(He) must have been a very strange and brilliant man. He ... created a new way of operating a society that lasted for another 500 years.

It's the great secret Caesar knew and that Octavian (Caesar's successor, the future emperor Augustus) would find out, because he learned a great deal from Caesar: that as long as you retain the forms of a democratic republic, you can gut the whole thing. It's how you sell the sizzle, not the steak.

Italy is still very much the same place it was 2,000 years ago. Italians are still the same ... there's a sense of beauty and a sense of dignity and a sense of living life to the full that infects everyone.

It was a moment in history that's pivotal in western history. If things hadn't turned out the way they did at that particular point, the world that we live in now would be very different ... It's the transformation of a republic into an empire. I think America is dealing with that issue just now.

The novel aspect is that it's about everyday life in a time of great historical import.

Rome from street level. (It's) Rome from the point of view of ordinary people caught up in the extraordinary events of that time.