Status Updates From Ich, Claudius, Kaiser und Gott

“ It is a comment on my brother’s extreme simplicity that he did not realize the effect his words were having. By his father he meant Tiberius (who also was often styled Germanicus), but the veterans thought he meant his real father; and by Augustus’s successor he meant Tiberius again, but the veterans thought that he meant himself.”

“Augustus was over seventy years of age. Until recently nobody had thought of him as an old man. But these new public and private calamities made a great change in him. His temper grew uncertain and he found it increasingly difficult to welcome chance visitors with his usual affability or to keep his patience at public banquets. He was even inclined to be short-tempered with Livia.”

“The real reason for her banishment was that she was just about to bear another child, which if it were a boy would be a great-grandson of Augustus, and unrelated to Livia; Livia was taking no risks now. Julilla had one son already, but he was a delicate, timorous, slack-twisted fellow and could be disregarded.“