Quintillius Varus, where are my eagles?
“What Shall We Do About Claudius?”
In this episode: Augustus (2), Livia (1), Herod Agrippa (1)
[Herod and Augustus are watching a gladiatorial contest.]
Herod, what about a little bet? I'll take the fat one for twenty gold pieces.
Caesar, it would be against my religion to bet on the life of a man.
Oh, really? I would have thought it against your religion to bet on anything.
Caesar, it's true: Jews love gambling. But we fear our god more.
Which one?
We have only one, Caesar.
I've never understood that, it's quite insufficient. Why don't you take some of our gods? You know, plenty of people do.
Believe me, Caesar, the one we have is hard enough to live with.
[to the gladiators] I want a good show. I want my money's worth! I don't want any kiss-in-the-ring stuff, and I don't want my family watching two grown men pussyfooting around each other for half an hour before one of them aims a real blow. There's been too much of that in the past. And don't think you can fool me either, because I know every trick in the book, including the pig's blood in the bladder to make it look as if one of you is dead. There's been too much of that too lately. These games are being degraded by the increasing use of professional tricks to stay alive! And I won't have it! So put on a good show, and there'll be plenty of money for the living and a decent burial for the dead. And if not, I'll break this guild up and I'll send the lot of you to the mines in Numidia.
PPostumus
[to Augustus] Oh, grandfather, open your eyes, throw off the blinkers. For years everyone around you has either died or disappeared. Do you think it was all an accident? My father Agrippa, and before him Marcellus, my brothers Gaius and Lucius, my mother Julia - and now me.
These quotes come from Wikiquote's I, Claudius pages and are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.