Review by C.J. Bunce
Much fiction has been written and put on TV and movie screens about Ancient Rome and the Roman Empire. If you’ve studied the history of the era you know nobody has ever gotten it right, whether via movies where Hollywood spared no expense like The Fall of the Roman Empire or Cleopatra or Spartacus or Gladiator, you get the feeling nobody thought to crack open a history book. Ancient history in graphic novels seems even rarer, the least historicity in something like 300, which has too little action, and the top of the heap with Eric Shanower’s histories, which are less about action. Writer Jean-Pierre Pécau and artist Max Von Fafner have created a refreshing and exciting eye into Julius Caesar’s Rome during the Gallic Wars through the eyes of a Conan the Barbarian-inspired former gladiator named Coax in the pages of Caesar’s Spy, now available in its first English translation from Titan Books. It’s available for pre-order now here at Amazon.
Despite the story being fiction that borders on the fantasy of past gladiator tales and Conan stories (especially because Von Fafner illustrated Conan books previously), the book is a great entry point into Roman history, as writer Pecau punctuates Coax’s journey alongside Caesar with actual locations and events and the historical figures present at the time. The artwork is intricate, evocative of ancient art, and simply stunning.
Coax is drawn to look like an old Western anti-hero built like Conan, a little Lee Van Cliff, a little Richard Boone, a little Eli Wallach. The layering and layout of the book is masterully handled. In a similar way that Mary Shelley partitioned her Frankenstein novel, we meet Coax a few steps into the story, and go back later to learn his history and motivation. His past is one of a gladiator who survived the battle in the Colosseum to take a young Caesar prisoner, only to make a deal that would see him become a mercenary for Caesar for years to come.
This is a 194-page story that feels like 500 pages. The visual details, descriptions, and historical footnotes are the stuff of Caesar’s own account of his wars with Gaul. But it’s also gritty and action-filled, including some of the over-the-top blood and guts action sequences we saw Frank Miller use in his 300 graphic novel. Was there an actual gladiator like this? No, and certainly anyone close to Caesar would have been killed by his own bodyguards, the precursors to the famed Praetorian Guard.
But that’s why Conan fans will love this story. This is the same kind of journey Conan has taken so many times in Robert E. Howard’s own writings and later adaptations in novel and comics form. You could compare this to Hercules, The Legendary Journeys, too, because both Hercules in that series and Coax here are motivated by revenge for the loss of their wives and young children.
Although the title calls him a spy, Coax seems more mercenary-warrior than spy to me. French writer Jean-Pierre Pécau also makes a good update from most stories previously written in the genre, populating the story with powerful women along the way, including Divico Sanian, a leader he saves early on in the story, but one who he makes an enemy of, creating a revenge story for her, too.
The preview pages here make the book look more like 300 than it is–the action, the writing, and the historicity are actually superior to 300. Note: This would be a good introduction to Ancient Rome for older teens if not for some adult language, bloody violence, and nudity. But for an adult audience, as a historical saga steeped in violence and action, I can’t praise the story and unique art style enough. For those who also found movies of the genre The Fall of the Roman Empire, Cleopatra, Spartacus, and Gladiator lacking, this is a story that would make a better film.
A great read for students of ancient history and fans of Conan-type fantasy adventures, it’s among the best reads of 2025. Caesar’s Spy is available for pre-order now here at Amazon. It’s slated for release September 9, 2025.
