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Agrippa by Robert Harris review – persuasive portrait of rivalry in ancient Rome

This fictional memoir by Octavius’s right-hand man shows us bloodshed, betrayal and hectic jockeying for power If you’re one of those people who thinks about the Roman empire several times a week, Robert Harris has you covered. He follows his trilogy of novels about the life of Cicero and his one-off about the unpleasantness in Pompeii with a narrative that takes us from civil war through the assassination of Julius

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Ledger record
#76
First seen
17 Aug 2026, 21:26 UTC
Last checked
20 Aug 2026, 11:02 UTC
Version history
1 version
Current fingerprint
4f4967126b07...ad2052
01

Publisher layer

Recorded article metadata

Publisher
The Guardian
Country
England / United Kingdom
Source published
17 Aug 2026, 06:00 UTC
Source updated
No update timestamp supplied
Byline
Sam Leith
Section
Fiction
Source-supplied excerpt
This fictional memoir by Octavius’s right-hand man shows us bloodshed, betrayal and hectic jockeying for power If you’re one of those people who thinks about the Roman empire several times a week, Robert Harris has you covered. He follows his trilogy of novels about the life of Cicero and his one-off about the unpleasantness in Pompeii with a narrative that takes us from civil war through the assassination of Julius
02

Change layer

Observed version timeline

  1. 1
    Initial capture

    Agrippa by Robert Harris review – persuasive portrait of rivalry in ancient Rome

    This fictional memoir by Octavius’s right-hand man shows us bloodshed, betrayal and hectic jockeying for power If you’re one of those people who thinks about the Roman empire several times a week, Robert Harris has you covered. He follows his trilogy of novels about the life of Cicero and his one-off about the unpleasantness in Pompeii with a narrative that takes us from civil war through the assassination of Julius

    Changed fieldstitlebylinedescriptionTextcontentTextsourcePublishedAtsourceUpdatedAtsectionimageUrltags
    Version SHA-256
    4f4967126b07...ad2052
    Capture SHA-256
    2bce3d4df01c...722802
03

Interpretation layer

Labels with declared origins

Not an adjudication.

Publisher categories are copied from source metadata. Machine signals report observable wording or format and do not determine truth, intent, ethics, or wrongdoing.

  • machine content-type Analysis or opinion observable-rules-v1 / 70% rule confidence
  • machine language-signal Investigation language observable-rules-v1 / 65% rule confidence
  • publisher category Books rss-category
  • publisher category Culture rss-category
  • publisher category Fiction rss-category
  • publisher category Robert Harris rss-category
04

Public response layer

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No reviewed reception capture yet.

Comment counts and samples remain absent until a lawful, source-specific capture method is reviewed. Absence is recorded instead of estimated.

05

Evidence layer

Capture provenance

Capture ID
#1
Observed
17 Aug 2026, 21:26 UTC
HTTP result
200 / parsed
Raw payload
460,621 bytes, private gzip evidence
Collector
news-ledger/0.1
Public boundary
metadata and excerpt