Dear Philippus,

1. I think you're confused with Julia who always wanted to be a male prostitute and sold herself to rich wives of Roman grainmerchants. Very nice job until Augustus caught her. He was especially mad that she'd frisked more money than his fisc.

I can PROVE that Germanicus was living in domestic bliss with Ovid. Here's an early Tristia poem:

Book TI.I:1-68 The Poet to His Book: Its Nature
Find someone who sighs about my exile,
and reads your verses with wet eyes,
and silently wishes, unheard by enemies,
my punishment lightened by a gentler Caesar.

Now, look at this one that Germanicus helped with:

Ibis:413-464 The Litany of Maledictions: Ancient Torments
And may you suffer as many wounds as they say
they suffered, whom a knife used to cut at from beneath.
And, inspired, slash your private parts to Phrygian music,
like those whom Cybele, the Mother, maddens:
and like Attis, once a man, become not man or woman,
and strike the harsh cymbals with effeminate hand,
and at a stroke become one of the Great Mother’s cattle,
turned, in one swift step, from winner to sacrifice.

What a change of heart, eh?

2. How did little Livia Drusilla insert a poisoned needle in her teddy without killing it? I think it was the emperor Diocletian who kept two teddy bears, called Yogi and Paddington, which he fed on condemned prisoners. He liked to watch them being torn apart at the foot of his bed while he drank a nightcap. And didn't Caligula try to make his teddy Inyaface a consul?

Also, WHO exactly were the REAL 54 conspirators who murdered Caesar? Could it have been angry Gauls that had had both hands chopped off?

3. Point taken about Syme. I went back to the Hungarian original and found that "Livia is a fat ol' railway cart shunted onto the side tracks of history" should really read: "Livia poisoned Augustus by painting the fig tree with her polish remover." I don't think Augustus was Polish, but it did the trivk, eh?

4. I didn't say the university was in AUSTRALIA, I said it was in SYDNEY! Are you one of these geographically-challenged Americans who think that a Marathon must be in Iran, Turkey in Thanksgiving, and the World Rugby Cup in England?

5. And, any fool can see from your head on a stick that you're not the resurrected Germanicus, but that fat poof Pompey trying to make trouble again! No matter how much you diss Caesar, he still WON!

On behalf of the Livia Coalition of Secret Poisoners Who Got Away with It,

Strabo/Serentia

Laeta fere laetus cecini, cano tristia tristis.
[happy, I once sang happy things, sad things
I sing in sadness]
Ex Ponto III:IX:35