Rome

Inspired by reading about Cleopatra awhile back, I moved up the HBO series Rome in my Netflix queue and I have just concluded watching the first series. For the most part I enjoyed it, though I wasn't bowled over by it.

The series covers the period from when Julius Caesar (Ciaran Hinds) defeats the Gauls to a certain ides of March. The big names are all on hand, such as Mark Antony, Pompey, Cato, Cicero, Octavian, Brutus, and Cassius, but the focus of the series is on two common soldiers, Lucius Varenus (Kevin McKidd), a straight-arrow, and Titus Pullo (Ray Stevenson), a roguish miscreant. They are both members of the legendary 13th Legion, and keep finding themselves crossing paths with history.

As the series begins, Caesar has been waging war for eight years, and Varenus returns to his wife, who wasn't sure if he was dead or alive. She's had a child with her brother-in-law, but tells Varenus it's their daughter's child. Pullo drinks and gambles, but falls in love with a slave woman, and hopes to settle down with her, but things take a bad turn.

Meanwhile, Caesar is declared an enemy of the Roman people by his former comrade, Pompey. The two go to war, and Caesar, a military genius, wins despite being vastly outnumbered. Back in Rome, there's a subtler war going on, between Caesar's nice Atia (Polly Walker) and Brutus' mother Servilia (Lindsay Duncan), who was Caesar's mistress but is cast aside when Atia hires men to spread gossip about the affair.

Cleopatra appears in only one episode, when Caesar visits Egypt. She is played by a young woman who appears could have been in The Runaways, and is portrayed as the bewitching seductress that Stacy Schiff's book tried to eradicate. Nevertheless, in a bit of artistic license, it is suggested that the son borne to her by Caesar was really fathered by Pullo.

This is all mostly good fun, but at times the action dragged a bit. I found Vorenus to be an uninteresting character, mostly because Pullo is so fascinating. His character arc is most enjoyable, and he has the last shot of the season, which is very touching. The stuff with Caesar and the Senate is also very good, as Hinds brilliantly portrays the general turned tyrant, with an air of authority and composure. His epilepsy, a historical truth, is mentioned only once, and Hinds may have too good a head of hair to play Caesar, as it has recently come to light that he may have invented the comb-over.

The assassination scene is a risky thing to attempt, since most literate people know Shakespeare's play. The intriguing thing in Rome is that is Servilia who is pulling the strings. The writers do not have Caesar saying, "Et tu, Brute?" as Brutus lands the last blow, and the season ends before Mark Antony's funeral oration. I'm interested to see how they handle that in season two.