A biographical novel by Cicero, lawyer and jurist, great writer and, above all, a remarkable rhetorician who lived in Rome at the time when the Roman Republic, forgetting the noble values that founded it, was abandoning its government to successive dictators or triumvirates.
The title is taken from the Bible, from the prophecy that God makes to Jeremiah: "I will make you an iron column". Despite being a realist Roman, Cicero sought to know wisdom and knew the Jewish prophecies of the Messiah. The author perhaps exaggerates at this point, by presenting the religions of the time (of the Jews, the Chaldeans, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans) as different appearances of the same thing.
The book shows the contrast between the old republic, which Cicero defends passionately and whose noble values he seeks to restore with the decadent society, the current vices of their fellow citizens, who only think of enriching themselves and enjoying themselves in a libertine way, living at the expense of the State, stealing whenever they can ...
In this difficult environment, Cicero seeks to defend the value of law and order, the existence of human nature and the moral law, the value of virtue.
Since this book is a novel, the author has to recreate the monologues and thoughts of the character. But the final result is an excellent historical recreation, closely based on the works and letters of Cicero, with frequent quotes from the classics.