Quotes from Anthony Everitt

Instantly identifiable, he was not only a human flag or standard to be followed and protected at all costs, but also a key enemy target.

Varius refused to obey his orders and, acting under the authority of Augustus, published the epic.

Quinctilius Varus, give me back my legions!" He kept the anniversary as a day of deep mourning.

he made no attempt to recover Germania as a Roman province, and the empire was never again to reach beyond the Rhine.

Tiberius and Drusus decided to prevent a future Alpine revolt by a simple but brutal means: mass deportations

In late 45 B.C., the eighteen-year-old Gaius Octavius settled into lodgings at Apollonia.

For as far as I can cast my mind back into times gone by, as far as I can recollect the earliest years of my boyhood, the picture of the past that takes shape reveals that it was [Archias] who first inspired my determination to embark on these studies, and who started me on their methodical pursuit.

He was accompanied by Agrippa and another early friend, Quintus Salvidienus Rufus

the Rhine was to be the permanent boundary between Romanized Gaul and the barbarians of central Europe.

In 13 B.C., the state's two leading men returned to Rome, the princeps from Gaul, Agrippa from the eastern provinces

At daybreak, as he looked out over the sea, his gaze was met by ships that had been set on fire

till it jumped out of a jar and bit her). She was thirty-nine.

As if that were not enough, a gale came up in the afternoon, one of the fiercest in living memory

No, far better for the queen to be persuaded to do away with herself.

a messenger arrived with an urgent letter for Octavius, just as he and his companions were going into dinner.

Although sleeping with men was apparently not to his taste, Octavian had no objection to multifarious lifestyles among members of his circle.

Sextus was safely inside the harbor of Messana;

bite by an asp is not necessarily fatal, and even when it is, as much as two hours may pass before life is extinguished.

But now the idea that Rome had an imperial destiny was one of the ways by which the regime justified itself in the public mind.

Menodorus, with an experienced eye for the unpredictable Mediterranean weather, sailed out to sea, where he rode out the storm;

It is possible that Octavian arranged for Cleopatra's murder and put about the fiction that she killed herself.

multifarious lifestyles among members of his circle.

Thucydides is the greatest writer of history in history. In fact, he is so good that we are trapped inside his version of events.

Octavian's surviving ships were blown against the craggy coast and pounded against the rocks