| Pulman adapts this scene from the Graves novel (the only possible source)with much alteration and pulmanesque flair. The chit chat about wives, is drawn freely from bits and pieces in the novel, but is never the subject of conversation between the two brothers. Curiously in the novel, when Claudius spills the beans about Livia, Germanicus is not at all convinced. Some pages later, after talking separately to Aemilius and Castor, Germanicus decides to believe that she arranged Postumus' fall from grace. In Graves it is in broad daylight that Germanicus promises Claudius he will tell Augustus. So Jack whips up a delightful scene complete with sexual double entendres, Claudian paranoia, brotherly bonding and dirt-dishage. Night provides the perfect cover for these confidences. So what if the real reason for Postumus' banishment (according to ancient sources) is that he was a brutish waste of human flesh. |
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