The BBC Classic Serial is broadcasting 3 plays based upon Suetonius’ Lives of the Cesars. The first 2 are currently available on their website. The first covers a clandestine meeting between Gaius Julius Cesar, Governer of Gaul, Cicero and Cato, in which they attempt to hash out their differences to let Cesar return to Rome without either being arrested or invading; also present, and inadvertantly key, are Cesar’s daughter Julia, married to another, absent factor in the equation, the general Pompey, and Tulia, Cicero’s daughter (Julia and Tulia may be historically accurate names, but they’re too close for hearing; it’s a credit to the actresses who played them that from the start there was no confusing the personalities of the high strung Tulia and the forceful Julia who inadvertantly brings about the final schism between Cato and Julius).

The second play takes place after Cesar’s assassination and concerns the survival and rise to power of Cesar’s adopted son, Octavian (later Augustus), 19 years old at his adopted father’s death. Two characters appear of whom I’d formed a strong impression from other works of literature – Livia, Augustus’ wife (can anyone forget Sian Phillips in I, Claudius), and Mark Anthony. Only this is not Shakesphere’s noble Mark Anthony, but a foul-mouthed brute of a Roman general. The BBC attaches a warning of “strong language” – Roman politicians are not delicate in their insults. The latter play reminded me a little of the recent film Elizabeth in the shape of the growth of a young person who, though innately noble, is a survivor more than he is an idealist, and when he finds himself forced to sacrifice principle, uses that sacrifice without apology to his advantage; in the case of the Octavian play, Octavian, who found war repugnant, builds an ordered society in which violence finds its release in the carnage of the arena. A note of warning: if you want to hear the first of these, listen before Saturday, as only two plays are available at one time, and each new play bumps the earlier of the 2 from the site.