The Ides of March has as background the six months which preceded the fatal Ides of March, 44 B.C. "Historical reconstruction is not among the primary aims of this work. It may be called a fantasia on certain events and persons of the last days of the Roman republic," declares Mr. But his labeling of the novel as a "suppositional reconstruction" does not convince the reader that it is a fantasia, for never has a historical novel been written which gives the reader a more convincing sense of reality. Its technique immediately convinces him that fact, and fact only, is passing before his eyes, for the entire book is made up of contemporary recordings, mostly in letters or journals, occasionally in official documents, sometimes of quotations from historians of a generation or so later. Known historic fact and records are so commingled with what Mr.
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