The Caesarion section

So, Pullo and Vorenus continue to tick off items to attend on their I-Spy List of Key Events Surrounding the Fall of the Roman Republic. This week they managed to be present at the conception of Caesar and Cleopatra's child, Caesarion. Titus Pullo -- who is basically Joey from Friends, with the added ability to kill people -- managed to be even closer to the event than Caesar, which is quite a feat.

Meanwhile the fast-forwarding of the writers through history continues: Caesar's year-long siege in Alexandria and the gestation and birth of Caesarion are dealt with in about 30 seconds, much as Pharsalus was last week. I've discovered there is precedent for this in the unlikely form of Tacitus, whose Annals of Imperial Rome I am currently reading. Writing safely in the reign of Hadrian he is able to give a good warts-and-all overview of the early days of the Empire, backing things up with facts and figures and (occasionally tedious) minutiae. Then when he comes to a really good bit -- like the fall of Sejanus, or the entire reign of Caligula -- we just get a dry footnote to say that this portion of the manuscript is lost.

Once, I could forgive. When it happens twice, I start to suspect a conspiracy. It's those writers, I tell you. Their influence is spreading beyond the fictitious metaverse of early Rome. They don't want us to read the official histories. They want us to watch Rome and I, Claudius.