We came, we saw, we podcasted. Huge thanks to Mike Duncan for coming on the pod to review HBO’s Rome with us
Summary
Ben’s Show Notes:
S01E02:
– Great touch: the slaves have Greek names and Greek accents. Hella accurate
– “I’m gonna drink all the wine, smoke all the smoke, and fuck every whore in the city,” smoke WHAT Pullo?!
– Man this show looks SO GOOD. The set they built for Atia/Octavian’s house looks like a fucking Roman house from Pompey, even down to the paint colour and style
– Awesome name drop of the Suburra (the name of a Latin textbook now!)
– “Che brutta figura” is 100% Italian and not Latin lol
– The doctor “you might try an offering to spes (Latin word for hope), a white rabbit tends to work”
o Yeah wow this show does not shy away from portraying Roman religion and superstition
– This episode really goes hard on the patriarchy/pater familias angle
– Nice Tarpeian rock name drop, the rock that they threw traitors off
S01E03:
– Vorenus: Roman religion touch: “who will pay Proserpina and Pluto for my keep, who will pay wine upon my grave?” Awesome
– Man thank CHRIST for Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo. Their scenes are the goddamned best. Cato-pompey/politicking actually low-key boring
– Very minor touch that rocks: in Pompey’s villa, he has busts of Pericles and Alexander as decoration in the background. Awesome.
– The dinner party scene, how embarrassing is it that the entire world got taken over by people who ate while lying down on couches?
– Atia of the Julii: “If Caesar were here now I would stab him in the neck!” eye-rolling foreshadowing haha
– The scene in which Atia of the Julii casually describes her own suicide, killing the children, the slave killing her and then killing himself honestly sounds like a Monty Python sketch (the British accents don’t help this comparison)
o I’m honestly kind of surprised at how funny this show can be?
– Man, even the graffiti is in Latin “Atia amat omnes” “Atia fellat.. then a word I can’t make out but looks like aat.” Jesus christ the dedication to detail in this show.
– Pullo and Vorenus explaining the stars, confidently saying “why they’re holes in the celestial aether, HUNDREDS of miles away,” ancient philosophy, “it’s hard to explain,” truly *chefs kiss*
– One small Latin error, when Vorenus meets the drovers he says “salve citizens” when everyone knows when greeting a group you have to use the plural “salvete”
– So that bit about Caesar securing the whole Roman treasury, that’s true, but, he stole it from the temple it was deposited in. Plutarch tells a whole story about it.
o But in HBO’s Roman Forest Gump, instead it’s Titus Pullo who accidentally bumbles his way into it lol
S01E04
- – I love how disgusting the food is. Lampreys, barely boiled. Lukewarm goat testicles to make your “anima” manly (gonna have to do a fact check on this lol)
- – Man literally every episode involves somebody praying to a god for a specific need. Vorenus prays to Janus to support “his new business venture” (awesome)
- – Mark Antony spitting FACTS with his penis out
- o “Do you not see that your republic has long since died” This is correct, and in line with the most recent scholarship lol
- – Aaaaaaaaaaand we got liver reading. Haruspicy.
- – “Rich as Croresus,” fuck yeah show. So, here’s a theory I’m developing: I think this show, by virtue of it being a partly British and Italian production, where they still teach Classical civilization in high schools, expects much more background knowledge of their viewer. American kiddos learn about the Teapot Dome scandal but have no idea who Croesus is.
- – Another excellent language touch: ending sentences with “-ne.” This is the Latin enclitic particle that turns sentences into questions. Essentially like the Canadian “eh,” but Latin
- – Knocking on the door with the fasces.
- – This is a show about uncle magic. Caesar is uncle to Atia and her children (great uncle to Octavian/Augustus. This is a show about how important respect for uncles is and how power is transferred from uncle to nephew.
- – I fucking love the chief augur’s lines:
- o “There are even those unwise men who say that a white bird in the southern quadrant is neither indicant nor negation! *chuckles* Such are the barbarous innovations of our day. Barbarous. We might as well be Syrian!”
- – Lol so Atia’s daughter quotes Vergil’s Aeneid, a work which wouldn’t be written until let’s say 19 BCE?
- o Maybe this isn’t a goof, maybe the show is suggesting that Vergil was a plagiarist of this random teenage girl
- – Nice, Julius Caesar with the epileptic seizure. You love to see it
S01E05
– I love the portrayal of Caesar’s relationship with his slave-bookkeeper. Accented Greek man handles Caesar’s schedule, but they got a nice bit of banter going on between ‘em
– The kid who plays future Augustus absolutely crushes in this role. In the scene where he discusses killing vs swordfighting he captures the imperiousness of an aristocrat in his interactions with Pullo. Or how he barks orders for water to his slave
– I love how much Roman graffiti is in this show. Such a nice (and accurate!) aesthetic touch. None of this august gleaming columns business.
– The Hindu thing is wildly anachronistic. While there were trading contacts with India, I don’t think there was ever a “hindu” community at Rome. Also, I don’t think that identitarian marker existed yet in the 1st century BCE.
– God damn, Caesar straight up abusing women.
– Timon… the horse Jew? Is he meant to be a khazar or something? Or is he Jewish and works around horses?
– Love the use of the inscribed calendar with its attendant priest/timekeeper
– We got curse tablet action from Servilia!
– Titus Pullo listening to a boy because “he’s clever” lololol
o Truly forest gumpian. It’s not enough that these guys are tight with Caesar and are around various of his politicking, they’re also around the young Augustus… who was like, not a total nobody but come on
S01E06:
– So, the show definitely gets the Roman politics wrong. Mark Antony threatens a senator into passing a law by saying if the senate won’t, then he’ll call an assembly of the people as an implicit threat. The senate couldn’t pass laws, only the assembly could. I get it, the Roman republic is complicated, but this show doesn’t shy away from a ton of other complexity.
– Love that Lucius Vorenus gives a little history lesson “do you think Cincinnatus, Marius or even the Gracchi would act [like Mark Anthony does]” and Pullo just goes “who?!”
– Mark Antony with the slow clap lol
– “A little bloodlust suits you, Octavian” jesus christ this show with the fucking foreshadowing lol
– Gonna need a fact check on the “homeless obese lady fertility person.”
– The fact that the prostitute has a vaguely Eastern European accent is YIKES haha
– Show does such a great job of capturing the ubiquity of slaves in the ancient world. Like after Atia and Mark Antony are done banging, she says “water” and it’s revealed there’s been an attendant slave in there the entire time.
– ive heard that 20% of Rome was slaves. But also, that you became a citizen after being freed, so most of Rome was also descendents of slaves.
– And we got Mark Antony slapping Atia. Show does not shy away from displaying men hitting women
– And we got peen lol. This show is pretty over-the-top with the gratuitous nudity and sexuality/sensuality.
– Nice, got a BELLONA name-drop
– “We’re perfectly safe, we made an offering to Triton,” “If Triton can’t keep me dryer than this, he can suck my cock”
S01E07
– The show really does kind of relish in knowing where history is going. Example: the dinner that the Pompeians have just absolutely GIDDY with the thought of their impending, and absolutely assured, victory
– Voodoo religiosity goes all the way up to Caesar before Pharsalus
– Man it is a shame that budgetary constraints kept them from really doing big battle scenes
o Oof, yeah it’s real bad. Shaky camera shots, sepia tone, standard falls in mud. Real cheesy.
– God damn Brutus has EXCEPTIONALLY British teeth
– Vorenus and Pullo making a raft out of corpses, god damn
– Lysander the (Greek) mercenary, appears to bark orders in Italian, opening with “Raggazi” or something of that nature (and my subtitles said “speaks Italian”), a weird oversight for such a conscientious show
– Arbitrary and gratuitous shot of Atia of the Julia jackin it, to remind you that it’s not TV, it’s HBO
– And now our forest gumpian heroes have forest gumped their way into Pompey’s circle!
– i believe this is actually partly true , pullo would later fight for pompey before pharsalus
– Lmao girl-on-girl grief kiss, cause HBO
o Also, low-key grooming right here. Servilia invites this teenage girl over to her house for “weaving,” oldest trick in the book.
– Show REALLY captures Caesar’s “clemency as weapon of war” when you see how fucking pissed Cicero and Brutus are at being forgiven
– Jesus this show and the fucking easter egg foreshadowing, Pompey says “I was always guaranteed a good time in Egypt” (narrator: he would not, in fact, have a good time this time)
– Jeez, we get Pompey drawing out the battle of Pharsalus in the sand rather than actually seeing it
– “In the future you will recall that it is I that offers mercy, no one else,” yeah that gets at the heart of the matter of clementia
– I don’t really get the two points here about clemency–could you elaborate?
– Julius Caesar refusing to punish Vorenus and Pullo because of their luck is so good. Ancient sources talked about how Julius Caesar had the goddess fortuna on his side, so it makes sense that he would respect it in others.
S01E08:
– Nice, we gotta death mask sighting in the scene when Brutus comes home and is low-key shamed by his mother
– Nice, the big reveal of Pompey’s head in Egypt.
– Nice, GRAIN SUPPLY politics. Love it. Accurate!
– It’s only hubris if I fail, classic, nothing succeeds like success
– “It’s as hot as vulcan’s dick” lololol
– Lmao Vorenus’ little “pocket frescoe” of his wife that he keeps in his cloak is hilarious and for sure ahistorical
– Man a shame they dropped the story of Cleopatra using guile to roll herself in a carpet and get that carpet delivered to Julius Caesar. Instead they go with a much more damsel in distress route
– What…. Is Cleopatra meant to be smoking?
o This is some major character assassination. Meant to turn her into some kind of BPD art hoe
– Pullo describing Cleopatra as “wet as October” is really funny. Something that only works in a Mediterranean climate
– Lmfao they have Pullo cuck Julius Caesar?! They make this fictional guy the actual bio father of Caesarion?!
– The slave-ululating sex scene, holy moly we’re going FULL Orientalism on the Egypt stuff
– Oh nice, we get a mention of the brother-sister incest of the Ptolemeys
– The cuts from Caesar-Cleopatra fucking to his ex Servillia seducing her rival’s daughter are kinda eye rolly
o Boy howdy, we SURE ARE watching HBO, aren’t we!
– World’s shittiest testudo formation
– When Mark Antony says “give me your hadns brother Cicero” that’s some deep cut foreshadowing. Mark Anthony will eventually order Cicero killed and have his hands cut off and nailed to the rostra
o Oh wait no he legit just says he’ll do it, nvm, not as clever haha
– Pullo has a huge hilarious “I’ve made a huge mistake” moment when he sees Caesarion for the first time while shouting “YAAYYYYYYY”
S01E09: Utica
– Show REALLY can’t show battles. Like, we cut to “immediately following the Battle of Thapsus”
– Missed out over-the-top gore opportunity w/ Cato’s death. IRL doctor’s patched up his gut wound, but he was so intent on dying he ripped out the stitches and disembowelled himself
– Love the representation of mime, always. Take that statue avvy guys, these guys were lewd AF
o It does get one thing wrong in that it shows the mime as highly political, when (iirc) the opposite was true
– The time jumps really bail them out with the Augustus casting
– Caesar describing a giraffe is so good. Those weirdo Romans did in fact call them “Cameleopardis” – camel-leopards.
– NICE AUGUSTUS READING CATULLUS. Fuck yeah. Love that. The sparrow is his penis in that poem. Or maybe her vagina. Unclear. But it’s definitely a sex thing
– A small touch I like: when you see the poor folks in the insula eating, it’s rarely anything you have to cook – bread, olives, cheese. This is accurate AF. The houses were so shitty for the poors there wouldn’t be cooking gear in them (for risk of fire)
– Note the difference in clothing when Julius Caesar comes to his house. Toga vs tunic
o “Magistrate of lower aventine….” Not really a position. There were SPECIFIC magistrates.
– Man Caesar fucking rocks. Well written, well acted, show fucking nails it. I’m gonna be very very bummed when he gets got.
– Oh god, are we getting a fucking incest plotline? Jeez louise.
o GROSS
o Come on, HBO
o If you wanted on-screen incest, you should have kept making this show until we hit Caligula
– And now that he’s CANDIDATE Vorenus, he gets a toga. NICE
o Pullo “you look like laundry,” nice. Owned.
– “You fucked your sister you little pervert” is a great fucking Atia of the Julii line lol
S01E10: Triumph:
– Nice, Cicero doing the stupid ancient rhetorical hand-talking when he raises his two hands all dumb
– Show does such a good job of capturing Caesar as like, patrician AF, and OF the nobility, while still speaking FOR the poor, even if in a very self-interested way
– Lol @ Octavia joining a cult, “your foreign priest talking”
o WHICH ONE IS IT MEANT TO BE?!
– Ah, the great mother
o Which was totally normalized-ish by this time in history. They brought the Magna Mater to Rome during the Punic Wars
– Lol Vorenus goes campaigning, also tries to do the stupid pose.
– Oh yeah, here we go, it’s Triumph time
o We get poor Vercingetorix in chains
o The whole “enlisted” vs “civilian” binary is SLIGHTLY overstated
o Julius Caesar dressed as Juppiter but also legit thinking he’s a god, top notch shit
o Painting the face red like Juppiter, hell yeah
– Man Servilia straight disrespecting her son, good shit
– Julius Caesar = demigod, again low-key foreshadowing, cause he’s deified
– You can save “the Republic” by rejecting its stupid norms.
– Pullo: “I’ve been feeling strange, and low, and empty,” bro, this show is about depression and how men need to talk about their feelings and shit. Therapy-pilled Rome
– Jesus fuck, Pullo’s murder of Eirene’s boyfriend is brutal to watch
– Oh no! Our boys are fighting!
– They really do lay on the “it’s the end of the republic! Social decline!” angle Pretty hard. Like, when Pullo says “I’m a soldier not a murderer” and Erastes Fulmen says something along the lines of “in these trying times, what’s the difference?
S01E11:
– Pullo just straight up street murdering a guy? Who was that? Was that Erastes Fullmen or someone he killed FOR Erastes Fulmen?
o Ah ok nvm he’s a contract killer now
– Oh fuck yeah, FINALLY we get a patron-client meeting
– “How am I supposed to make cloth without piss?!”
o Lawl
– Oh no! Our boys have had a falling out! Vorenus says “Pullo is dead to me!”
– Wow, an amazing historical detail when the former soldier talking to Vorenus says “he’s got his face on the money now”
o Julius Caesar was the first Roman ever to have his face on a coin DURING his lifetime
– When the soldier is complaining about the veterans not getting land, I just thought to myself “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss”
– Lol another great disgusting food bit, “want some mouse? They do it up savory here”
– Vorenus too simple for a symposium. A literal wine track party and he’s a beer track guy
– Lol “the 5th month is now named July in his honor”
o Yeah that’s not how that happened
– Brutus actually low key gets it, when he’s talking to Cassius “the plebs would not pluck a hair for liberty” (correct!) “they prefer to see their betters fight, cheaper than theatre and the blood is real” (incorrect, the plebs want land, food, and jobs).
o When Brutus and Cassius kill Caesar, they totally underestimate how popular he is with the people. The people destroy the senate house and cremate him on the spot
– “The people will not accept a tyrant’s death unless a Brutus holds the knife”
o The show has made a lot of glancing references to this historical event without ever actually spelling it out. Again, show assumes audience knows of the Rape of Lucretia and the overthrow of Tarquinius Superbus by the original Brutus in 509 BCE
– Man the 3 old ladies yelling at Vorenus is a GREAT Classics reference. It’s just like the Furies in the Oresteia
– “I’ve warned him, Brutus is gonna stab Caesar”
o Yeah, I don’t think the plot to kill Caesar was THIS obvious, IRL
– Lmao the lawyer hustling scene
– Vorenus constantly fucking compromising himself.
o Look at that! A character arc!
– Of course, we gotta have an obligatory arena scene. It’s ancient Rome, after all
– “Cave with this one”
o Nice, Latin
– The scene where the gladiators try and convince Pullo to stand up is also kind of funny in a Monty Pythonesque way
o “come on, just stand up and HOLD the sword, no need to run about!”
– Again, just like Master and Commander, a nice paralleled character arc. Vorenus compromises his soldiery virtues for Caesarian politics. Pullo, who HAD no self-sacrificing virtues at the start of the show, as he faces death in the arena bellows “THIRTEEN” over and over again. How elegant.
– Some truly brutal fucking gore in this arena fight tho
– … hard cut to Brutus sliding an eel into his gullet
S01E12
– We open with a mime reenactment of the fight from the last episode, nice use of the mime
– Lol the farm ritual, not sure this is based on anything
– Lmfao, after Caesar promotes Vorenus to senator “who will dare raise a hand against me with the grim Lucius Vorenus at my side”
o In ANOTHER Forest Gumpian twist, our two heroes are instrumental in the assassination of Caesar. Vorenus gave Caesar his overconfidence that got him killed
– Dinner table scene, talking about the institution of Roman marriage, + snickering @ the notion of romantic love being linked to marriage, good stuff
– Man we straight up just dropped that whole soap-oepra plotline about Niobe cheating on Vorenus and having that baby
– Another death mask room appearance!
– Some more comic levity: Pullo too horny for fame to heal from his gladiator wounds
– Cicero seems to low-key be part of the plot? But he famously was not invited
– Lol Lucius Vorenus written into the assassination plot
– Damn, Vorenus gets distracted by an old soothsayer lady telling him about his grandson
– Oh finally it’s all come back!
– Awe man, poor Ceasar. That assassination scene is fucking great though.Kidn of reminded me of like, a Vince Gilligan Breaking Bad style montage (like when Walt organizes the nazi assassination in prison), except it would have been set to like, a 60s pop-rock song
– Oh fuck Niobe offed herself?!
– “Thus ever for tyrants” is some hilarious American anachronistic projection back onto ancient Rome and I have a whole spiel about it.
– I really wanted to hear “hello darkness my old friend” as they panned out from Caesar’s corpse in the senate chamber
S02E01: Passover
– ‘ho boy, is this episode gonna be about Judaism?
– Show really goes all in on Brutus is a bitch
– “He tried to speak but no words came out”
o Little easter egg for the folks waiting on “Et tu, Brute?” from Shakespeare
– Lucius Vorenus and the horrible no good very bad day
o Grandson not his grandson
o Wife kills herself
o Disowns family
o Caesar dead
– “Pack the money and the household gods”
o Fuck yeah, big shoutout to the Lares, everybody always forgets the household gods
– God, Atia fucking sucks. I thought she was funny and cool at first, but she’s become very grating
– So, one thing that this show does get kind of low key wrong is how much these rich assholes want to stay in Rome at ALL costs. Like, Cicero had huge estates outside of the city that he spent most of his time @, iirc. Rome was filtyh, malarial, pestilential, the Roman elite spent a LOT of time away from the city in villas, but we keep seeing people say something along the lines of “I won’t leave at any cost”
– “I expect no public service from a Jew”
o YIKES
o But also, this greedy stereotype wasn’t part of ancient antisemitism
– … I’ve never heard of/read about this weird breast milk in the mouth of a corpse ritual, and it things like the kind of thing I’d remember
– Man, Augustus/Octavian is portrayed as like, super smart and super astute, but he can’t convince Antony because he’s not very people smart. Like, all he has to say is “listen, we’ll kill them LATER”
– OK nice, they do have Cicero talk about his assassination FOMO
– Lol Cicero as fucking parasitical barnacle toady, love it
– Mark Antony looking down on the guilds lol
– Mark Antony is such a fucking sex guy. Even his toga/tunic is like, leopard printed? Patterned? And somehow looks even more like a kimono than the rest of ‘em
– The seriousness with which Pullo and Vorenus describe curses
o “you didn’t kill an animal did you? Well there ya go, the curse isn’t sealed!”
– Hilariosu that Vorenus cares more about cursing his children than compelling his wife’s suicide
– Man, I wish we got to see the Caesar’s funeral riot. Show seems to want to REALLY avoid historical events that were made popular by the Shakespeare tragedy
– They make the mobster Erastes Fulmen low-key racist, “Rome for fucking Romans”
– God, DAMN dude. Erastes Fulmen raped and murder Vorenus’ family?! We’re going full fucking rampage mode this season. Also hard reboot the season, He’s Vorenus, but he’s got no family and nothing to lose.
S2E02:
– Damn, we’re setting up Cleopatra and Mark Antony as real Sid and Nancy ass motherfuckers
– Also, Cleopats is confident and swagged out now, so I actually like her and the actress’ portrayal
– Forest gump style moment: Cleopatra while walking out of meeting with Mark Antony makes eye contact with Pullo
– Man, the role of Caesar is obviously big sandals to fill, but I’m liking Mark Antony this season. They portray him really well as like, sex guy, bored with the nerd shit, but actually good at motivating people and soldiering (When he yells at Vorenus and brings him out of his funk)
– Atia and Servilia are ancient Rome’s Lucille 1 and Lucille 2 from arrested development
– A scene with some Judaism in it:
o …. Tevye and Levi?
o H’oh boy, h’oh yikes. Levi is a biblical name, Tevye is Yiddish for the biblical name Tobias (Hebrew Tuvya)
– “Die screaming you pig-born trollop” is a great fucking Atia line
– God damn, Vorenus using the concord priesthood to call a meeting to destroy the idol-statue of concord in front of them, he’s in full-on rampage mode
– Man, I love that “black pilled Lucius Vorenus” is a plotline
S02E03:
– Black pilled Lucius plotline continues
– “inhaling hemp lmao”
– Nice, and gay sex
– Hard cut from gay sex to Hebrew prayers
– … and castration. BOY IT SURE IS HBO
– The twink is a spy for servilia!
– Oh god the twink assassin is Jewish (Shekels)
– The Bithynian king is really YIKES
– Oh fuck yeah, we get a Philippics scene
S02E04
– Poor slave girl keeps singing while poisoned
– “but it isn’t a real confession unless it’s under torture”
o Yeah this is actually true for slaves
– Oh man we got our first Agrippa and our first Maecenas appearances!
– Also, is it…. A different Augustus actor? Or did Puberty just hit that kid like a ton of bricks
o Ok, nvm, new actor
– Jesus Christ late aughts HBO, we got the rape-torture of Servilia too
– Also, some real James Bond shit here, Atia. Why not just kill Servilia when you had the chance?
o This is also some hardcore historical fiction. Atia, I had to look up, is an amalgalm of 3 Roman women, so they take a lot of liberties with her character
– Man, very funny to see Vorenus shocked @ Roman slavery. HE literally wanted to be a slave trader in season 1
S02E05
– The show does a not-great job of explaining what a collegium is and what Vorenus’ role in it is
– Vorenus has such a weird morality code. He’s gonna go back to castrating dudes and being a cutthroad because those are his Antony soldier orders, but lying is beyond the pale
– Haha oh nice, Octavian is referred to as “your boy” (to Pullo), and Antony is “your boy” to Vorenus. They’re on either sides of the civil war now!
– “I really appreciate these little chats we have between your drug binges” lmao
o She’s addicted to HEMP, 0.3% THC content
– See, THIS Augustus, portrayed as a pious, sanctimonious, puritanical type, that’s what you want. Not the fucking incest-doer Augustus
– God damn man, Lyde joins the priesthood of a goddess I had never heard of, blessed ORBONA. Look at how short her Wikipedia entry is:
o https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbona
– Man casting on old Augustus is on POINT. Looks just like the portraiture
– Bearded Mark Antony! Hell yeah
– Octavian’s speech about virtuousness and debauchery is totally on-point
– Show ignores the fact that there were two consuls, which is kind of a big deal
– Nice, Vorenus getting some pussy from the big tittied white girl with dreds. Legend. Hero.
– Lol @ Octavia getting addicted to weed/hemp “are the walls melting?”
– Lol I was at an orgy is a funny exchange
o EARLY stages of an orgy!
o The bacchic rituals hadn’t even begun!
– Show does a great job of hammering home how few options there were to women in ancient Rome, just…. Generally
– Octavian and Antony embracing over their desire to avenge Caesar rocks
S02E06
– Oh fuck yeah, first wax tablet appearance
– Oh hell yeah, proscriptions (their money will be useful too!)
– Nooooooo they’re gonna make Vorenus and Pullo kill Cicero?!
– Vorenus getting all the way down to the point of literally doing proscriptions for Octavian is…. Certainly a KIND of character arc…
– “thank you for that, but that was the old day, things are bad and violent now” one of the members of the Collegium explaining social decline to Vorenus when he does a history lesson of what the Collegia used to do
– Lol they turn murdering one of the greatest orators to ever live into a country outing with the family
– What if Forest Gump were a murderer?
– Lol and now Vorenus intercepts Cicero’s message that could have warned Brutus of the Triumvirate alliance!
– The Forest Gumping continues
– Lmao “he’s not a bad fellow that Cicero, not stuck up”
o Cicero’s literal murderer
– Octavia sarcastically saying “FOR THE GOOD OF THE REPUBLIC”
o She gets it
– Pretty embarrassing that the final death knell of the Republic is 3 teenagers. Augustus was 18 when he raised his first legions, his bois Agrippa and Maecenas were 19 and 26 when Julius Caesar was assassinated, respectively
o As Joey Diaz says, “you don’t need 20 friends, you only need 3 motherfuckers to take over a country”
o In the case of Rome, yes. Correct.
o Gonna pipe this in in post: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/9-BeN24BfXU
May want to be careful as joey diaz is a rapist
– Wait, what’s this Judaean politics plotline?
– Wow, ancient Zionism. YIKES
– Pretty funny and ironic that Pullo, who fucking loves war and can’t imagine life outside of soldiering, gets infactuated with and eventually marries “Eirene,” the ancient Greek word for peace
– Lmao Cassius and Brutus’ convo before the battle of Philippi could also be a monty python sketch “I nearly forgot it’s your birthday”
o There’s a SOLID amount of dry, understated, British humour in this show
– The Philippi battle is actually pretty cool
– Pretty sure Brutus fell on his sword @ Philippi
S02E07
– Finally, we get some real death mask love. Episode is even CALLED death mask
– Man Servilia gets SUCH a raw deal in season 2
– Lol NICE Jocasta marries Posca!
– Augurs definitely don’t do marriages. Augurs are for Augury, the interpretation of bird signs
– Nooooooo, Pullo don’t cheat on your pregnant wife with the Portland girl!
– Oh fuck! Servilia self-human sacrifices! Let’s get a QUICK fact check on that…
o Yeah, so she disappears from the historical record shortly after the death of Brutus at Philippi
o Big poetic license on the show’s part
– “All mockery of the Jews and their one god must be kept to an appropriate minimum” lolol
– Man I wish they could have fleshed out the Herod politicking a bit more
– “If we should discuss a marriage contract it’s hardly appropriate for a woman to be present” lol
– Lol SUPER anachronistic on the Judaism front. There’s no such thing as a “rabbi” in the 1st century BCE. Rabbinic Judaism develops after the destruction of the temple
– Lol a GREAT misdirect/hard cut to Antony marrying Octavia instead of her mother Atia
o This is enabled by the show smooshing together 3 historical women into Atia
§ Atia, Octavian’s mother
§ Clodia, a scandalous woman of the late Republic, sexing and drinking about, lover of the poet Catullus and much maligned by Cicero (but kind of before all this happened.)
§ Fulvia, lover and partner of Mark Antony (mark antony was her 3rd husband, she married exclusively Caesarians haha)
– Man this fucking Herod assassination subplot is SO half cooked
– Ancient abortion!
S02E08
– Lol Feminist Rome monologue
– Yeah so Agustus’ whole morality program, that’s 100% accurate
– Oh nice! Livia appearance!
o And Tiberius name dropped
– OH FUCK THE PORTLAND GIRL IS TRYING TO ABORT THE PULLO-Eirene BABY. I thought it was for her!
– Nooooooooooooo, the first death that’s actually bummed me out since Caesar.
– Damn dude, BDSM Augustus
– Man, this is an absolute whirlwind towards the end of the series. Just blitzing through history to squeeze in the Octavian-Mark Antony civil war in there.
– This episode hits a lot of the patriarchy/gender roles notes as well as the decadence notes.
o Patriarchy: Vorenus almost choking out his daughter for describing his fuckups
o Augustus’ morality program
o Octavian and Antony falling out over the sucking and fucking arrangements
- S02E09
- – Niobe dream sequence! Hard cut to shaved head Egyptian whore
- – Lol Antony gone full decadence sex guy, Egyptian make-up. He looks like a glam rock singer from the 80s for some kind of Egyptian themed song
- – Damn, yeah huge time jumps now. Vorenus’ kids are growing up like weeds, Antony and Cleopatra have 2 kids (twins?)
- – I mean, it makes sense they gotta do these. Death of Caesar is 44, Battle of Actium is 31 BCE
- – Antony and Cleopatra Sid and Nancy storyline is pretty eye-rolly
- o Also, it’s quite literally what Augustus’ propaganda was
- § He’s womanish
- § He’s foreign now
- § He’s wrapped around a foreign queen’s little finger
- – STRONG BPD Art Hoe energy
- – Hmmmm Vorenus diagnoses himself and Mark Antony with the same “sickness,” because he has the same symptoms as Antony… which… are they? He was super faithful to his wife for forever? He’s not really a sex guy. Maybe it’s just that they’re angry?
- – Oh noooo they’re setting up Pullo vs Vorenus fight!!
- – Awe, big tittied ancient Portland lady dies too. Poor Pullo
- – Show does not shy away from our hero choking a woman to death
- o Pullo throwing her corpse in the river, that’s a reference to the traitor’s death. Traitors get thrown in the river Styx
- S02E10: De Patre Vostro
- – Ah, checking in AFTER Actium, for budgetary reasons
- – Show can’t end without at least ONE more orgy
- – Portrayal of Egypt as languid and decadant remains not great
- – “Greeks talk a whole pile of nonsense”
- – “Fuck ‘em”
- o Here here!
- – Show does make me feel bad for Antony tho, even if it does hew pretty closely to Augustan propaganda
- – Oh shit fucking what?! Cleopatra did a ruse?!
- – Jesus Christ turning the children’s father’s death into a teachable moment
- – Man, I love the Pullo Vorenus friendship, RIP Ray Stephensen
- – Atia at least gets to end the show on a swagged out G line
- – “Listen, about your father” is a great fucking way to end the show
- – Bravo, HBO. Bravo
Remember Shuffle 
Great ep, loved the notes . Yes young Octavian really is ‘ to the manor born ‘ so to speak , he went to Eton like many upper class brits . He was also young Lord Blakeney in Master and Commander I can’t recall if you mentioned that in the last ep ? Anyway, love the pod , looking forward to the Troy one next . Regards etc
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