Writer Eric Lerner and director Roger Young find it hard to disguise their disdain for Roman history or perhaps their relish for pastiche as a means to an end. From the acting to the sets to historical accuracy, Augustus was irritatingly bad for anyone familiar with the magnificence of the real city, real people, and actual history. O'Toole and Rampling did their best to prevent a complete train wreck, but no one seemed to care that O'Toole appears as an octogenarian in events where he's supposed to be barely middle aged. Rampling was quite good as Livia, and while suspected of doing away with Julia's two sons, she would never have broached a what-if to her husband about their demise, knowing his unabated devotion to them.
Historically, Augustus was never stabbed in the forum as is done in the first scenes, he would have disdained the very idea of a fatherly chat with Julia at the scene of her nightly debaucheries.
And then the sets. The forum was an adolescent attempt at resemblance. The real rostra did had commemorative columns (which would have been easier) but never those hideous cross-beamed monstrosities we see. And why was the rest of the forum and ancient city behind completely gone? As if the city ended there with open, vacant land. And no one thought to at least clean up the visible traces of earth moving tractors used to prepare the set behind the rostra, which tells you just how rushed this was to get the whole thing "in the can."
Historically, Augustus was never stabbed in the forum as is done in the first scenes, he would have disdained the very idea of a fatherly chat with Julia at the scene of her nightly debaucheries.
And then the sets. The forum was an adolescent attempt at resemblance. The real rostra did had commemorative columns (which would have been easier) but never those hideous cross-beamed monstrosities we see. And why was the rest of the forum and ancient city behind completely gone? As if the city ended there with open, vacant land. And no one thought to at least clean up the visible traces of earth moving tractors used to prepare the set behind the rostra, which tells you just how rushed this was to get the whole thing "in the can."