Rome Season II (1 Viewer)

[JonZ]

"Am I am sure she said "Yes...After YOU get one of those deer outfits so she can shoot an arrow at you."

nope!

And I agree that Id like to see Pullo and Vorenus live happily ever after. Im not sure thats possible, especially for Vorenus. Years have passed and his kids still hate him.

 

[todd s]

Why didn't Pullo or Vorenus tell the girls the Mom killed herself? Or are they trying to protect her memory?

And with regards to Vorenus discussing Ceasarian's dad. I totally forgot they hinted that the baby might be Pullo's.

 

[MarkMel]

I said the same thing to my wife. She had a good point. She said that Vorenus was all POed coming at his wife with a (knife) so he killed her by default. She wouldn't have jumped otherwise. He pushed her to it. She thought he was going to kill her. Which I think was commonplace at that time and well within a husband's rights/

 

[Dave Scarpa]

Well Pullo does'nt know for sure he was'nt there, Vorenus Probably Thinks he was responsible for Killing her, and rightly so, he did'nt push her but he caused her to jump.

 

[Qui-Gon John]

They sure jumped a lot of years between this most recent episode and the prior week.

 

[mylan]

Well, a satisfying end to an excellent series. Who would have thought Pullo would have uttered the last words to close the show, "about your father....".
I was happy to see Pullo and Vorenus re-unite for one last time before the show ended. My vote for best actor has to be James Purefoy, he was pure genius in his portrail of Mark Antony, followed closely behind by Cleopatra. That whole affair was simply gut wrentching. I would have loved to have had one or two more seasons but what a ride.

 

[JonZ]

Yea at least it had a proper ending.

I enjoyed this season so Im kind of sorry to see it end - especially since most of these new shows HBO seems to be working on seem so uninteresting.

Loved Atia putting Octavians wife in her place.

 

[Brent T]

Couldn't agree more. I loved the venom in Atia's eyes, she was fantastic.

 

[Ric Easton]

I was also happy with the ending. Glad to see that Pullo and Vorenus ended as friends (wasn't looking good for awhile there), I was half expecting them to be at each others throats in some final battle. Their relationship in this series was one of the high points for me. I guess it was too much to hope for that they would both survive til the credits rolled. Still, I was satisfied with the conclusion.

So, anyone have any idea how many years went by from beginning to end? About 10 maybe?

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Joe

 

[PhilipG]

Ha-ha, thanks, Joe!

What a great final episode. Looks like the writers liked Atia too much to kill her off - and who can blame them?


Yeah, well, in my mind, Vorenus did survive, now that his daughter was back on side. Pullo lied about Caesarian, and you'd have expected him to lie about Marc Antony's best mate too! Pullo was certainly wise enough to see Octavian's transformation into a cold-blooded s.o.b.

 

[JonZ]

"This was a good 13 years before Antony, whom she probably scarcely knew, met his own end."

"Looks like the writers liked Atia too much to kill her off - and who can blame them?"

I think it was on a HBO coming attraction type thing, but I remember one of the creators saying even though the real Atia had died earlier in life, if the show had gone 10 years, Atia would have lived a long life. They loved the character.

 

[RyanTSI]

I'm pretty sure Vorenus is dead. The emotion Pullo showed when he told Octavian he didn't make it was pretty genuine. Not like the lie about Cesarion

 

[Casey Neal]

"Loved Atia putting Octavians wife in her place."

Why? Did I miss something that happened between them or were you just glad that she wasn't moping about Antony anymore?

 

[Ty Zucker]

Loved Antony's line "Here it is then - anything to get rid of a #$#% hangover."

 

[JonZ]

"Did I miss something that happened between them"

When they were waiting by the door for Octavian to arrive and were arguing about who would walk out first, plus Atias you want to destroy me,better women have tried taunt.

 

[Yee-Ming]

Sad that Vorenus didn't make it, but I guess he died happy, having reconciled with his children, who seemed to be all he really cared about anyway.

And a great put-down by Atia to Livia -- no doubt Atia was referring to Servilia. Who got her own revenge anyway with that curse. It was interesting to see the conflict on Atia's face at the end of the triumph scene -- great acting by Polly Walker.

One "error": since Octavian was celebrating his triumph, he should have worn red face paint, which Julius was shown wearing at his, so it's not as if the producers had decided against using that historical fact.

Whilst the concept of "First Citizen" (Princeps) was introduced, I wonder why Octavian's latter-day name, Augustus, wasn't. I'm not sure what the historic timeline is like as to when he assumed the name, but regardless of that the producers could have thrown that in anyway, given the liberties they've taken with history previously. I wonder if there was any particular reason they decided not to.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

The Senate voted Octavian both titles (Princeps and Augustus) in 27 BCE, three years after Actium.

Princeps is a little ambiguous. The leader of the House was always the Pinceps Senatus, a formal title and position within the Senate itself. More loosely it was used to refer to "the First Man in Rome".

This was a most unofficial title applied to a figure of such commanding power, reputation, clout and personal qualities that everyone, including his rivals and enemies, had to acknowledge his preminence. For this reason there was often no "First Man" in Rome, although many might think they qualified, because no one was that universally respected. A consul was not necessarily First Man, nor a successful general. It was not a title actually bestowed or even mentioned out loud very often. But when Rome's tiny political class recognized a giant in a given generation, everyone knew it without anyone's having to say so.

The First Man did not necessarily hold office, although most had been consuls and many commanded armies. Most had also been elected censor, the crowning accolade of a political career. But some (like Scipio before he added "Africanus" to his names) were barely senators and technically too young to be consuls.

In their times Gaius Marius, Sulla, Pompey and Caesar were all First Men. Augustus after Actium was unquestionably First Man in this sense even after he tried to "return" most of his powers to the Senate. (Before allowing that body to talk him out of it under pressure from a people fearful of a return to civil war.) But he was also probably the senior patrician in the Senate (the particiate having been thinned out considerably during a century of almost non-stop civil war) and thus also Princeps Senatus, a post usually held for life even by non-dictators.

Augustus comes from a root meaning "to increase", and was understood to mean "venerable" or "revered". It was more of a religious than a political title. It indicated the degree of personal reverance bestowed on Octavian, and later came to symbolize the extraordinary powers voted him - in theory - because he could be trusted with them. Although he is counted as the first emperor, Augustus's principate was very much an ad hoc affair with powers being granted to him and laid down piecemeal while he sometimes chose to serve as consul (with or without colleague) and at other times preferred to hold no office. This pattern continued under Tiberius. Emperor and Augustus wouldn't become constitutional titles tied to a defined office until much later - arguably as late as the reign of Diocletian in the 3rd century A.D.

Still, you're right. Princeps was as much as an anachronism for Octavian's triumph as Augustus would have been, so there was no particular reason to omit it. And of course Octavian should have been made up to look like the terra cotta Jupiter as all triumphing generals were.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Casey Neal]

"Did I miss something that happened between them"

"When they were waiting by the door for Octavian to arrive and were arguing about who would walk out first, plus Atias you want to destroy me,better women have tried taunt."


I saw that, but thought I missed something earlier because I thought Atia's hostility toward's Octavian's wife seemed to come out of nowhere.

 

[RyanTSI]

She called Antony a coward earlier in the show. And generally was playing off her role as Octavians wife