Chapter V: LXIII
Finished comic posted.
I usually post comics in various stages, to show the process, on Patreon.
The Patreon folks tinker with the interface there a lot, and at the moment I can’t post, send messages, do much of anything there. It’s probably the fault of my ancient laptop, so I’ll try again from someone else’s computer on Monday. In the meantime: a comic in progress!
Hahahaha. That is hilarious. That the first thing a father say to a just engaged, not married, couple is “go and make babies right now” is really rich.
The best is that Titus is so impatient that he does not want to wait for the marriage ceremony before he gets grandchildren.
Being Emperor, the wishes of his daughter are obviously secondary…very, very secondary.
I’m sure he loves her, but she’s female and she has specific functions, and that really doesn’t have much to do with silly notions of her own. Silly girl.
I believe Titus and his papa weren’t very happy with Domitian’s choice for a wife, since he made the decision without their input (and when he was still a teenager). Not that Domitia Longina isn’t suitable and didn’t make for a solid political choice, but the circumstances were awkward. You’d think that Titus and Vespasian would be sympathetic about choosing your own spouse, since both of them fell in love with unsuitable women–in Vespasian’s case the freedwoman Antonia Caenis (there’s a superb novel about her by Lindsey Davis), and in Titus’s case Queen Berenice the daughter of Herod Agrippa, and none of the powers in Rome wanted to see a marriage happen between them–she was foreign, strong willed, and (because of her earlier dynastic marriage to her uncle and her closeness to her unmarried brother) was steeped in ridiculous rumours about her sexual conduct. It didn’t help that she was a decade older than Titus, who needed a more likely heir-producer.
She’s only touched on slightly in SPQR Blues–Domitian wants Felix, who’s at that point of confidante of Titus, to encourage Titus to follow his own will and make Berenice his wife. Felix gives Titus the opposite advice, whatever weight his influence might have. I think the scene is too vague and have wanted to retool it. At the time I was fretting more about the art than the text 🙂
Just like his brother’s wishes are apparently secondary. And that seems slightly more egregious since he’s already married and presumably in love.
Enter Felix, stage left!