Kind of, but more than that. The people who wrote the books in the 60s were clearly having a lot of fun with them. They took a load of real but obscure historical people like Caecilius, Cogidubnus, Salvius Liberalis etc, and then wrote all these stories with constant death by volcano, crocodile, poison etc and some Carry On style double entendre.
I went to Fishbourne Palace a while back, and the tour guide kept having to make herself clear that no, King Cogidubnus was not poisoned by a dodgy priest paid off by a dodgy politician with mafia connections, and they made it up for the book, and they weren’t even 100% sure if it was Cogidubnus’ palace or what the correct spelling of his name was.