Bruno Heller Great Quotations

I think it was a brutal time filled with people who were strangely sophisticated and uncivilized. Over the years movies tended to take a Victorian gentleman's view of this world ù all marbleized sets and men. But Caesar was a great warrior and writer and a war criminal, by our definition. ...There was a dichotomy between sophistication and viciousness that was specifically Roman.

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