Hbo Rome and... BBC too

[Skarr]

Primus,  I missed that Caesar/Octavian tryst implication completely, but now with your comment I understand what Atia was referring to in the previews for next week.  Hopefully that will be a short-lived plot arc.  What poem/poet was Octavia quoting at the party?

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Jordon, even without the previews, there is a brief shot of the slave woman who hears Caesar breathing heavily and then a little later, she sees Octavian come out followed by the great man, who looks exhausted. The only reason the slave woman is there is to spy on Caesar and report back to Atia, who wants to know everything.

 

Although this is fictional, I agree with Primus that this sort of speculation about Octavian was never made to the best of my recollection and is therefore a real stretch by the writers. I guess they want Atia as a character to be really extreme and relentlessly use both her daughter and son to get Caesar's favor. Well, I almost pity the poor lady, the real Atia, who was nowhere nearly as manipulative as portrayed in this series. Oh..how we malign the dead!

 

However, can't say that I'm not enjoying it either. It will be interesting to see how Octavian rebuts this accusation. Atia has already accused him of girly behavior as Octavian shows little interest in cavorting with the slave girls, unlike the traditional virile male descended from the Julii. I think she's fearful he will not be respected as a man when he comes of age due to his lack of manliness compared to Caesar or Antony. I'm sure both of them must have been pretty hard to control at Octavian's age, considering the number of women that must have been readily available for their use.

 

I guess this is a subtle way of saying that Caesar's claim to be descended from Venus should make him and others in his line of the Julii naturally promiscuous. I don't buy this but as I said, this is all fictional and in the interests of drama, you may have to live with certain historical inaccuracies. Will that stop me from watching Rome? Absolutely not! There is no doubt, of course, that Caesar was a pretty ardent lover and actively courted many women. However, I don't think it is necessarily a genetic trait as is implied by Atia.

[Augur]

The HBO service we receive here (in New York city) shows each new episode, and then keeps all of the prior episodes available to be watched at any time and as many times as one likes, again and again. The suprising thing is how enjoyable it has been to re-watch each of the first four Rome episodes several times, first to settle in-house arguments about who said and did what (my wife is also a Romanophile), and then as a primer to prepare for the next episode. My wife and I keep telling each other that we must "get a life!" but this damned series seems to have captivated the Augur family completely.

 

Wasn't it Pullo who said? "Marry not a women who knows more about Rome than dust thou."

[Denec]

This was definitely the slowest episode of the #4, but I still enjoyed it. Since I have watched many of the HBO series like deadwood and carnivale, I know that sometimes they have many episodes that really slow down the pace. They seem to do it intentional.

 

I do enjoy the character developments even if some of them are not exactly true to history.

 

 

BTW if you go to hbo.com and click on each episode, it gives a detailed summary what happened in the epsiode. I found this is great to read afterwards, because sometimes you miss things did not realize before. It especially helped me in Deadwood, since I had a hard time following that show.

[P.Clodius]

Conjecture on the outcome. Vorenus fights for the optomates, Pullo for Caesar. They meet in battle, one kills the other. Any thoughts?

[Primus Pilus]

Conjecture on the outcome.  Vorenus fights for the optomates, Pullo for Caesar.  They meet in battle, one kills the other.  Any thoughts?

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Hmm an interesting theory... but I don't think so. I can't imagine they will want to split these guys up or kill one off. They will certainly have conflict but I'd imagine something will happen to Vorenus to make him a true Caesarean. (Pompey's boys coming to see him probably helped that along.)

 

As for how the show ends... I'm trying to figure out how far season 1 will go. I thought originally that it would go through the death of Caesar, but judging the pace so far, I can't see it getting that far. I suppose things could pick up considerably over the next few episodes, but we still have the civil war to fight between Caesar and Pompey, the entire egyptian affair (including Pompey's death which will probably take an entire episode to build into), Caesar at Zela, Africa and Hispania, conspiracies to develop, more development between fringe characters like Vorenus and Pollo, etc.

[longbow]

I hope Vorenus doesnt join Pompey,it would kind of spoil it for me to split him and Pullo up i like the camaradery between the two of them.I thought when Ciaren Hinds was marching to the party with his Lictors he had a real look of Caesar about him,to me anyway.When the Lictor banged his Fasces on the door i thought it was a Bren gun,LOL .

[Jordon Harriman]

Skarr, thanks for responding to my Caesar/Octavian Tryst query. I noted that scene, but completely assumed that the cook realized Caesar had a seizure, not that she might misinterpret the episode as a sexual encounter.

 

Primus, I too thought that the first season was going to end with Caesar's death. If it does end that way, then as you said they are really going to short-change us on some great history.

 

I read the synopsis for the next episode, "The Ram has Touched the Wall," and chronologically it does not cover very much time. I think Caesar is going to be around well into Season Two.

[Denec]

The good news is Rome was renewed for at least second season:

 

 

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/telev...t_id=1001096731

[P.Clodius]

Cato would be REALLY pissed off to find Caesar is still an unstoppable force over 2000 years ofter his death!

[Jordon Harriman]

You are right, P.Clodius. I was just reading the part of "October Horse" last night where Cato commits suicide in Utica. I really liked Colleen McCullough's characterization of Cato in those novels. Completely unyielding and uncompromising in so many things, great and small, yet inconsistent when it suited his Boni convenience. Her Cato would definitely be spinning in his grave (or his ashes would be stirring) to see how Caesar is shown in "Rome."

[Viggen]

Just watched the first episode (exellent btw), one thing however made me curious...

 

At the opening battle scene there was an officer giving commands to the soldiers with a whistle. Now i never heard of that before, is this just an artistic gag, or did they really use whistles?

 

cheers

viggen

[longbow]

The military advisor to the show said they knew that they changed the front rank so they had to figure out a way it was likely done.It couldnt be a visual sign because the Legionaries would have there heads down fighting,so it had to be a audible signal,so it was either a whistle or some type of horn/trumpet,they went for a whistle.

[Ursus]

Certainly this was the slowest paced episode (#4), as I found myself waiting for something to happen.

[P.Clodius]

Roman men could be bisexual, and Caesar most likely was. What Roman contemporaries objected to was not his bisexuality per se, but the degree of his promiscuity with both genders.

 

Octavian may have started out as Caesar's submissive partner. It would explain some things. Given Octavian's resistance to Cleopatra's charms, it wouldn't surprise me if his preferences were more for his own gender .

 

I haven't seen any of the episodes yet but it pleases me so many serious Romanophiles think so highly of the show. I am eagerly awaiting the season 1 DVD.

 

Caesar nor Augustus was a homo period! Where is the proof for this? Quotes by political enemies just DO NOT cut it! The number one means of character assinination by the ancient sources were accusations of homosexuality, incest, paricide etc... Is a quote such as "Every woman's man and every man's woman" what you base your post on? Really, lets stick with documented fact not documented slander!

[Primus Pilus]

Given Octavian's resistance to Cleopatra's charms, it wouldn't surprise me if his preferences were more for his own gender .

 

While Octavian may have been bi-sexual (though the the recorded history is quite opposite) his relationship with Cleopatra surely wouldn't be evidence of it. She was his political enemy and symbolic of the evils besetting Rome. The strange oriental monarch who had taken Antony under her spell and even claimed to have the child god of Caesar would have no chance to 'charm' Octavian. Without her, he would not have been able to legalize his war. He needed her in chains to walk in his triumph or dead. Had he given in to her in any capacity, then his war against her and Antony would've seemed a fraud, imo. Octavian may have been indulging himself with men as well as women, but Cleopatra's case is so unique that I don't think its a fair evaluation of his general preference.

 

I haven't seen any of the episodes yet but it pleases me so many serious Romanophiles think so highly of the show. I am eagerly awaiting the season 1 DVD.

 

I am getting a little more nervous with each passing episode. While subtle, the plot advances more and more rather odd notions. (in episode 5 Octavian accompanies the legionary Pollo on a mission to find out if the centurion Vorenus' wife is faithful). I am still disappointed in Caesar's rather apparant lack of a direction or motivation, but that has been present from the beginning and is building up my rather slight frustation. Yes, I am very much still enjoying the show, I am just expressing concern and hope it doesn't stray too far from a 'historic' chain of events.