HBO Rome-Blog on Legio VI website

[FlaviusCrispus]

Avete, amici!

Just a quick note to let you know I've started a blog / review page on HBO's "Rome" TV series on the Legio VI website. The direct link is here:

LEGIO VI ROMEBLOG

I'll soon be adding a summary of the past season and episodes, plus a "comments" section for responses. Anyway, enjoy!

[Robert Vermaat]

Thanks David, good review. Maybe you oughta add a big sign with SPOILER WARNING though..

[FlaviusCrispus]

Spoiler warning. Good thought. Will do!

[Niedel]

Really enjoying your reviews. And I agree on the question about the opium smoking. I definitely don't think there is any evidence of pipe smoking. Maybe inhaling from incense burners or the likes, I don't know for sure. But definitely no pipes I've ever heard of. But again, I might be wrong.

[Susanna]

For years there has been the discussed the evidence of a picture with a guy smoking a pipe while lying in a garden under a roof. But I only raed and heared of it several times. I never saw it...so maybe its just a legend, like all the amounts of pics of ancient bag-pipes. :wink:

[john m roberts]

I notice that Fulvia hasn't shown up yet. Are they going to gloss over Antony's marriage to her? Plus he still has to marry Octavia, and what's Atia going to think of that? Then he has his famous ffair with Cleopatra. Talk about a man with woman problems.

I'm betting that at the end Octavian will order Pullo to kill Caesarion, who may be his own son. They can squeeze some real drama out of that situation.

[Narukami]

Good call John (Pullo killing his own son), but perhaps the drama will be that Pullo can't do it, and Vorinus helps him to hid the child, so that we have the possibility that a son of Caesar's survives into adulthood.

As to Fulvia, I think she has been "absorbed" by Attia's character who, I think, will be dead at the end of this week or next thus clearing the way for Octavia.

Then again, perhaps Antony will have relations with both mother and daughter at the same time -- This is HBO after all... :? roll: hock: :wink:

Narukami

[FlaviusCrispus]

Well, the week has come and gone, and Atia's not dead yet. Cicero, Brutus and Cassius are, though. I'll sure miss old Cicero-- there was an almost poignant quality to all of his ineffectual scheming. Nice (if unhistorical) end they gave Brutus, to be surrounded and stabbed multiple times a la Caesar. Good riddance, I says.

Anyway, the new blog page is up for Episode VI, which will have to hold us for two more weeks. There's a shout-out to JMR for noticing Fulvia's absence.

Since I haven't yet figured out how to post a "response" section to the blog, does anyone mind if I direct commentary on each installment to this board? It'll at least draw in a lot more readership for RAT.

[Narukami]

Greetings Flavius!

Your reviews have been very good and the comments most amusing.

Point to you sir!

One minor correction on this week’s episode -- Vorenus actually pulls the rider off his horse when he attempts to use his whip on Vorenus while calling him a peasant.

My question: what happened to Vorenus' Senatorial rank/status? Did that just evaporate with the death of Caesar?

Now a week off for the Academy Awards and then it's back to Rome.

Again good reviews Flavius.

Narukami

[john m roberts]

I thought that the death of Cicero was outstanding, if departing a bit from the historical record. We're told that when Cicero understood the game was up, and that cowardice and vacillation weren't going to do him any good this time, he met his end bravely and stretched out his neck "as he had seen the gladiators do" when given the death sentence. And here, true to form, Pullo gives him the coup de grace gladiator-style, with a stab down behind the collarbone and to the heart, taking out the subclavian artery and probably the aorta on the way (a neat bit of special effects, too). It was the most merciful death known to antiquity except possibly a beheading. I also liked Pullo's polite "You may not want to watch this," to Tiro. It's too bad, though, that we didn't get to see his head taken to Fulvia, who yanked out his tongue and stabbed her stylus through it, as punishment for his anti-Antonian speeches. The writers didn't set up an antagonism between Cicero and Atia and, indeed, they left out Cicero's "Philippics," the main cause of his death.

[Praefectusclassis]

Hi David,
Sure, go right ahead and direct people here.

[Ebusitanus]

Excellent blog.

I believe they are smoking hemp seeds, not Opium. A good question would be to know if they had such plantations in Macedonia as its claimed in the Series. :lol:

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Darned, why did I read this posting! :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :x x x

[FlaviusCrispus]

arned, why did I read this posting!

Gaius Marcus, why so upset? Spoilers? If so, sorry-- I keep forgetting to post "Spoiler Warning" on the blog and in posts... will try to correct.

One minor correction on this week’s episode -- Vorenus actually pulls the rider off his horse when he attempts to use his whip on Vorenus while calling him a peasant.

Thanks for noticing, Narukami, and correction made! Say, I notice you hail from Burbank, just down the road from me and in the heart of Legio VI territory! What say we get together sometime, maybe at Tony Swatton's shop?

[FlaviusCrispus]

Darned, why did I read this posting!

Gaius Marcus, why so upset? Spoilers? If so, sorry-- I keep forgetting to post "Spoiler Warning" on the blog and in posts... will try to correct.

One minor correction on this week’s episode -- Vorenus actually pulls the rider off his horse when he attempts to use his whip on Vorenus while calling him a peasant.

Thanks for noticing, Narukami, and correction made! Say, I notice you hail from Burbank, just down the road from me and in the heart of Legio VI territory! What say we get together sometime, maybe at Tony Swatton's shop?