Imperium by Robert Harris

"If you must do something unpopular, you might as well do it wholeheartedly, for in politics there is no credit  to be won by timidity." 

"No one can really claim to know politics properly until he has stayed up all night, writing a speech for delivery the following day.  While the world sleeps, the orator paces around by lamplight, wondering what madness brought him to this occupation in the first place.  Arguments are prepared and discarded.  Versions of openings and middle sections and perorations lie in drifts across the floor.  The exhausted mind ceases to have any coherent grip upon the purpose of the enterprise, so that often - usually an hour or so after midnight - there comes a point where failing to turn up, feigning illness and hiding at home seem the only realistic options.  And then, somehow, under pressure of panic, just as humiliation beckons, the parts cohere, and there it is: a speech.  A second-rate orator now retires gratefully to bed.  A Cicero stays up and commits it to memory."

"Politics?  Boring?  Politics is history on the wing!  What other sphere of human activity calls forth all that is most noble in men's souls and all that is most base?  Or has such excitement?  Or more vividly exposes your strengths and weaknesses?  Boring?  You might as well say that life is boring."

"Rome is not merely a matter of geography.  Rome is not defined by rivers, or mountains, or even seas; Rome is not a question of blood, or race, or religion; Rome is an ideal.  Rome is the highest embodiment of liberty and law that mankind has yet achieved in the ten thousand years since our ancestors came down from those mountains and learned how to live as communities under the rule of law."

"The ability to listen to bores requires stamina, and such stamina is the essence of politics.  It is from bores that you really find things out."

"Such was the huge amount that the bribery agents were already being paid, and such was their nervousness about antagonising their mysterious client, that there was not a single vote to be had, and not a breath of rumour as to who that client might be.  Now you might wonder, given the thousands of votes involved, how such an immense operation could remain so tight a secret.  The answer is that it was very cleverly organised, with perhaps only a dozen agents, or interpretes as they were called, knowing the identity of the buyer.  These men would contact the officials of the voting syndicates and strike the initial bargain - such-and-such a price for fifty votes, say or five hundred, depending on the size of the syndicate.  Because naturally no one trusted anyone else in this game, the money would then be deposited with a second category of agent, known as the sequestres, who would hold the cash available for inspection.  And finally, when the election was over and it was time to settle up, a third species of criminal, the so-called divisores, would distribute it.  This made it extremely difficult to bring a successful prosecution, for even if a man was arrested in the very act of handing over a bribe, he might genuinely have no idea of who had commissioned the corruption in the first place."

"If it is gratitude you want, get a dog."

"You can always spot a fool, for he is the man who will tell you he knows who is going to win an election.  But an election is a living thing - you might almost say, the most vigorously alive thing there is - with thousands upon thousands of brains and limbs and eyes and thoughts and desires, and it will wriggle and turn and run off in directions no one ever predicted , sometimes just for the joy of proving the wiseacres wrong."

Lustrum by Robert Harris

Just finished this. Keenly anticipating the third in this trilogy. Looking forward to getting my hands on IMPERIUM.

"What is great oratory, after all, except the distillation of emotion into exact words?"

"But sometimes in politics a great weakness can be turned into a strength."

"But I fear there is in all men who achieve their life's ambition only a narrow line between dignity and vanity, confidence and delusion, glory and self-destruction."

" ... in politics, how things look is often more important than what they are."

"My worldly, meretricious friendships may make a fine show in public, but in the home they are barren things.  My house is crammed of a morning, I go down to the forum surrounded by droves of friends, but in all the crowds I cannot find one person with whom I can exchange an unguarded joke or let out a private sigh."  Cicero

" ... you cannot oppose illegality by illegality and hope to command respect.  Hard times lie ahead, gentlemen, and although you may not feel you need Rome any more, Rome has need of you.  Preserve yourselves for the battles yet to come rather than sacrificing yourselves uselessly in one that is already lost."  Cicero

"I did not know where to begin.  There were so many errors: they stretched back like islands behind us, an archipelago of folly.  Or perhaps 'errors' was the wrong word.  Perhaps it was more accurate to call them consequences: the ineluctable consequences of a deed done by a great man for honourable motives - is that not, after all, how the Greeks define tragedy?"

A chilling account of the fall of Republican Rome.  Such a pity Cicero cannot be interviewed on the Today Programme and asked if he would have done anything differently.

The Week (21/8/10): Peter Mandelson's 5 Books and Mine

Best Books ... Peter Mandelson

Peter Mandelson, former Labour Minister and European Commissioner and one of the key architects of New Labour, chooses his five favourite political books.  His memoir, The Third Man, has just been published.

The Making of the Prime Minister by Anthony Howard and Richard West 1965 (out of print)
"This book cemented my childhood infatuation with politics.  It chronicled the rise of our neighbour, Harold Wilson, and his coming to power in 1964.  He seemed to sweep my family into No 10 with him, and the events of the next six years dominated our mealtime discussions."

The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister by Richard Crossman, 1975 (out of print)
"Dick Crossman's diaries taught me a great deal about politics.  Like Alastair Campbell's they tell you more about the author's mind that objective reality, but I am sure that's what some people say about The Third Man.  At least I have given a lot of time to reflection since I started writing years ago and, I hope to the sort of candour not usually associated with a ministerial memoir."

Germinal by Emile Zola, 1885 (Penguin Classics £9.99)
"This book aroused intense feelings in me while I was trekking in Rwanda on my gap year.  It tells of thwarted love and workers' struggles in 19th century France - both preoccupations of mine at the time.  The book and my experiences in Africa cleared my head, and I went up to Oxford feeling more mature than many contemporaries.  I shall return to Zola and see whether he can help clear the decks for the next stage."

The Prince by Niccoloa Machiavelli, 1513 (Penguin Classics £6.99)
"This is a book I've dipped into.  My association with it is Robert Harris' fault.  He did a profile of me for The Observer in 1987, headlined "Machiavelli comes to Walworth Road".  Sometimes you can't help the truth sticking."

Lustrum by Robert Harris 2010 (Arrow £7.99)
"The second of my friend Robert's promised trilogy.  It combines brilliant writing and wry humour with meticulous research into the characters of Cicero, Caesar and much besides.  You can translate the narrative into contemporary political times if you wish.  A masterpiece (dedicated to me)."

My Proposal to Mandy, now compared to Cicero

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23728374-details/Lord+Mandelson,+in+the+image+of+Roman+orator/article.do

Lord Mandelson is now holidaying in Corfu, yet the press press upon him their further accolades.

Recently compared to Richelieu, the ghost of Cicero is now raised in tribute.

I cannot remember a single British politician who has had such things said about him during his lifetime.

As I have said before, I am willing to sacrifice my privacy and my life to be his consort. While delighted to hear that dear Peter is being compared to Cicero, I believe that it is I who am in fact more Ciceronic through my communications with so many correspondents, and thank the one of who so thoughtfully forwarded me the link above.

Even my awareness of Cicero's sticky end does not deter me in my determination to offer myself to Peter.

I would urge him to consider the concept of the Domestic Partnership outlined in http://thebattlefieldoflove.blogspot.com/search?q=domestic+partnership, which is intended to assist him in formulating what exactly he requires and desires of me.

I am a good conversationalist, enjoying socialising and political intrigue. I believe I genuinely like people and am interested in them. I am also independent, tolerant and the antithesis of the green-eyed monster. While I am aware of his preference for the stronger sex, I like to think that I am a masculine mind contentedly inhabiting the body of a woman who is not without admirers, both male and female ...

I believe that, out of all the people in this country, I am the one most capable of combining my ambition for him in a way that would not be incompatible with the National Interest. My intimate knowledge of the British peoples, their ways of thinking, their social divisions and prejudices, of all classes and political persuasions, their likes and dislikes, is second to none.

As for my colourful past, I am reconciled to it and believe I can justify, explain or excuse most of my misdemeanours and brushes with the law.