CATHERINE STEEL relishes a compelling novel about Augustus’s right hand man, but misses the politics, the cultural shifts, and more detail about his restoration of Rome
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Battlefield Young Vic Theatre, London SE1 4/5
THE Mahabharata, written in Sanskrit and dating from around the 9th century BC, is the longest known epic poem in the world. Ten times longer than the Iliad and the Odyssey combined, it’s considered to be as important a part of the human heritage as the Bible, the Koran, the Greek tragedies or Shakespeare.
It narrates the battle of succession for the throne of Hastinapura, in an Indian kingdom of Kuru, between two groups of cousins the Kauravas and Pandavas, from which the latter emerged victorious.
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