Rob
asked
Robert Harris:
Your Cicero series deals with prominent historical figures, such as Julius Caesar and Cicero himself. How did you look past these men of marble and find the breathing characters who live in your novels?
Robert Harris
Aristotle said that the truest guide to a man’s character is his actions, and I suppose that is the basis for my characterization. I look at what these men did, and then try to work backwards, imagining what it was in their personalities that led them to behave as they did. I also work on the basis that 2,000 years is the blink of an eye in terms of the scale of evolution, and they weren’t that dissimilar to us.
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