Customer Reviews
Most Helpful
3 out of 5 stars
By
Elizabeth
on
05-20-07
Translation doubts
Jacobi reads beautifully (he played Claudius, one of the Caesars in question), but Naxos, the publisher, seems strangely coy about the translator--not even in its catalog does it reveal whose English version Jacobi is reading. It's certainly not the celebrated Robert Graves translation (for that go to the Audio Connoisseurs edition) but a far looser one, and, of course, heavily abridged. Information about the translator would seem a basic courtesy to the buyer. This buyer, at least, is disappointed by the lack of it.
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23 of 24 people found this review helpful
5 out of 5 stars
By
Trent Infield
on
07-19-15
Masterful
It felt like I was a contemporary roman listening to a wise and educated man tell the stories of the Caesars.
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2 of 2 people found this review helpful
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful
4 out of 5 stars
By
George
on
05-06-15
Perfect narrator, great text, poor translation
A sadly wasted opportunity. Unfortunately this audiobook is very abridged. Some unusual and odd choices were also made in Latin pronunciations, which can be off putting or confusing. The translation of the text itself (done by person/s unknown and difficult to discover) is strange and archaic, occasionally making the text difficult to understand (even for a classics scholar!). This includes the bizarre miss-use of technical terms, to give just one example, the term ‘poignard’ is often repeated (a fairly obscure term for a specific medieval type of dagger) instead of using the generic simple translation of ‘dagger’ or a specific correct term like the Latin ‘pugio’.
The fact that, despite all this, I still think it deserves 4 stars it testament to both the original text of Suetonius and the fantastic narrating of the great Sir Derek Jacobi, but could have been so much better, so easily!
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1 of 1 people found this review helpful
5 out of 5 stars
By
sean
on
04-13-13
Twelve ceasars
Narrated with great skill by Derek Jacobi who brings ancient history up to date and very much to life. Seutonius is a skilled eloquent writer who makes history enjoyable. If you know nothing of the early roman emperors this will go a long way to enlighten you. I would recommend this book to all readers aged 16+
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