You’re not the only one. This seems to fall under the gerenal “smallness” of the cinematography that I’ve noticed about the series in general. I wonder if it was a budgeting issue.
I also had a few :rolleyes: :rolleyes: moments about Lucius and Titus just coincidentally washing ashore where Pompey and his retinue happened to be at the time.
Otherwise, a good episode. I, too, saw the girl-on-girl action coming right off the start. I was shaking a bit myself when Caesar said he ought to have Lucius scurged and crucified, even though I new it wasn’t going to happen.
Yeah, the dark-haired men are starting to blend together.
No such problem with Vorenus. His face is distinctive enough that I can even recognize him when he’s all suited up, helmet and all. Great eyes and cheekbones.
OT: I fell asleep thinking about the preview with Pompey’s head on a platter and woke up this morning positive that there was a book with Pompey’s head in the title. Sure enough, there’s a book and movie both. Pompey’s Head is the name of a small southern town. I’m getting the book – it looks good, and I’m curious about whether the origin of the town’s name will be explained.
This disappointed me as well especially because they had a pretty good battle scene in the first episode. They cut the girl on girl scene way too early for my taste too.
I agree that the scene was disappointing, but just as a correction - Pharsalus was not the last battle. At least two more large battles ( Thapsus and Munda, in North Africa and Spain respectively ) were fought by Caesar against the Republican/Pompeian diehards, in both of which he was outnumbered ( though he had better quality troops ). And really the Republican cause probably didn’t die for good until after the twin battles of Philippi in 42 B.C.E., ~6 years after Pharsalus.
I’ll be so glad when this series is on DVD. (HBO is a prohibitively expensive upgrade where I live.) I’m glad Pompey is finally getting some airtime- most movies begin with him already dead when he was a genius almost on par with Caesar. And it’s cool seeing (in the two episodes I’ve seen) characters like Atia and Servilia given a personality (all we really know about them is their names, general dates and genealogy).
Seems like Rome spends all its budget on authentic-looking clothing and the city scenes, leaving not a lot of $$$ for the big battles. I’d rather have a blurred out brief battle scene than a crappily executed one, though.
Having watched this ep and read a little about Pharsalus, we were wondering: was it simply a case of superior generalship by Caesar that won that battle? Or was it luck? Or something else? Is that even an answerable question, considering that the victor writes the history? The sketchy way it was portrayed in the ep doesn’t make it clear at all, obviously. When Pompey described it, he blamed it all on cowardly horsemen rolling up his flank, but what would enable a small group of reservists to repulse a larger cavalry unit? Anyone who knows more about these things able to fill me in?
The next ep looks really exciting. This series is getting better and better! I was lukewarm about it at first but now, I’m hooked.
I’m not a historian or anything, but I think the gist of it is that Caesar’s troops are just that much better. Recently battle tested and hardened from years of battles in Gaul. Pompey’s were basically assorted rabble from his campaigns which have spent years getting fat and soft at home. Many of these troops were hired mercenaries that just didn’t have the discipline that Caesar’s men did.
From what I recall of history, Caesar’s fame was largely founded on the fact that his armies won consistently when he was at a massive numeric disadvantage. The trend held both against the Gauls as well as against the Republicans.
I think HBO did a fair job of showing this in the episode without beating us over the head with it. Pompey asked Vorenus to describe some of the legendary battles that Caesar won, and if the odds were really stacked against him as much as they were. Then when Pompey described the way his troops folded against Caesar’s reserves it underlined the point that it all came down to experience of the troops.
I guess I was thrown by the word “reservists,” anachronistically imagining that Caesar’s reservists were weekend warriors, when really they would have been veterans of Gaul who went back into the citizenry when Caesar returned to Rome, only to be called up again when he left for Greece. I think the compression of the timeline also obscures this fact.
So it was just the experience factor, or was their exceptional training and effectiveness duein part or wholly to Caesar’s leadership? If you know of any good websites I could read, I’ll delve into it further myself.
I was thinking this as well, even moreso that only our two heroes (Vorenus and Titus) were left alive on the island after the shipwreck. That was feeling a little too serendipitous even for Hollywood.
However I felt much more comfortable with both situations after hearing Caesar’s logic for sparing them. The show’s acknowledgement of the constant luck these two seem to have kept me from groaning to much. That Caesar fears these guys “powerful gods” makes it a reasonable plot device.
I could be wrong, but I personally took the phrasing not to imply that they were “reservists” in the US National Guard sense, but that they simply were a portion of his army held in reserve to reinforce the line where needed. This meant that they simply were not engaged in the primary conflict, not that they were of lesser quality than his other troops. It would be reasonable to assume that maybe they were held in reserve because they were somewhat depleted from previous battles, but still an experienced group.
Don’t take my words as definitive, I’m just describing how I interpreted the show. My recollection of Classic Civ 111 from college is spotty at best, so I could be mistaken about the widely accepted “facts”. My impression however is that it’s a combination of Caesar’s leadership talents and the quality of his troops (two facts that aren’t really seperate) that led him to victory here and in all his battles.
No. On one of the On Demand commentaries on the show, the director and the historical advisor were discussing the rumors that Brutus was Caesar’s bilogical son, but the historian pointed out that Caesar was 15 years old when Brutus was birn. Also, Caesar’s relationship with Servilia didn’t begin until like ten years later.
This was demonstrated pretty well in the first episode when Caesar’s troops were shown fighting a battle in Gaul where they seemed to be outnumbered but also responded in a very controlled and disciplined manner while the Gauls seemed very disorganized, overly excited and basically sort of incompetent. It was a good illustration of how experience, training and discipline can be more valuable than sheer numbers. The Romans seemed almost bored during that scene. It was a day at the office for them. It reminded me of Steven Pressfield’s book about the Spartans, Gates of fire, in which he spent a lot of time explaining how much of what went into training an army was spent in demystifying war, removing the sense of panic and desperation, and teaching the troops how to view it simply as a job. When the training is sunk in and the soldiers know automatically what to do in a battle without having their thoughts and reactions clouded by terror, desperation or rage, it gives then a substantial disadvantage untrained and inexperienced enemies, even if the enemy has a numerical advantage. It’s an approach that has endured to this day.
Brutus is “like a son” to Caesar. However, Servilia is Brutus’ mother. So it is possible that Caesar was Brutus’ real father. Naturally, neither man acknowledges this though. Officially, he was a descendent of Brutus Junius, who helped overthrow last kings of Rome, making his relationship with Caesar all the more uncomfortable.