Plautus

Thanks for the fact about Chesters. I didn't know that . I recall when I lived in Blighty, in my few attempts to drive out of London, if I was on a perfectly straight road as far as the eye could see, it was a Roman road. Question: Do you think the Romans drove on the left or right side?

I know HBO needs to take time with the scripts and make them good. I just wonder if at this rate the actor Max Pirkis ( Octavian) will keep growing up enough to continue playing Augustus! Bona Dea! Undoubtedly there will be a ROME DVD, it's too lucrative for the studios. Actors and writers don't get as big a royalty bite as they do from broadcast, which is causing their own civil wars in their Guilds. I think HBO should also start a t-shirt logo brand for the Caelian Bakers Guild:" Real Roman Bread for Real Romans!

Interesting piece about Claudius. How do you then answer Suetonius and other writers who played up his being a simpleton? Seneca wrote that ode on Claudius being deified "The Pumpkinification of CLaudius". Seutonius Claudius:38 Instead of keeping quiet about his stupidity, Claudius explained in a few short speeches, that it had been a mere mask for the benefit of Caligula.....Nobody believed him however..." I am a fan of Robert Graves but I am curious how you'd answer these Roman writers who all seem pretty consistent on their opnion of him.

He tried to pull his toga up over his head, despite multiple stab wounds.

No new episodes till March of 2007? Wahhhhhh! Oh well, ROME wasn't built in a season. p.s.- What was the religious significance of Voerenus and Niobe having to get down in the middle of a ploughed field?

I concurr with our other citizens that ABC's EMPIRE was pretty bad. It's what made me reluctant to watch HBO's ROME at first, especially when I heard t was going to cover basically similar ground. Thank goodness that it was much better. Why can't there be a fun miniseries about Septimius Severus and his sons or Constantine, Constantius and Julian the Apostate?

What do my fellow citizens think of Gibbons theory that the building of the Great Wall of China caused a cascading migration west of Central Asian peoples that pushed the Germans and Goths onto the decaying Roman Empire? Causing what Germans call Die Volkwanderung, the Wandering of the People?

Salve Citizens! The finale episode of the Season has aired here in the US. Pretty good twists and good drama. I won't say more so we don't spoil it for our cousins in Old Albion. But suffice it to say, the last two episodes are worth the wait. Now as I stated previously, my spies tell me the auguries for more seasons of ROME aren't good beyond season two, so drop an e-mail to the conscript fathers of HBO and tell them the show was killer. As Primus Pilum suggested, look up the official site and buy a coffee cup or something. BY the way, I work in Hollywood but I am in no way connected with the show or HBO. I'm merely a fellow history fan who wants to see programing more intelligent than films like King Arthur and Pearl Harbor.

I am not familiar with the artist, but the painting looks like that school of Beaux Artes academic painting on historical themes that was popular in the late XIX Century. Meissonier and Detaille in France, Repin in Russia, Matjecko in Poland, Howard Pyle in the US. Looking for a print I would try websites for German or Austrian national museums with late XIX Century painting as a category. Good Luck.

My wife and I were very moved by the gladiator fight. His plaintive but defiant cry of "Thirteen!!" when almost at the end, very good stuff. ( I'm not saying too much for the sake of our British cousins ). Still thinking about it the next day. I like the negotiations between the centurion of the Tenth and Vorenus. It sounds like the beginning of the issue of Veterans Benefits. Question: In the scene between Posca (Caesars slave) and Timon, Posca ends with a rather ritualized drink from a cup on a chain. Was their any social or religious significance to that gesture? Or was he just thirsty? Also, I liked early in the episode when Octavia in conversation used the Greek phrase " It's all one now..." : I always took that to mean our equivalent " It's Water under the Bridge."

Dear Legion X EQ, I do not understand your question, perhaps I am reading it out of context. What kind of film type are you asking about? If you mean Caesars triumph scene, it was probably a mixture of real actors mixed and digitized in with 3D images. Called Synthespians and Digital Avatars. The documentary attached to Ridley Scott's GLADIATOR DVD gives a nice breakdown on how they do that. On the topic of the doctors call, I had read somewhere that ancient peoples knew about the uses of chewing an opium bulb before surgery, so they didn't have to endure the pain as in later centuries. Izzatso?

Salve Citizens. Thats scandalous that the BBC edited the first episodes. The politics is the fun part for our little family here. Interesting that Pertinax felt it mirrored the English class structure, as a New Yorker now working in LA I see the origins of the Mafia and the patronage system. All the smiles, string pulling and backstabbing, makes me feel I'm at a Hollywood negotiation! I have some questions for my learned comrades about the last US episode. If you are in Ol Blighty you may want to turn away now.... 1) Why did Caesar wear red face paint (blood)? 2) Was Vercingetorix strangled in public like that? I thought it was done in private in the dungeons of the Mamertine. 3) Of what nation was Pullos' slave Irenie supposed to be? A Celt?

Plures Imbecillicus III Drunk & Crazy, YEAH!

Glad you like it Pertinax. I found the first episode a bit stiff at first, since they were setting a lot of things up, but from episode two on it really hits it's stride. As for Primus Pilus question: Speaking as someone in the industry, to the Hollywood players the UK is considered a soft media market. Too many of my British mates would rather nurse a pint a' lager than go to a movie or watch telly. I think it also depends on the domestic and international distribution deals made. Funny thing with this particular project is that it's a co-sponsor with the BBC. Usually when thats the case they see things before America, like the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes stories.

Thanks! When discussing the Brits as Romans, you left out DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, done in the 1960's . Will Durant was credited as technical advisor. Alec Guiness looked so much like Marcus Aurelius it was alarming. But the film was a riot of accents. Marcus daughter was Sophia Loren with her Italian accent, her brother Commodus was Christopher PLummer who's Canadian, Stephen Boyd was Maximus and James Mason played a Greek. Go Figure. And yes, Scipio does look like Rowan Atkinson! LOL.

Thanks for the link to the article on the actor who plays Vorenus. In this last episode I liked the way they wound up the story of Cato at Utica, although I was disappointed not to see him thrust his fingers into his own wounds and rip them open again. Good family hour entertainment. I was wondering if they were going to continue the war with the story of Sextus Pompeius in Spain, I thought they let him get away for a reason. But it seems like thats wrapped up. So how does everyone feel about Octavian having the hots for his own sister?

Salve Citizens, I was at a dinner in Hollywood Friday with some industry execs and the scuttlebut was HBO is disappointed with the number of viewers to Rome. WHen I mentioned that they ordered a second season, they said they did it to justify the very expensive price tag and hoping it will find it's audience. I know some series like The Sopranos and Star Trek Next Generation took two seasons to gather a wide audience. I just hope a show as smart as Rome doesn't fall so soon. Make sure and tell your friends to tune in to HBO's Rome and get their numbers up.

Teractum Est! Is that how they said it in the arena?. This would be a tough thread to do without turning into a forum on modern society. I agree, let's stay in Rome and keep it light. Was it Seneca who said " To mock philosophy is to be called a true philosopher"?

As for the idea that America may fall due to social and sexual permissiveness, I'm more worried about going the other way. That too many Censors want to turn us into somethg more like Oliver Cromwell's Puritan Theocracy. That is a greater danger than what people do behind closed doors. ANd as for Englishmen liking to party...did you ever try and get home on the London Tube late on Guy Fawkes Day? Oy!All thats missing is the wolf teeth and woad!

Would anyone vote for Quintilicus Varro, who picked a fight with the tribes across the Rhine, then lost three legions to the German Hermann at Teutoberger Wald?

I think the beauty of the comparison is that Rome was a Republic for 450 years and the US for 229. Rome used slaves and the US uses immigrant labor and outsourcing. We have our modern Catos railing about a return to purer form of citizenship, although I doubt the Founding Fathers would recognize what they were talking about. Roman democracy slipped away so gradually that it wasn't until Caligula's horse in the Senate that anybody noticed that something had gone wrong. It is a abject lesson to us all while we are distracted by ever glitzier Panem et Circenses on FOX TV.

I knew Caracalla wasn't his real name but his nickname from the simple dark cloak. I thought I read that he got the name because the cloak was mass produced and distributed to the plebs of Rome, who called him that. For reading Penguin Classics had a paperback edition called the Live of the Later Caesars, taken from the Augustan Histories. These were six authors trying to continue the biuographies of Suetonius. They include Aulus Spartianus and Julius Capitolinus. Caracalla's biography is listed there.

Born in Brooklyn NY, now I live and work in Los Angeles. Used to live for a time in London and Toronto.

Ahh, me. All seems quiet tonight because of the reruns. Well, here is a question I have about one of the earlier episodes. In episode two before Pullo hits the brothels of Rome, he paused before an altar of a black, grotesque looking statue. What diety was that ?