| Pulman at his best. The fade from Tiberius' presiding over the Senate reading of Augustus' will to a drunken scroll slinging Livia is pure genius. The "will" being read comes directly from Graves who lifts most of the details from Suetonius and Dio, with a few splashes of the Res Gestae. Jack even manages to work in an interesting bit from Dio. Polybius, an imperial freedman read the will (as it was not proper for a Senator -check out his threads). Pulman pairs Livia and Claudius, not only for a fictional disfunctional family moment, but to deftly work in more juicy details of the events surrounding Augustus' death and Tiberius' accession. Their dialogue is peppered with disparate bits pulled from Graves. But Pulman provides that little extra- an Etruscan lesson. Evidently Caesar without the C means "god", Claudius minus its C equals "jackass". |
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