# Rome: 10/16 **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 17, 2005, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-10-16/326633 "2005-10-17T18:51:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2005, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-10-16/326633/1 "2005-10-17T18:51:35Z")
Wow, Cleopatra was a crack-whore. I didn’t know that! I hope someone knowldegeable will speak to the historical accuracy of this episode. Still, I liked it. Interesting clash of cultures, and some steamy sex. And I’m sure I wasn’t the only one thinking: HURLEY! when the fat Egyptian guy came out carrying the jar w/ Pompey Magnus’ head in it. BTW, why is Brutus called just “Brutus” when his name is Markus Junius Brutus? Seems like the naming convention is all over the place in this series. Can anyone explain why the various characters are called what they are called? ---
**Author:** ![FlightlessBird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/cdc98d/32.png) [@FlightlessBird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlightlessBird)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2005, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-10-16/326633/2 "2005-10-17T19:02:59Z")
I hope no one does. Or at least I hope they don’t in reference to this episode. In the TV show _Rome_, Cleopatra is represented in one light. Whether that light is historically accurate should be non-relevant. Aw heck, I’m heading over to MPSIMS to expound. BTW I liked the show and episode. Especially Caesar being all kick ass in the Egyptian court. ---
**Author:** ![brownie55](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f14d63/32.png) [@brownie55](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brownie55)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2005, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-10-16/326633/3 "2005-10-17T19:11:57Z")
All that I could think of during Pullo’s sex scene was “… Helen of Troy with hes ass on fire.” Vorenus is such a prude. They are the perfect Roman Odd Couple. I like this show more every week. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2005, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-10-16/326633/4 "2005-10-17T19:14:21Z")
“Pullo, reporting for duty!” The look on his partner’s face as he was trying to shut out the yipping and whooping was priceless. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2005, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-10-16/326633/5 "2005-10-17T19:25:23Z")
It was a great episode. Did they explain what happened to Ptolemy? He seemed to disappear at the end there. And just how long did Caesar spend in bed with Cleopatra? I thought it was just a night, until they emerged with the baby. I also loved the glare Lucius Vorenus gave Titus Pullo at that moment. Some people on the HBO forums about the show suggested that the glare meant that Lucius knew that Titus Pullo was really the baby’s father. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2005, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-10-16/326633/6 "2005-10-17T19:44:17Z")
> [@Dewey Finn](#): > > It was a great episode. Did they explain what happened to Ptolemy? He seemed to disappear at the end there. And just how long did Caesar spend in bed with Cleopatra? I thought it was just a night, until they emerged with the baby. I also loved the glare Lucius Vorenus gave Titus Pullo at that moment. Some people on the HBO forums about the show suggested that > > the glare meant that Lucius knew that Titus Pullo was really the baby’s father. I think we were meant to suspect that. There was a scene back in Rome that indicated Caesar had been in Egypt for about a year. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2005, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-10-16/326633/7 "2005-10-17T19:47:48Z")
> [@Dewey Finn](#): > > It was a great episode. Did they explain what happened to Ptolemy? He seemed to disappear at the end there. And just how long did Caesar spend in bed with Cleopatra? I thought it was just a night, until they emerged with the baby. I also loved the glare Lucius Vorenus gave Titus Pullo at that moment. Some people on the HBO forums about the show suggested that > > the glare meant that Lucius knew that Titus Pullo was really the baby’s father. Wasn’t that Ptolemy they showed face down in the water, drowned? ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2005, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-10-16/326633/8 "2005-10-17T19:48:00Z")
I’m wondering how it’s legal to show a little baby’s … um … you know … male thingee … on TV. But they certainly like their … things … on this show. Is there a particular reason why Caeasar didn’t name this son of his as heir? Or will that all play out in the coming months? No new episode next Sunday. Does HBO think that people who watch “Rome” also are going to be watching the World Series? ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2005, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-10-16/326633/9 "2005-10-17T19:49:18Z")
> [@BobT](#): > > No new episode next Sunday. Does HBO think that people who watch “Rome” also are going to be watching the World Series? This one is! Go, Astros!!! ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2005, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-10-16/326633/10 "2005-10-17T19:52:48Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > Wasn’t that Ptolemy they showed face down in the water, drowned? Perhaps. I may not have been watching as closely as I should have. I’ll need to see the episode again. Another thing. Mark Antony was hostile to Brutus and Cicero. But if I remember the Shakespeare play correctly, don’t they conspire together later? ---
**Author:** ![brownie55](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f14d63/32.png) [@brownie55](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brownie55)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2005, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-10-16/326633/11 "2005-10-17T20:05:45Z")
> [@Dewey Finn](#): > > Perhaps. I may not have been watching as closely as I should have. I’ll need to see the episode again. > > Another thing. Mark Antony was hostile to Brutus and Cicero. But if I remember the Shakespeare play correctly, don’t they conspire together later? Yep, Ptolemy’s body was never recovered after the battle, but he was presumed dead. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2005, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-10-16/326633/12 "2005-10-17T20:11:38Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > Wasn’t that Ptolemy they showed face down in the water, drowned? Yep. Ptolemy XIII supposedly died by drowning in the Nile while fleeing from his defeat. By the way he was 14 or 15 at the time. Cleoparta VII then promptly married her even younger brother ( by a year or two ) who became Ptolemy XIV. As far as historical accuracy…well, you can see **Diogenes** and **Lissa** dueling just a bit about this in the other thread. My own opinion is that it is close enough for government work, I guess. Much of it can be chalked up to dramatic fictionalizations that aren’t that important or stuff that was just omitted ( like the struggle between Cleopatra and her sister Arsinoe IV ). Ptolemy XIII apparrently really was under the sway or in league with a trio of advisors ( and he had a “legitimate” complaint by the way - Cleopatra was trying to monopolize power, which is what led to her ouster ). Isis had in fact become a popular goddess throughout the Greek and even, by then, the Roman world. Egyptian custom and religious ceremony had penetrated the royal Greek administration in Egypt and though the Greeks still formed the ruling class overall, the boundaries were starting to fray with intermarriage becoming more common ( indeed the general Achillas, one of the original three co-conspirators w/Ptolemy XIII, was only half-Greek ). Of course the ruling administration still _spoke_ Greek and none of the Ptolemies, other than Cleopatra ( a polyglot, apparently ) ever learned to speak Egyptian. - Tamerlane ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2005, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-10-16/326633/13 "2005-10-17T22:24:22Z")
I like this show, I really do. I’ll be taping all those episodes when they are shown together. I don’t have difficulties with any dramtic license being taken. Caesarion, for example, only _may_ be Pullo’s child. But the look of the show is getting, um, well, I don’t want to say _cheap_, but darn! Egypt was the richest country in the world, and Alexandria was, relatively speaking, a new city, planned to be great, and very cosmopolitan. What little of Alexandria we can see is drab and dusty. At the palace I doubt there would have been left two broken off legs of a big statue, like we can see through the gates. I read that Egyptians(and Alexandria followed many Egyptian customs) loved color. All I’m seeing is brown and gray and off-white. As I read in one review, “the few people in the streets look like they wandered in off the set of Conan the Barbarian.” All that being said, I do love the way they handle plot and dialogue. Pullo and Vorenus and their interactions are solidly handled. I too loved the sour look on Vorenus face as the soldiers(and Pullo) were cheering Caesar and his son. As to why the boy was not declared his father’s heir, it’s because he wasn’t Roman. Caesar already had a wife in Rome as well. And politically, naming as your heir the son of an absolute monarch would be a bad move. Too many folks already though GJC wanted to establish himself as King of Rome. Too bad this show is only set for a twelve episode run. I’d like it to go on for a lot longer. ---
**Author:** ![brownie55](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f14d63/32.png) [@brownie55](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brownie55)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2005, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-10-16/326633/14 "2005-10-18T00:55:02Z")
> [@Baker](#): > > \ > Too bad this show is only set for a twelve episode run. I’d like it to go on for a lot longer. My sources tell me that it will be back for a second season. That’s the HBO website [that show it’s renewed](http://www.hbo.com/rome/news/). I am so connected. ---
**Author:** ![YPOD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/e99b99/32.png) [@YPOD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YPOD)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2005, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-10-16/326633/15 "2005-10-18T00:58:31Z")
I believe that the show has been renewed for another season. Caesar could not name his son heir because Caesar was elected by the Roman people-at least in theory. His power was that of consul or proconsul (like President of the US) but he could not formally pass it on to any descendant. Romans also looked down on the rest of the world - Cleopatra was someone to conquer not partner with. The Roman attitude towards Cleopatra was pretty close to the way she was portrayed last night. And look what happens to Antony in a few years. I wonder how that will play out in the show - remember, Antony demanded loyalty from Vorenus when he wanted to become Prefect. Antony and Octavian, now Pullo’s friend, become enemies. Octavian was to become Augustus and establish the office of Emperor. But he did so under the guise of restoring the Republic. He would occassionaly hold this office or that (I think once he was proconsul of everything except Rome), but he would sometimes go without holding any office at all. Instead he ruled through the puppets he was able to install. ---
**Author:** ![JeffB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeffb/32/188_2.png) [@JeffB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JeffB)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2005, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-10-16/326633/16 "2005-10-18T02:01:47Z")
> [@brownie55](#): > > All that I could think of during Pullo’s sex scene was “… Helen of Troy with hes ass on fire.” > > Vorenus is such a prude. They are the perfect Roman Odd Couple. > > I like this show more every week. Pullo has the best lines. I wish it were summer so I could work “It’s hotter than Vulcan’s dick” into the conversation. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2005, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-10-16/326633/17 "2005-10-18T02:29:55Z")
My girlfriend really didn’t like the sound of severed heads being forced onto spikes. What was Cleopatra smoking, opium? Is there any record of it being smoked so early, and in Egypt? ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2005, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-10-16/326633/18 "2005-10-18T03:33:40Z")
> [@Baldwin](#): > > What was Cleopatra smoking, opium? Is there any record of it being smoked so early, and in Egypt? Probably and yes - the wild source species for what became the cultivated species almost certainly originated in the Mediterranean and the Egyptians were extensive and early cultivators of the stuff. - Tamerlane ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2005, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-10-16/326633/19 "2005-10-18T04:24:08Z")
I was watching a PBS show on ancient Greece the other day (can’t remember which one) and it was asserted the Opium was used in Mycenae over 1,000 years before the time period of this show. Not sure if it was smoked, but it was used. Maybe this is what Pullo meant when he said he was going to “smoke all the smoke” a few episodes back. > [@Baker](#): > > But the look of the show is getting, um, well, I don’t want to say cheap, but darn! Yep, I’ve been noticing that from the begining, and have commented about it in several threads. Maybe if they renew the series it’ll get a bigger budget next time. ---
**Author:** ![Darkhold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@Darkhold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darkhold)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2005, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-10-16/326633/20 "2005-10-18T05:14:29Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > Yep, I’ve been noticing that from the begining, and have commented about it in several threads. Maybe if they renew the series it’ll get a bigger budget next time. And if they get a bigger budget I hope at least some of it goes to showing some battles. I’m getting really tired that for all the battles supposedly fought we usually just get to see small street riots. I chuckled when they were talking about the siege involving ‘thousands’ of Egyptians and the most we saw was six guys throwing rocks. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-10-16/326633.md?page=2)