I confused him with Julius at first. :o
Given the general geek level of the board, I’m surprised nobody’s mentioned Neil Gaiman’s Sandman story about Augustus before now.
Brian Blessed.
He makes a mean salad.
Nitpick: That’s Julius Caesar in Civ IV. Augustus is in Civ V, though he doesn’t talk about caesar salads. Well, he might but it’s in Latin so I have no idea what he’s saying.
I think of him as Livia’s Boy Toy.
Yep…Brian Blessed.
August salad.
I was thinking of that, but after his role in Colleen McCullough’s Masters of Rome book series* and after I, Claudius, book and TV series.
Although, actually, those thoughts came after a first reaction of “twisty little bastard.”
- He’s in October Horse and Antony and Cleopatra.
I think about the first two, but my very first thought is “Brian Blessed”
According to the book I, Claudius, the union was political only, and when Augustus needed to get it off, Livia personally procured concubines for him. IIRC, her gripe was that her father had fallen victim of one of Augustus’s earliest purges, leading ultimately to her poisoning him once he’d served his purpose.
I liked the moment in Rome when Agrippa (I think it was) tells Octavian he’s scariest when he smiles. At that point, Octavian realizes Cleopatra has absolutely no intention of accompanying him back to Rome.
Agreed that Brian Blessed was the ne plus ultra when it comes to portrayals of Augustus, but Roddy MacDowell in Cleopatra was pretty damned good, too!
I always think about the quote “I found Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble”.
Something else: I think of Publius Vergilius Maro writing the Aeneid for Gus, no doubt because I’m currently reading *Lavinia *by Ursula K. LeGuin, in which the shade of Vergil is a speaking character. Ars longa, vita brevis.
Another vote for salad.
And the bull in the Nero Wolfe novel.
Lavinia! I loved that book. Robert Brockway of Cracked.com once asked in his article The 5 Most Unjustly Overshadowed Sci-Fi Classics if there was anything he missed. I said Lavinia.
My first thought was, “Hmm, don’t we usually say Caesar Augustus, and not Augustus Caesar?” Then I had to think about it for a bit because I wasn’t sure if it was true or I had just made it up in my head right then.
After that it was the Christmas story from Luke 2.
This. Show went downhill after he died. I had never been exposed to the volume that is BB and I was impressed.
Both Augustus and Julius are in Civ IV. They have slightly different traits.
Was Augustus in one of the expansion packs? I’m not doubting you, it’s just that he’s not in my bare bones copy.