- Scylla: The difference between you and me, actor, is you're a snob and I'm not. And the difference between this great lady and myself is that my work is her hobby. My hobby happens to be gardening, for which I don't expect to be paid.
- [after learning that his execution will soon be ordered]
- Quintus Justus: What am I to do?
- Pallas: What can a dead man do? Go and get buried.
- Claudius: But who is this "Messiah?"
- Marsus: A king, Caesar, who is to come and redeem Israel of all its sins. Philo, their greatest living scholar says that he is to be descended from King David, and born in a village called, em...
- [his aide whispers in his ear]
- Marsus: What?
- [the aide whispers again]
- Marsus: Bethlehem.
- [to Pallas on Messalina]
- Narcissus: Scandalous! It's scandalous! While all of Rome trooped in and out of her bed, we said nothing. We closed our eyes and our ears and said nothing. But this is different. This is *utterly* and *unbearably* different! This... this puts the emperor's life in danger. And if it puts his life in danger, it puts ours. And I say that's a very different bowl of fish!