Brook Allen brings the grandeur, ambition, and intrigue of Ancient Rome vividly to life in Antonius: Son of Rome, the first instalment in The Antonius Trilogy. With richly detailed storytelling and a deep passion for Roman history, Allen reimagines the world of Marcus Antonius through a compelling blend of historical authenticity and emotional depth. In this exclusive interview, she shares the inspiration behind the novel, her fascination with the Roman Empire, and the creative journey of crafting a powerful story filled with loyalty, conflict, and destiny.
Publication Date: 15th March 2019
Publisher: Dawg House Books
Print Length: 418 Pages
Genre: Historical Fiction
For over two-thousand years, Marcus Antonius—Marc Antony—has been one of history’s most controversial men. His story was buried with him and written by his enemies. Now his entire saga is revealed in a compelling trilogy by Brook Allen.
After young Marcus Antonius’s father dies in disgrace, he yearns to restore his family’s honor during the final days of Rome’s dying Republic. Marcus is rugged, handsome, and owns abundant military talent, but upon entering manhood, he falls prey to the excesses of a violent society. His whoring, gambling, and drinking eventually reap dire consequences. Through a series of personal tragedies, Marcus must come into his own through blood, blades, and death. Once he finally earns a military commission, he faces an uphill battle to earn the respect and admiration of soldiers, proconsuls, and kings. Desperate to redeem his name and carve a legacy for himself, he refuses to let warring rebels, scheming politicians, or even an alluring young Egyptian princess stand in his way.
For readers discovering your work for the first time, could you tell us a little about yourself and what led you to write historical fiction?
All the way back in high school, I discovered that I loved ancient history. Now, I embrace ALL history, but still have a soft spot in my heart for the Roman period. When I also discovered writing, I realized how much I wanted to focus on hist. fic. However, it took me about forty years to get serious about it. Now I’m working on my fifth project, and I can tell you, waiting that forty years to finally become a published writer was worth it.
What first inspired you to explore the life of Marcus Antonius, and what drew you to tell his story from this perspective?
I read Julius Caesar in high school and was really drawn to the 1st century BC. When I was finally ready to write on someone in that period, I kept coming back to Antony. He had the military/political background, and of course—his romance with Cleopatra. He was a perfect protagonist. Challenging, but offered so much drama that it was a pleasure spending an entire trilogy on him.
Marc Antony is often portrayed through the lens of his rivals and enemies. What made you want to revisit his story and offer a different interpretation?
When selecting someone from the period, so many of the people back then had been written—Caesar, Cleopatra, and Robert Harris had just come out with his Cicero books. Nobody had really touched Antony. As I delved deeper, I found that he was still a polarizing figure after two-thousand years. However, I also discovered that there were valid reasons he acted and responded to things the way he did. And back in the 1st Century BC, actions and responses were typically much different than those today.
Your novel begins with Antony’s youth and the shadow of his father’s disgrace. How important was it for you to explore his early life in shaping the man he becomes?
Margaret George, in her MEMOIRS OF CLEOPATRA, really inspired me. Her Cleopatra character begins the story at an early age, and I wanted to do the same with Antony. Beginning a character’s experiences and journey through their formative years helps to detail the WHYS of their behavior. That was certainly the case for me as I studied his life through ancient sources. Plutarch, who lived almost one-hundred years after Antony died, offered the most complete references. But I used many, many others. Josephus, Suetonius were also very helpful.
Antony is shown as both talented and deeply flawed. How did you approach balancing his strengths with his more self-destructive tendencies?
I constantly asked myself: WHY is he behaving this way? What has caused this reaction. As for his strengths, they were pretty self-evident. Courage, generosity, loyalty almost to a fault… those were three that come to mind. He had a temper and sometimes it got the best of him, but he also had the cat-like tendency to be foundering and flip about to land on his feet upon occasion.
The world of the late Roman Republic was turbulent and often brutal. How did you bring that atmosphere to life while keeping readers engaged with the characters?
Honestly, I let the history do most of that work for me. Even though HBO’s ROME is lauded as a great series, I didn’t like it. It did NOT do a righteous job of following the historical record. Antony was surrounded with tragedy. Take his step-father Lentulus, for example. During the Catalina Conspiracy, he was strangled. I used history to surround Antony as my protagonist during those scenes, even placing him at the execution—watching his step-father die. It moved me when writing it, and it still does. And his life offered plenty of those moments.
Themes of honour, legacy, and redemption run strongly through the novel. Which of these resonated most with you while writing?
I did a real study of the Latin term “dignitas”. A Roman man of noble birth bore a great weight, carrying his family name and tried to rise politically and/or militarily to greatness. Antony’s enemies (notably Octavian) smeared his name toward the end of his life. However, even through coinage of his final two years and his choice of death bore witness to Antony stating to the world: I an not an Eastern despot. I am ROMAN. And that’s how I chose to portray him.
Historical figures like Antony come with well-known outcomes. How do you maintain tension and suspense when readers may already know how his story ends?
We authors can often use other characters or circumstances to create conflict or plot twists in tales that are otherwise well-known. I took a risk, using a plot twist during Antony’s death that turned out to work very well. To this day, I have people stunned by it! And the ultimate compliment comes when a reader tells me they cried at the end!
What kind of research did you undertake to portray this period accurately, and were there any details that particularly surprised you?
I spent fifteen years on this Trilogy. During that time, I made multiple trips to Rome, Greece, Turkey, and one lengthy trip to Egypt. When you are able to visit actual sites where your protagonist lived, visited, or fought, there is much to glean. Example: during the Battle of Philippi, when Antony scored a major victory over Brutus and Cassius, he sent men down into some “grassy swamp” to cut a passage over to access the enemy. By visiting Philippi, I discovered a natural grass that grew nearly nine feet tall! It was totally feasible for Antony to have used it for his mens’ cover. Visuals are like pure gold for authors. Then we can take those memories and run wild with them!
This is the first book in a trilogy—what can readers look forward to as Antony’s journey continues? Each of the books offers a look at where he was in his life. SECOND IN COMMAND focuses on his years at Caesar’s side and then after the Ides of March, when he’s first challenged by Octavian. SOLDIER OF FATE brings us to his tougher years, sweetened by his romance with Cleopatra. Overall, I think readers will be amazed at how much travel this man accomplished in his lifetime by boat, horse, and on foot. This is just the story of one Roman general, but one that is eye-opening in the scale of their theatres of war and their practices to survive in an age when power was gained by force as much as political strategy.
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Brook Allen
Author Brook Allen has a passion for history. Her newest project, West of Santillane spotlights history from a little closer to home. It’s the story of Julia Hancock, who married famed explorer, William Clark. Each character of this thrilling, adventurous period was researched throughout southwest Virginia and into Kentucky, Missouri, Montana, Idaho, and North Dakota. It launches in March of 2024.
Brook belongs to the Historical Novel Society and attends conferences as often as possible to study craft and meet fellow authors. In 2019, Son of Rome won the Coffee Pot Book Club Book of the Year Award. In 2020, it was honored with a silver medal in the international Reader’s Favorite Book Reviewers Book Awards and also won First Place in the prestigious Chaucer Division in the Chanticleer International Book Awards, 2020.
The Antonius Trilogy is a detailed account of the life of Marcus Antonius—Marc Antony, which she worked on for fifteen years. The first installment, Antonius: Son of Rome was published in March 2019. It follows Antony as a young man, from the age of eleven, when his father died in disgrace, until he’s twenty-seven and meets Cleopatra for the first time. Brook’s second book is Antonius: Second in Command, dealing with Antony’s tumultuous rise to power at Caesar’s side and culminating with the civil war against Brutus and Cassius. Antonius: Soldier of Fate is the last book in the trilogy, spotlighting the romance between Antonius and Cleopatra and the historic war with Octavian Caesar.
Though she graduated from Asbury University with a B.A. in Music Education, Brook has always loved writing. She completed a Masters program at Hollins University with an emphasis in Ancient Roman studies, which helped prepare her for authoring her Antonius Trilogy. Brook teaches full-time as a Music Educator and works in a rural public-school district near Roanoke, Virginia. Her personal interests include travel, cycling, hiking in the woods, reading, and spending downtime with her husband and big, black dog, Jak. She lives in the heart of southwest Virginia in the scenic Blue Ridge Mountains.
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