Rome. Season One: *Discuss* (1 Viewer)

[Nicodemus]

Though I believe Rome won't be seeing their gold anytime soon... Or rather never. Instead we get one very rich ex-soldier.

 

[JonZ]

"The Latin graffiti was an amusing touch"

Yea it was. If Your talking about the graffiti on the wall when Timon went outside, it said "Atia Fellates.....(couldnt make out the name)".

 

[Jeff_CusBlues]

Ok. I can guess what Atia Fellates means, but what does "Atia amat omnes" or "Atia omnes amat" mean?

 

[PhilipG]

"Atia loves everybody"

Might have been funnier had it been "Atia oves amat"

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Maybe they should have called it, The Winds of Rome.

Joe

 

[ScottH]

Judging by the lack of a single post since Sunday's episode, and it is now Tuesday, I take it most people felt the same way as I did about Episode 4. Easily the worst so far. What was that about things getting better after the first 3? (And I enjoyed the first 3.) I was tempted to turn it off, and I've NEVER had that feeling with an HBO show that I watch regularly (not even Season 1 of Carnivale).

 

[Sam Favate]

I simply haven't gotten around to seeing it yet. I plan to watch it tonight.

 

[NathanRT]

I think Rome started off great. The Sopranos, which in my opinion is the best show ever, had a so-so pilot that had very forced character development and was contradicted in a variety of ways in future episodes.

 

[MarkMel]

Merits of the show aside, is it just me or is this show shot really dark? I have my TV generally well calibrated but this show is so dark it is sometimes hard to see what is going on.

Anyone else?

 

[Quentin]

Well...I thought it was better than Episode 3, but I really thought eps 3 was bad.

My big complaints are 1) It still lacks the scope/breadth and feel of grand history for me. It feels small. 2) It's a freaking soap opera. In and of itself, that isn't bad...but, it's not really even a good one. I mean, Caesar cheats on his wife, Atia really is lonely not a whore, and will Pullo tell his friend his wife loves his brother in law and bore his child? Bleh.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

I watched it last night. The Winds of Rome was an understatement. Not only does it look like these two will be at every major event of the Civil War and its aftermath, it looks like they'll cause most of them? Did a mob loyal to the Boni attack Antony, violate the ancient prohibition against doing violence to a Tribune of the Plebs? Nope. It is all an accident, a riot that breaks out when a thug tries to collect a debt from a soldier. Antony just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Good thing Caesar's legions didn't find out, they might not have marched on Rome with him otherwise. Did Pompey's forces simply forget to secure the contents of the Treasury before abandoning the city? (Revealing the weakness of the "command structure" and the ineptness of both Pompey and his subordinates?) Nope. He quietly withdrew it without anyone questioning his act, resisting or complaining, then managed to lose it - not to the kind of Caesar loyalist who might reasonably be found among the soldiers in the vincinity of Rome, but simply to a band of thieves trying to make good out of the chaos.

Luckily an even more unlikely string of events brings that gold to Caesar, who really went to the temple of Saturn, broke into the vaults and "borrowed" the city's wealth as one of his first acts upon entering Rome.

So, let me get this part straight: Caesar wants some sort of religious imprimatur for his acts. So he goes to the college of augurs and very unsubtly asks for a favorable reading of some sort. When gently challenged on his plan Caesar tells an augur that he doesn't intend to "interfere" in the state religion and will leave it in the hands of the priests. Odd thing for Caesar (who is himself the Pontifex Maximus, the chief priest of Rome), to say to an augur (who isn't a priest at all.)

Augurs merely read certain natural phenomenon according to rules laid down in a book to determine if the omens were favorable. Neither the major preisthoods nor the limit number of seats in the College of Augurs was filled with some sort of professional clergy or functioned that way. Both colleges were filled from the ranks of the nobility and they were genrally lifetime appointments.

At various times the members of colleges themselves co-opted new members when a position opened up - often choosing the son of hephew of the dead augur or priest, thus keeping certain "seats" in the same family for generations. Membership in either college brought great prestige, so sometimes an open seat was used to reward a leading political or military figure, or to win over an ally of the majority of the college. Pompey was made a augur as part of the effort of the Boni (the "good men" as they styled themselves) to flatter Pompey into becoming their tool. At other times positions would be filled by general election. Caesar was famously saved from financial and political ruin by his election as Pontifex Maximus a job that, along with other perks, came with a free mansion maintained at the public expense. Caesar's title of Pontifex Maximus later passed to the Bishops of Rome. Today the Pope is still called "The Pontiff".

In 49 probably half the College of Augurs (including Pompey himself, of course) would have been with the ccnsular army, and half of those who remained in Rome would probably have been in hiding, wondering which way the wind would blow. But Caesar himself could have taken the auspices, of course, and he almost certainly would have had at least one or two reliably loyal priests or augurs in town to give him a favorable reading quite without bribery.

Pompey had two sons, that I'm aware of, neither of them named Quintus.

I can only assume that by the time the show reaches 44, both soldiers will be members of the Senate, probably sticking daggers into Caesar.

Regards,

Joe

 

[ScottH]

I haven't noticed with Rome (in HD), but I know that seems to be the trend with shows these days.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

I've noticed this to, watching in plain ol' NTSC.

Regards,

Joe

 

[PhilipG]

And then framing poor, loyal Brutus for it.

 

[Sam Favate]

This week's episode (number 4?) was the weakest yet, IMO. I suspect the story and tension are building, and that the show will reward our patience before long. At least I hope so. Sunday nights are very crowded already, and it is hard to find time to watch all these shows.

 

[Berk]

My interest in Rome decreases with every episode.

 

[JonZ]

"Merits of the show aside, is it just me or is this show shot really dark?"

Not compared to Deadwood and even The Sopranos its not - both of those have alot of very dark settings.

It didnt know Caesar suffered from seizures. It was a bland episode but I think sets up things to come.

Im enjoying the performances - mostly Polly W(Atia),Ciaran H(Caesar),Ray S(Titus) and Kevin M(Lucius).

 

[RobertW]

well, they off poor caesar, and the brutus comes along and finds him dying, cradles him close as caesar draws his last breath, whereupon he's discovered by passersby who think he did it. no CSI to reveal the truth.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Caesar had some kind of medical condition which some historians have guessed was epilepsy. (Many flatly state that he definitely had epilepsy, but diagnosing disease based on scattered and inconsistent references in surviving ancient texts can be tricky at best, and I'm always suspicious of anyone who claims to have done so definitively, or who just accepts some other writer's account as certain.)

Epilepsy isn't really a disease per se, but more a catch-all term for a whole raft of neurological disorders. Caesar did suffer from something that incapcitated him from time to time (there was a well-attested episode during his first sojourn in Alexandria) and that he was at pains to hide the appearance of weakness, but some people argue that epilepsy would be too hard to conceal over the long period Caesar spent in the public eye, because absent medication to control siezures he should have had them too frequently for them to pass unnoticed. (And the odds should have caught up with him, resulting in an attack during a meeting of the Senate, or in the Forum.) His soldiers and friends would have kept such a secret later in his career, but he had so many enemies even early on that it seems unlikely that any incident while he was on military service as a young man, or even on the run from Sulla would have entirely escaped notice. The argument is that someone would have used it against him. Like many of histories medical mysteries this one will never be solved because we simply don't have enough evidence, and even if the ancient descriptions of symptoms are exact (and have been translated accurately), the same set of symptoms may be caused by utterly different underlying medical conditions.



Yeah. What this show needs is less soap and more opera.

Regards,

Joe

 

[JonZ]

............