniless orphan who somehow claws his way to becoming the most powerful man in the Roman world, only to be assassinated by people he called friends. The whole thing is built on real research, the author interviewed over thirty historians to get it right, so this isn't dramatized fan fiction. It's documented history, just handed to you in full-color panels instead of a textbook.

What I loved

If you'd asked me how often I think about the Roman Empire before this book, I'd say never. Genuinely never. But this was such a nice, engaging way to absorb actual history. I enjoyed this way more than I expected to.

One of my favorite little details: the book draws a line from Pliny the Elder's ancient accusation against Caesar, tallying up his kill count as a wrong against all of humanity, straight to the modern language of "crime against humanity." Two thousand years later and the accusation still lands.

Honestly, if my actual history textbooks had looked like this growing up, I think I would have retained so much more. There's something about seeing it play out panel by panel that makes it stick in a way dates and bullet points never did for me.

Am I a history girly now? Genuinely asking. I think I might be.

What wasn't for me

My one real hiccup: there are a LOT of names and family relations to keep straight, and it got confusing more than once. Roman naming conventions are not built for casual readers, apparently.

But here's the save: there are genuinely extensive notes at the back of the book that correspond directly to the graphic slides throughout, so if you lose the thread, you can flip back and actually ground yourself in what's real, sourced history versus what's been compressed for pacing. I ended up using that backmatter a lot, and it turned what could've been a frustrating mess of names into something I could actually follow.