I, Claudius 40th Anniversary: Hail Who?

Hail Claudius!

Episode 10: Hail Who?
Broadcast Date: UK: November 15, 1976 US: January 8, 1978)
Studio BBC/London Film Productions Ltd.
Producer Martin Lisemore
Director Herbert Wise
Writer Jack Pulman (Based on the novel by Robert Graves) Starring Derek Jacobi, John Hurt, Anna Dysen, Lockwood West
Introducing Sheila White as Messalina, Jo Rowbottom as Calpurnia, Sam Dastor as Cassius Chearea, Norman Eshley as Marcus, James Fagan as Asprenas, Bernard Hill as Gratus
Guest starring Freda Dowie as Caesonia, Bruce Purchase as Sabinus, Norman Rossington as the Sergeant

41 AD Caesar Caligula continues his madness, by installing a brothel in the palace, considering seashells to be divine booty, and making a horse a consul of Rome! He also marries Claudius to a woman thirty years his junior. Finally, his new prefect has had enough. Caligula's divinity is about to be violently questioned...

Death(s) in this episode: Caligula: repeated stab wounds; Caesonia: stabbed.

Memorable quotes:
"Claudius, we must help him, the Emperor." –Caesonia
"He's your husband, you help him." –Claudius
"Claudius, he's sick. He needs good people around him." –Caesonia
"He's killed them all." -Claudius

"I am Ulysses, returning home to witness the shame and degradation of his household." –Caligula
"Shall I arrest them, Caesar?" –Cassius
"No, let them indulge themselves a while longer. Soon, I promise you, I will flush this sewage into the Tiber forever." -Caligula

"We wanted to get here sooner, so we came across the water." –Claudius
"Well, then back by water you go! Throw them in the river!" -Caligula

"Please, in the name of my wife, your sister." –Marcus
"Dare you mention that whore to me!" –Caligula

"Do you think I'm mad?" –Caligula
"Mad?" –Claudius
"Yes, sometimes I think that I'm going mad. Do you - be honest with me - has that thought ever crossed your mind?" –Caligula
"Never. Never. The idea is preposterous. You set the standard of sanity for the whole world." -Claudius

"Your Emperor is amongst you, yet again. All his wars successfully concluded, and his victorious armies brought back to Rome. He had thought in his divine innocence that the roads might be lined with cheering crowds. He had thought the streets would be lined with flowers. He had thought there would be messages greeting him with triumphs to be rewarded. What did he find, this conqueror of the Germans, this victor over Neptune? The streets empty of crowds and no flowers, no triumphs rewarded. No games, no celebrations. But three miserable old ex-consuls waiting for him at the gates to greet him and a roomful of cowardly stay-at-home senators, who spent all their time in the theatre and the baths while he has lived six months living no better than a private soldier! Yes, your Emperor has returned, but with this  in his hand!" –Caligula
"But Jove, you ordered no triumphs." –Senator
"Well, of course I ordered no triumphs! Do you think I'd ordered triumphs for myself?" –Caligula
"But you ordered us not to order any." –Senator
"Yes, but you took me at my word, didn't you? Typical. It didn't occur to you that I'd be leaving it to you, for your love to show itself freely? Didn't occur to you that it was my natural humility speaking? 'I ordered no triumphs'..." -Caligula

"If you are no longer his friend, what can you be but his enemy?" -Cassius
"Go your own way, Cassius." –Marcus
"If we all go our own way, we shall all end by going the same way." -Cassius

“The noble senator 🐎 Incitatus.” –Servant
“You know everyone don’t you? Find yourself a place. He’s never been to a wedding before. His life has really opened up since I made him a senator.” –Caligula

“If you [crowd] had one neck, I’d hack it through!” -Caligula

“The watchword, butcher, is liberty!” –Cassius

“Drusilla…I’m dying!…Drusilla!” –Caligula

"This is for our wives, Jove!" -Sabinus

“Stop them!" -German Guard
Wait a minute! Wait a minute, Gentlemen! That's our new Emperor...Kaiser...Em-per-ror!” –Gratus
“Ya?” -German Guard

Trivia
-According to the novel, Calpurnia was Claudius’ live-in prostitute from his villa in Capua. She is probably one of the few women who genuinely loved the man.
-Marcus Vinicius was Caligula's brother-in-law by his sister Livilla (Lesbia), referred to as ‘that whore!’, even though she makes no appearance in this series.
-Caesonia was Caligula's fourth wife. She was already married and pregnant when Caligula ordered her divorced and married. Her child, named Drusilla, was adopted and doted on by the Emperor (who probably knew about her true mortal father, which explains why he didn't gulp her like he did the last child!)
-In Homer's THE ODYSSEY, Ulysses came to his house to find it inhabited by suitors for his wife. Ulysses kills them all.
-Macro’s replacement as prefect, Cassius Chearea, was mentioned before in “What Shall Be Done About Claudius?” as leading the surviving remnants of Varus’ legions out of the Rhine Massacre. The novel adds that he was a gladiator at the Games that Claudius appeared in Episode 4. He was also in Germanicus’ army, at one point riding Caligula upon his horse, thus fulfilling the Sybil’s prophecy of Caligula’s death: “He shall die from a kick by his aged horse/ That carried him as a child.”
-Messalina is descended from Augustus’ sister Octavia. Octavia’s first marriage begat Marcellus (killed in “A Touch of Murder”), and two Marcellas. The younger Marcella bore a son Baratus. Octavia’s marriage to Mark Antony begat two Antonias. The elder Antonia (the younger was Claudius’ mother) bore Domitia Lepida. Messalina is the daughter of Baratus and Domitia (well, CastorXLivilla and GermanicusXAgrippina both share a grandparent or great-grandparent…).
-Caligula mentions the celebration of the Battle of Actium, where one great-grandfather Augustus and Grandfather Agrippa (from his mother Agrippina) defeated another Great-Grandfather Marc Antony (from his father Germanicus). Incidentally, the flashbacks of this series began on the seventh-anniversary.
-Robert Graves' novel I, CLAUDIUS ends with Caligula's assassination and Claudius' ascension.
-This is the only episode that is entirely flashback. Caesar Claudius makes no appearance.
-John Hurt and Derek Jacobi kept bursting into laughter while acting the scene where Caligula asks Claudius about his sanity (or lack thereof).
-John Hurt did his own makeup for the Sun Dance, feeling it needed the right outrageous tone.
-Freda Dowie plays a dual role: Caligula’s wife Caesonia and the Sybil High Priestess.
-The series’ American broadcast would excise parts of the Palace Orgy and the murder of Caesonia and her child. Many American prints would shorten Cassius' assassination planning with Marcus, Sabinus, and Asperanas. The missing part has Cassius fooling Marcus that he will spare Caligula's family.
-Bernard Hill (Captain Smith in TITANIC, Theoden in THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS and THE RETURN OF THE KING) plays Gratus, the soldier who inspires Claudius' coronation. Several other I, CLAUDIUS actors have played in adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkein's saga. This series Marcellus and Caligula would play Frodo and Aragon in Ralph Bakshi's 1978 animated version. The Grimli and Theoden of Peter Jackson's 2001-2003 trilogy appear in this series.