TV Review: Rome – “A Necessary Fiction”

The Episode

In case you’re wondering (you probably aren’t) what I do in my spare time, here’s the answer- I watch TV. And what else to watch on Sunday nights than the critically acclaimed HBO/BBC series “Rome?”

In any case, the current episode, called “A Necessary Fiction” focuses on Octavian’s attempts to bring “proper Roman virtue” to Rome, and to his family (which needless to say, does not work out so well). In case you’re not watching the show (get on with the program, citizen!), in the last episode, Octavian married his sister, Octavia (women in Rome did not have a name of their own, and went by their family names alone) to his fellow triumvir Mark Antony (of Antony and Cleopatra fame), in order to force political reconciliation between them, and also because Mark Antony is a lover of his (Octavian’s, that is) mother, Atia of the Julii. Naturally, such an arrangement does not please anyone but Octavian himself, and all of the parties involved quickly resume having sex with their partners of choice (Atia with Antony, Octavia with Octavian’s friend and general, Agrippa). What comes out of this, I will not tell, but I will say that history follows its course, and Antony goes to Egypt to stay at Cleopatra’s. The rest is well known.

The other part of the plot focuses on a shipment of gold from king Herod to the Triumvirate being stolen from Vorenus and Pullo, and they have to crack open a few skulls to find them. In case you’re wondering where the Sicilian mafia takes its roots from, look no further.

All in all, the episode was excellently done, with the cast delivering a superb, as always, performance.

The History

Here is where we begin to run into problems. Rome, simply put, is a series very loosely based on actual history. A lot of it, they can get away with, given that many of the characters in the series are based on people of whom we have maybe half a page of information. Even then, the writers manipulate the truth a bit, to make for better drama. Atia, for example, depicted as an amoral manipulator in the series, is loosely based on the real Atia Balba, described by Tacitus as an ideal Roman matron. Awesome drama, bad history, but I still love them.

Anyways, here’s the list of things that struck me as wrong when viewing the episode.

1) Atia should be dead. Atia Balba died in 43 BC, before the battle of Philippi, where Octavian and Antony defeated Brutus and Cassius. That was several episodes ago, yet there she is. Servillia, on the other hand, who should be alive died in the last episode.

2) We see Octavian taking a wife, Livia. He was, by then married twice, once to Clodia, the step-daughter of Mark Antony (whom he returned to her mother in “mint” condition), and once to Scribonia, the grand-daughter of Pompey Magnus (Caesar’s opponent in season one). Scribonia bore Octavian a girl, Julia, who was his only child. At the time of her marriage, Livia was pregnant with Tiberius Claudius Nero’s second son, Drusus (to those who see the names of three Roman emperors there, no, Tiberius Claudius Nero is neither the Emperor Tiberius, nor Claudius, nor Nero. However, his first son, Tiberius Claudius Nero, became the Emperor Tiberius, his grandson became the Emperor Claudius, his great-grandson was Caligula, and great-great-grandson was Nero. The reason why he has the same name is because of Roman naming convention, where the first name was their “personal” name, chosen out of the list of about 40, so they repeat very often, the second, the name of their clan, in this case, Claudius, and the last, the cognomen, originally was used to distinguish a man from all of his relatives who had exactly the same name. However, it was passed on from father to son, so it became a kind of family name, in our understanding. Yes, the Roman system of naming people is confusing as hell. Generations of history students who had to tell all of these Roman statesmen with the same names apart can attest to that).

3) Egypt! For some bizarre reason I cannot quite fathom, Americans have this tendency to portray Ptolemaic Egypt as Egypt of the Pharaohs. I don’t know if it’s all those old mummy movies, but for some reason, in the popular American mentality, there is this gap between Ancient Egypt and modern Arab Egypt, with absolutely nothing in between. Hence, the portrayal of Alexandria as an Egyptian city. Just for the record, Alexandria was founded by Alexander the Great, King of Macedon (who was the hero of that horrible Oliver Stone movie). By the way, Alexander founded 10 cities, most of them in what is now Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Tajikistan (just to show you how large his empire really was). They were all named Alexandria, showing that you don’t need to have a good imagination to be remembered by history. Anyways, the Alexandria in question was a GREEK city, the Ptolemies- a Hellenistic dynasty, who didn’t even speak the language of the land they ruled. The real Egyptians were “discouraged” from living in Alexandria.

Summary

The Episode: 9/10

The History: 3/10.

That’s all for tonight, folks!