Daer Pompeius,

I. The big give-a-way Pompeius, was your head-on-a-stick avatar. It scared the children!

II. You might THINK you were killed by a couple of stupid smelly Egyptians, but can you really be SURE? The blow was from behind, remember? I have a sneaky suspicion you were belted over the head by a 10 year old Livia Drusilla with a poisoned teddy! (One wanna-be emperor down, twenty to go...)

III. I guess the only way you could be sure of getting a wife that Caesar hadn't screwed was to marry his daughter, ave?

IIII. "Germanicus was a stupid bugger who was somewhat lucky for killing only ca. 20 000 Roman soldiers in Germany."
I think you're getting mixed up with Varus.
It's YOU isn't it Thiu?!

V. Some more Ovid:

Ibis:597-644 The Litany of Maledictions: Concluding Words

Meanwhile lest you complain that I’ve forgotten you,
these words are sent to you in a hasty work.
It’s brief indeed, I confess: but, by their favour, may the gods
grant more than I ask, and multiply the power of my prayers.
You’ll read more in time, containing your true name,
in that metre in which bitter wars should be waged.

VI. "Livia Drusilla killed Caesar, I have proof."
Well put up or shut up then. Serentia keeps boasting that she has "proof" too, but I've yet to see it. The only proof I've seen on this site is sari sucking on 100 proof moonshine.

VII. I didn't say Sydney wasn´t in Australia - I said Macquarie was in Sydney! (Most of the early convicts were eaten by aborigines, BTW) (and quite a few were kidnaped and raised by dingoes)

VIII. The kids have one of these new fangled "Thomas the Tank Engine" train sets which I'm forever tripping over, and the other day I thought I'd better do my fatherly duty and show some interest, so I asked my kid what the old track heading off behind the station was called, and to my utter astonishment he said "Oh, that's the sidetracks of history!" Intrigued, I further inquired what the carriages shunted onto it were called, and almost fell over when he said: "That fat old rich retired one is Zenobia, those two exiled by themselves are Julias, that one lying dead in the ditch is Boudicca, that burnt-out waggon with no arse in (arson?) is Joan of Arc, the loopy one gone off the rails is Virginia Woolfe towing the money cart Silver Plath, and that poison dinner-carriage is Livia!"

Astounding! I swear that Art imitates Life!

All I can think is that the Reverend Ian Paisly who invented the ridiculous Thomas the Tanked Engine series must have played with Syme as a boy??

Strabo/Selestia/Osama/Saddam