I saw the second episode of this but not the first. It looks like once the backstories are in place and the characters are introduced it’ll be good. Some questions:
1- In the “previously” clips at the beginning, it showed a patrician woman offering Pompey her young daughter. Since I wasn’t familiar with the characters yet, was this Atia (and the daughter Octavia), and if so did Pompey bed her and then marry another?
2- Were Niobe and her “grandson” in the first episode, or was the “greedy little piglet” nipple scene at the end of Ep. 2 the first time the babe’s parentage was mentioned?
3- Does Caesar have a bald spot in Episode 1? (I didn’t notice one in Episode 2 and I’d hate to think that the most famous bald man in history would be portrayed with a full head of hair in the series.)
Thanks for any answers (and feel free to hijack away).
Yes. Although we didn’t see any bedding, so that might not have happened. It looked like everything was all set, but the next thing we know, he’s marrying Calpurnia.
Niobe and the “grandson” showed up for the first time in the second episode, so you haven’t missed anything there.
Haven’t been paying any attention to Caesar’s hair.
I have a question about tonight’s episode. Who were the children leaving Rome with Calpurnia? Hers? Pompey’s?
That was Atia, and yes, Pompey did bed her then marry another, Scipio’s daughter, a widow herself.
I haven’t noticed a bald spot, but I forgot to look. This Friday all three episodes so far will be shown back to back, so I’ll try to see.
The baby and wife(Niobe) were seen in the first episode. When Lucius saw her for the first time(holding the child by the way) he got upset at her, but she thought fast on her feet and claimed it was his grandson.
I screwed up, the baby didn’t show up until the second episode.
And the children were supposed to be Pompey’s by a previous wife, one he married before Julia, Caesars daughter. But I could be wrong. I think Calpurnia, a widow, had children of her own, but I don’t know about the ages, so maybe they were hers. In any event, it was their first appearance.
AuntiePam, although we didn’t see Octavia and Pompey in bed, we did see her being “disrobed” as it were, with him watching, and her getting into position on the bed.
Now, considering what poor Octavia knows about Atia and Mark Antony, how’s Atia going to feel down the road(years later) when *Octavia * marries him?
Can someone sort out the various noble women for me? I just can’t tell them apart…
I thought tonight’s episode was not very good. The editing was poor, and the whole thing just seemed “small”-- small mobs, no panaramic scenes made it look kind of cheap, as though the camera angle was kept narrow so they didn’t have to show too much. The computer graphics were B-grade, too.
Does anyone else think Brutus looks kind of like a Romulan or a Vulcan in a Star Trek movie?
Atia - Niece of Julius Caesar, played by Polly Walker. She’s the scheming one. And she seems to get around. And around
Octavia - Atia’s daughter. Promised to Pompey, but he backed out for another woman. Her former lover got iced by Atia’s henchman. She will get married again soon enough.
Servilia - Brutus’s mother, Caesar’s lover, older woman, Atia and she only pretend to like each other.
Cornelia - Pompey’s new wife. He used to be married to Caesar’s daughter who died. She’s rather stuffy and has a long nose. Pompey chose her over Octavia because she had better connections.
Pompey actually married Cornelia in 52, three years before the current events on the show, but I can see why they adjusted the facts for dramatic purposes. And I don’t know if Atia was really that scheming, but she represents a type of Roman woman they really have to have on the show.
I hope we’ll see Lucius Verinus and Titus Pullo together again; they make such a great odd couple.
Husband, not lover. Atia forced her to divorce Glabius (sp?) so she could offer her up to Pompey.
I’m basing a lot of my knowledge on Masters of Rome, but I thought Atia was a retiring thing, and that Servilia was the scheming one. IIRC, Brutus was totally cowed by his mother, and why haven’t they mentioned that Servilia and Cato are half brother and sister, and that they loathe each other? And where is Caepio Jurnior?
Thanks. I keep mixing up Atia and Servilia. They need to give the women different hairdos or something to make it easier to tell them apart. Servilia is older, and that’s obvious in close-ups, but not at other times.
I think Atia is one of those characters that writers of historical fiction absolutely love because what’s known for a fact about her is roughly when she was born, when she died, who she married and who her children were and a few knick knack facts about her life and times. Almost nothing is known of her personality or how active or knowledgeable she was of the politics around her, so a writer can have a lot of fun with her without betraying known history. (Graves did something similar with Livia; all that’s really known is her marriages and children; he gave her the “Empress of Power Bitches” persona= in real life she was very probably more of a Lucy Hayes/Abigail Fillmore/Louisa Adams sort of “first lady” than a Hillary Clinton/Florence Harding/Nancy Reagan sort.)
I’d still love to see somebody take on Justinian and Theodora, though; now that’s a twosome, and adapting Procopius would require having to leave out juicy horrible dish.
I liked the Latin graffiti outside of Atia’s villa (can anyone translate it?). The historical references are fun. I don’t have a classical education, but even I recognized the significance of the crossing of the Rubicon River. I wonder what Titus Pullo will do with all that gold?
