“i would go with you to hades — or even britannia!”
i. this series of RHOME is much better written (and i loved the first series)
ii. haha WOW to our first meeting with LIVIA* — this was an AWESOME ep all round, for sudden density of stress, ultra-perversity and OMG WTF did i just see that TV
iii. THE QUEEN OF SEDGE AND BEAN** is BACK BACK BACK
*much older, she is a central figure in I CLAVDIVS
**yes yes i know, bee, WOT OF IT
pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør in Do You See • TV • 487 views
I am reading Alan Massie’s Roman novels — Augustus, Antony, half-way through Tiberius and Caesar still to come. Also have his The Caesars which is the ‘straight’ historical version and planning on tracking down the Roman ‘sources’.
But I’m curious as to what the other ‘modern’ intertexts are (leaving aside Shakespeare obv, Sejanus etc.) — i.e. Robert Graves must be the obvious one but are there other ‘canon’ C20th reinterpretations?
Shaw’s Caesar And Cleopatra
there must be LOADS of post-60s novels in this territory — i can only think of rosemary sutcliffe and mary renault (not that this is such a bad start, esp.renault: the persian boy is a bit key to small mark s’s sexuality, for good or ill)
Our Little Tony’s chum Robert Harris has cranked out some airport books in this vein. Burgess wrote a couple of books about early Christians v Romans, I think (not read them: the only Burgess book I’ve read is Earthly Powers). And, obviously, crucially: Asterix.
I really liked this when I was about eight.
haha re “asterix”, the running gag in RHOME is “omg the gauls! don’t wash, steal everything they touch”
there was a nice bit last night when LEPIDUS — ie the member of the triumvirate who got lost in the wash when augustus and mark anthony fell out — went into a daily mail-esque rant until he noticed that there were only soldiers left in the room and they were all studiously not listening
small mark s in latin lesson long ago: “what happened to lepidus then?”
latin teacher: “he was SET ASIDE”
this answer still amuses me for some reason