Tiberius

Tiberius is Augustus's stepson, a stiff, capable soldier hauled back from the frontier whenever Rome's politics need him. He is sullen, awkward in company, and visibly chafing under his mother Livia's ceaseless manoeuvring. He wants to be left alone with his legions; instead he is married, promoted, and watched, and he resents every bit of it.

George Baker plays repression as a slow-burning fuse: the clenched jaw, the flat delivery, the sense of a man perpetually biting down on fury he was never allowed to express. The writing gives him real cause for bitterness, and Baker refuses to soften it into sympathy — he lets Tiberius stay genuinely hard to like, which is far more interesting.