![]() ![]() In Everitt's interpretation, the ruthlessness and precision of events at this haziest of moments are true to the character of the man, but the following chapters reveal how contingent were the calculations that shaped the Augustan age, and how to the very end Augustus's adaptability outweighed any autocratic dogmatism. It is a vision of a carefully prepared transition plan clicking into place, with the co-operation of all the main parties: even the rumoured poisoning of the figs that may have killed Augustus is explained as an act of complicity by his wife Livia, when her elderly husband's unexpected recovery of health threatened to upset the conspirators' timetable. ![]() Anthony Everitt confronts the challenge by opening with a boldly coherent novelistic reconstruction of Augustus's last days. ![]()
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