II
Much of the story of my life is a story of the books I wrote. I read a great many, too, and among those I found interesting was a history of ancient Rome—because of the resemblance between the political and economic circumstances of two thousand years ago and those I knew so well in my native land. So I wrote Roman Holiday, the story of a rich young American who amuses himself driving a racing automobile. He meets with an accident and wakes up in the days when he had been driving horses in a chariot race in the arena of ancient Rome. Everything is familiar to him, and he goes back and forth between the two ages of history, equally at home in both. This novel was a foreshadowing of my tragic drama, Cicero—although, rather oddly, this realization did not come to me until just recently, when Cicero was produced.