Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I have been interested in the history of the Roman Republic and early Empire period for decades. Someone mentioned I might enjoy this book. I could not finish it since it was so painfully botched. Cicero was not a Christian and attempts to make him into a pre-Jesus Christian by taking cherry picked gobbets of his writing and recasting them in a Christian mindset is an insult. The inventions used to create a false narrative of his childhood etc are painful. I understand that a novel is different from a history and a novelist will take some minor liberties to make a story work. But this book simply makes nonsense up. Ms. Caldwell was an excellent writer but she blew this. Don't bother with this book unless you are willing to keep in mind nothing she says about Cicero in this book can be accepted as fact.