This unusual character, who Albert Uderzo imbued with the features of American actor Charles Laughton (famous for playing Roman statesmen in films such as Cecil B. DeMille's Sign of the Cross or Spartacus by Stanley Kubrick), only begins to show the merest hint of a smile when it becomes clear that the trade in golden sickles (that he has masterminded) may in fact earn him a place as a galley slave or have him served up as dinner to the lions in the circus! The rest of the time, he tries in vain to keep tedium at bay while stuffing his face with food, all the while maintaining a countenance of the most abject world-weariness imaginable as he languishes on a sofa strewn with cushions.