The Jewish War: First half of Book 2

[cahn]

Last week: Discussion on how Herod stacked up against various Roman emperors in terms of body count of his nearest and dearest; how Friedrich Wilhelm might hear the Josephus text; Herod throwing money around; Cleopatra!

This week: ...uhhhh there was a lot going on and I haven't actually finished the reading yet *ducks* -- I am doing that right now and I should most likely be able to comment tomorrow. (I don't anticipate this being a problem again for at least two more months, and most likely not then either; this was a confluence of various time sinks that doesn't usually happen all at the same time.) But I wanted to go ahead and get the post up because I know you guys have read it... (ETA: have finished the reading now :P :) )

Next week: finishing up Book 2!

Comments

Re: Praetorians

[cahn]

the Praetorians might get dissolved instead of paid

Ohhhhh. That makes a lot of sense.

The scene where they drag Claudius from literally behind a curtain where he was hiding when all hell broke loose

Ahhhh -- this is maybe the only thing I remember from Graves! I really need to read it again.

and it's bleakly ironic that he would have been on board with the return of the Republic thing if only the Senators had told him ahead of time, but as it is he doesn't want to get killed by the Praetorians and so becomes Emperor.

This I didn't remember :) (And, idk, maybe didn't even pick up on at the time -- I was pretty young when I read it.)

But he did get to film the scene where Claudius, played by Charles Laughton, sheds his Poor Uncle Claudius persona and takes control of the senate as well, and Laughton is fantastic in it, and makes one deeply regret the movie never was finished.

Thank you for the link! That was indeed quite impressive.