* The exact nature of Orata’s ‘hanging baths’ has provoked much speculation. Some have argued that they constituted a hot shower, others that Orata had invented the hypocaust, the under-floor central heating system built in to luxury villas. But if a shower, why describe it as a bath? And if a hypocaust, why invent a new phrase? For the best analysis of the various alternatives, see Fagan, ‘Sergius Orata’.
* A claim that could have been made at any point in the Republic’s long history. In fact it was made when the free state had only months to live, by Cicero in the sixth Philippic (19).
* Almost certainly. The evidence is not entirely conclusive.
* To be specific, Cicero, sixteen years later, in the Philippics. Truth was rarely allowed to stand in the way of Cicero’s talent for invective. All the same, it does appear at least possible that Antony’s relationship with Curio had been sufficiently intimate to justify a whiff of scandal.
* Or destroyed it, the evidence is unclear.
* The cephos is generally assumed to have been a species of baboon. Pliny the Elder, 8.28.
* This celebrated phrase is found only in much later sources, but even if it is apocryphal, it is entirely true to the spirit and the values of the Republic.
* At least according to the testimony of Diodorus Siculus (17.52), who had visited both Alexandria and Rome: ‘The population of Alexandria outstrips that of all other cities.’
* Or possibly the entire Library of Alexandria, a disaster for which Christians and Muslims have also been blamed.
* Varro, yet another of Posidonius’ pupils. He was a Pompeian, one of the three generals defeated by Caesar during his first Spanish campaign. He was widely held to be Rome’s greatest polymath. The quotation is from his treatise ‘On Customs’, and is cited by Macrobius, 3.8.9.
* The sources nowhere state it specifically, but the circumstances make it almost certain.
* Sometime between 9 and 15 February 44 BC.
* Since the man born Gaius Octavius changed his name at regular intervals throughout the early years of his career, he is generally called Octavian by historians in order to avoid confusion.
Table of Contents
Praise
Copyright
Acknowledgements
List of Maps
Note on Proper Names
Preface
1 THE PARADOXICAL REPUBLIC
2 THE SIBYL’S CURSE
3 LUCK BE A LADY
4 RETURN OF THE NATIVE
5 FAME IS THE SPUR
6 A BANQUET OF CARRION
7 THE DEBT TO PLEASURE
8 TRIUMVIRATE
9 THE WINGS OF ICARUS
10 WORLD WAR
11 THE DEATH OF THE REPUBLIC
Timeline
Notes
Bibliography
Index