- Augustus: Herod, what about a little bet? I'll take the fat one for twenty gold pieces.
- Herod: Caesar, it would be against my religion to bet on the life of a man.
- Augustus: Oh, really? I would have thought it against your religion to bet on anything.
- Herod: Caesar, it's true: Jews love gambling. But we fear our god more.
- Augustus: Which one?
- Herod: We have only one, Caesar.
- Augustus: I've never understood that, it's quite insufficient. Why don't you take some of our gods? You know, plenty of people do.
- Herod: Believe me, Caesar, the one we have is hard enough to live with.
- Livia: These games are being degraded by the increasing use of professional tricks to stay alive! And I won't have it! So put on a good show and there'll be plenty of money for the living and a decent burial for the dead. And if not...? I'll break this guild up. And I'll send the lot of you to the mines in Numidia.
- Postumus: [to Augustus] What have you done to me? What have you done to my life? I would have given my life for you, for Rome. You just had to say the word. What have you done?
- [to Augustus]
- Postumus: Oh grandfather, open your eyes. Over the years everyone you knew and loved has either died or disappeared. Do you think it was all an accident? My father Agrippa, and before him Marcellus, my brothers Gaius and Lucius, my mother Julia - NOW *ME*.
- [reporting the ambush of Varus's three legions in Germany]
- Augustus: [incredulous] Well, weren't you warned?
- Courier: [hesitant] Many times, Caesar.
- Augustus: Go on!
- Courier: We, uh, we'd had a mass of intelligence that there was something going on in the villages...
- Augustus: [sighs] Go on.
- Courier: The, uh... the commander ignored it, sir.
- Augustus: Oh, that stiff-necked fool! I should never have appointed him!