I am watching the first episode of Empire, a new TV series on for the summer. It looks all right, mostly – I like the costumes, and the sets are pretty impressive. It starts with Caesar dying – a fictional slave, Tyrannus, is the main character: he is a gladiator chosen to be Caesar’s bodyguard, but he is distracted – obviously – and isn’t there when It happens. Tyrannus then becomes Octavian’s bodyguard.

However. This is a big However. They say Octavian is Caesar’s nephew. I thought I was going a bit mad for a while, until I found a family tree – I was right – Octavian was actually Caesar’s grand-nephew. It may seem a small thing, but to me it is a fairly significant thing to get wrong. And makes the whole thing taste a little sour, sadly.