"Actor: Anna Valle"

• Augustus - the First Emperor | DVD | (22/08/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £1.99

  As the empire kneeled in defeat one man stood in triumph. In 42 BC Rome is in the middle of a civil war. Together with his friend Agrippa the young Augustus goes to Spain in order to help Julius Caesar in his struggle against the troops of Pompey. Caesar honours his adopted son Augustus with a triumphal entry into Rome and then sends him to Greece together with his friends Agrippa and Maecenas. There Augustus hears the news of Caesar's assassination and he returns to Rome with his friends. Back in Rome he is able to gain both the support of the people and political power. In his struggle with the conspirators against Caesar he finds an ally in Marc Antony. Augustus and Marc Antony are able to defeat the forces of Brutus and Cassius at the battle of Phillipi. But now Augustus has to share his empire with Marc Antony who in the meantime has become the lover of the Egyptian queen Cleopatra. Augustus declares war on both of them and after a successful military campaign he becomes the sole ruler of the Roman Empire. During his rule Rome not only experiences a period of peace and prosperity it is also an age in which both art and culture flourish. His new wife Livia Drusilla becomes his most important political advisor. It is she who discovers that Iullus (the son of Marc Antony and lover of Augustus' daughter Julia) is plotting to murder the emperor...

• Augustus : The First Emperor | DVD | (20/09/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Augustus is equal parts history lesson and soap opera, and thoroughly engaging at all levels. Peter O'Toole plays Octavius/Augustus, heir to his doomed uncle Julius Caesar's command of the far-flung Roman empire. Surviving an assassination attempt and struck by news of the death of his old friend and ally, Agrippa (Ken Duken), in the same day, Octavius waxes nostalgic about his youthful exploits in Caesar's army (Benjamin Sadler plays the young Augustus in flashbacks) and his unprepared immersion in the deadly politics of the Mark Antony (Massimo Ghini) era. More immediate are Octavius' problems trying to stave off conspiracies by his wife Livia (Charlotte Rampling) to set up the emperor's stepson, Tiberius (Michele Bevilacqua), as heir, and talk his dutiful daughter Julia (Vittoria Belvedere) into a marriage she doesn't want. Roger Young directs this highly watchable costume drama, and O'Toole's golden presence makes the ancient intrigues tragically human. --Tom Keogh