# Rome, 4 September **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 5, 2005, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-4-september/320203 "2005-09-05T14:55:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2005, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-4-september/320203/21 "2005-09-05T22:54:42Z")
> [@kidchameleon](#): > > So when is Lucius going to find out about his son? Well, it isn’t actually _his_ son, now is it? 😛 What I am wondering, is why did his daughter’s boyfriend put up with being named the father? To insure he got to marry the daughter? And to keep up the ruse the child would have to go with the young couple when they marry. And I would have expected a nosy neighbor to spill the beans by now. ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2005, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-4-september/320203/22 "2005-09-06T00:09:01Z")
I heard the “smoke all the smoke” line as well. Missed the pun on Venereal diseases, however. He won’t find out about the baby. ( my WAG ). I don’t know diddly about this period of history, but am enjoying some parts of the series so far. Frankly, if they get the tension in the Senate a bit more taut, I’ll think I’m watching the real thing. Anger tempered with respect for a foe’s position is the fuel of many a great dramatic scene. The vote last evening in the Senate was great drama, IMHO. Okay, history buffs. I ask you- ( and this refers back to the rape/prositution scene with the sheep mentioned up there ): we are seeing a lot of people fucking. When it’s the upper class who have slaves, there seem to be slaves, or friends, or relatives in the room as people are having sex. Is this to shock us? Is this the more common way that sexual relations were had in ancient Rome, or is it a dramatic device? Furthermore, one ponders the idea that the mysterious woman with her flock was neither a prostitute nor a victim- but a groupie. Seriously. I patently refuse to believe a social model must be recent in invent, that would say that someone would become so enamored with the power and position of another that they’d want to sleep with them. We are left to wonder of course, but it is possible however unlikely that she was a rather willing participant. Her droll expression does lead me to agree with the poster who thinks she was hooking. Just…a part of me likes the idea of roadside shepherds as groupies. 😃 Cartooniverse ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2005, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-4-september/320203/23 "2005-09-06T00:16:17Z")
> [@Johnny L.A.](#): > > That’s what I thought. She seemed very bored, as if she did that all the time. Well, it could be that the Romans offered her a couple of coins but I doubt if she had much choice about what was going to happen to her … if she turned down the coins, she probably got raped and if she accepted them, she had consensual sex. Bu I don’t know. The fact that they had a flock of sheep there seemed to me to indicate that she was a shepherdess and not a camp follower. Of course, she may have been a slave shepherdess in which case I imagine her rape would have been a nonissue to the Romans – just a matter of compensating her owner at the going rate. A little more background would have made the scene clearer, but I thought its major point was to establish the Romans’ lack of inhibition about sex and it certainly did that. But the points raised leave me wondering if there would have been a problem with the Romans raping a poor citizens, rather than a slave. (I suspect the term “rape” would be nonsensical with regard to slaves, as far as the Romans were concerned.) Or were the poor citizens just a tiny step away from slaves in terms of status? ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2005, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-4-september/320203/24 "2005-09-06T00:45:38Z")
> [@Evil Captor](#): > > But the points raised leave me wondering if there would have been a problem with the Romans raping a poor citizens, rather than a slave. (I suspect the term “rape” would be nonsensical with regard to slaves, as far as the Romans were concerned.) Or were the poor citizens just a tiny step away from slaves in terms of status? Another question – would a noble Roman condescend to have sex with a slave? Are the slaves considered human? Are they protected at all, even as property? Or are they ignored, like part of the furniture? ---
**Author:** ![cstamets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/958977/32.png) [@cstamets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cstamets)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2005, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-4-september/320203/25 "2005-09-06T00:53:34Z")
> [@Baldwin](#): > > That’s what I thought I heard too; unless Titus is an incense-sniffer, I don’t know what it meant. > > I’m more curious about the brain surgery we see. Titus acquires a depressed skull fracture in a tavern brawl. The surgeon incises the scalp, folds it back to uncover the injury (it helps that Titus has a military crewcut), trepans the skull with a drill, and removes the broken fragments of skull, relieving pressure on the brain. Thus far, this is definitely something that a good Roman surgeon could do. But then the surgeon puts a small round metal plate over the opening and fixes it to the skull with tiny nails before closing the scalp. I don’t know of any evidence for the procedure with the plate, although it’s certainly feasible. There was something about this on the History Channel a few weeks or so ago. There was at least one doctor who did this sort of surgery - I’m sorry, I can’t remember his name - and they had the tools he used to do it. Looked pretty much exactly like it was shown in _Rome_. He was a doctor who worked a lot with soldiers and upper class citizens, so he could very well be the doctor they intended to depict. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2005, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-4-september/320203/26 "2005-09-06T01:10:39Z")
Do people today have sex with their pets in the room? Yep. Even though if the dog stares at you at the wrong time it can kind of creep you out. I suspect much the same was with slaves. It’s hard for us to understand the psychology of slavery, so we just don’t ‘get it’. But this show has been very careful to get this point across. Remember in the first episode when Octavian casually slapped that slave while he was talking to someone else? No one even noticed. It was like pushing an annoying cat off of your lap. Later, when Lucius was inspecting his own slaves, he showed not one ounce of compassion for them, even though there was a young boy in the cage looking mournfully at him. That kind of disconnect between ‘people’ and ‘not-people’ is gone in our culture, thank God. But when it existed it really changed the way people saw mankind. A man could be good and kind and tender to people of his own class and yet casually whip or beat a small slave boy the same age as his own son without so much as a second thought. What I like about this show is its obvious attention to accuracy. Everything I know about Rome (and that’s not much) has been accurately depicted so far. It makes me feel like I’m learning a little history while enjoying the show. ---
**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:** [September 6, 2005, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-4-september/320203/27 "2005-09-06T01:24:55Z")
Also remember that the concept of “privacy” is a fairly recent one. Most people in Europe for most of history grew up in the same room their parents slept (and fornicated) in. Sex was as accepted as air. No-one was really concerned about it. Old joke: How is sex like air? A: It only matter when you aren’t getting any. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2005, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-4-september/320203/28 "2005-09-06T01:46:40Z")
BTW, the History Channel is doing a series this week ‘When in Rome’ about the history of Rome, an obvious tie-in with the HBO series. Tonight it’s Roman engineering, which has been good. But tomorrow at 9 pm is “Vices of Rome” which might be useful to the current debate, but will probably be fun even if it’s not. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2005, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-4-september/320203/29 "2005-09-06T02:43:13Z")
> [@AuntiePam](#): > > Another question – would a noble Roman condescend to have sex with a slave? Are the slaves considered human? Are they protected at all, even as property? Or are they ignored, like part of the furniture? A Roman man would not have had any problem with having sex with a slave. A Roman man had free access to all the slaves in his house whatever their age or sex and could loan them to his guests. A proper Roman matron would only have sex with her husband. Slaves were legally considered livestock or animate tools. Their masters had absolute power of life and death over them. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2005, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-4-september/320203/30 "2005-09-06T04:06:03Z")
> [@jsc1953](#): > > Another question: when Caesar is getting the casualty reports from the incident in Rome, it’s given as “x number in battle, y from flux”. Which sent me to my dictionary…if he meant the number who bled to death from their wounds, this seems like a distinction without a difference. If he meant that people died of dysentery…that seems somewhat unlikely (not to mention irrelevant). What gives? Those reports were on the status of his various legions, not the attack on Marc Antony. The news from Rome arrived while he was getting the routine reports. ---
**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:** [September 6, 2005, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-4-september/320203/31 "2005-09-06T05:39:58Z")
I liked this episode a lot. And he definitely said “smoke all the smoke”. The scene with the women and Marc Antony was great, especially when the daughter did the immitation of mom having “coitus”. The attention to detail appeals to the geek in me to no end. I find myself sometimes no paying attention to the plot, but looking around at the scenery. I was fascinated by all the stuff in Lucius’ home. I knew that he and Titus would become better and better friends as the plot unfolds. Did anyone else notice that Marc Antony said a few lines in Latin (or Italian, I couldn’t quite tell)? I kept wondering why they did this? ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2005, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-4-september/320203/32 "2005-09-06T06:35:21Z")
> [@Rube E. Tewesday](#): > > The very idea would have been bizarre to the ancients. Ancients, hell, separation of church and state is bizarre to a lot of people today. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2005, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-4-september/320203/33 "2005-09-06T17:37:36Z")
**John Mace** wrote: > [@](#): > > Did anyone else notice that Marc Antony said a few lines in Latin (or Italian, I couldn’t quite tell)? I kept wondering why they did this? I wasn’t keeping notes, but yes, there were a number of times when people used the actual Latin terms for things. This is a bit of a boggle on the meta level, because obviously the characters are supposedly speaking Latin at all times as far as they’re concerned. But it didn’t seem inappropriate. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2005, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-4-september/320203/34 "2005-09-06T17:57:50Z")
> [@commasense](#): > > Those reports were on the status of his various legions, not the attack on Marc Antony. The news from Rome arrived while he was getting the routine reports. That makes more sense, then. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2005, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-4-september/320203/35 "2005-09-07T12:11:58Z")
I watched the History Channel show on “'Roman Vices” last night but it didn’t make clear much of anything, except to confirm that the Romans would do just about anything they liked of a sexual nature, to just about anyone they cared to. I can see now why the various caesers were to wild with the debauchery – they HAD to be, if they wanted to stand out from the Roman nobles. ---
**Author:** ![Honey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honey/32/5074_2.png) [@Honey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Honey)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2005, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-4-september/320203/36 "2005-09-07T12:32:53Z")
Episode 3 is available on HBO On-Demand. I won’t spoil it, I’ll just say this show gets better with each ep. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2005, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-4-september/320203/37 "2005-09-07T12:56:16Z")
Episode 3? I thought there had only been 2 episodes so far… Anyway, entertaining episode, though I wonder how accurate the veto and Antony’s walk to veto scene was. It seems like it was designed to make Pompey look better (for he was considered a great man, even after his death). Though it could be true, but I’ve never heard of it, personally. ---
**Author:** ![Honey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honey/32/5074_2.png) [@Honey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Honey)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2005, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-4-september/320203/38 "2005-09-07T13:01:35Z")
> [@ISiddiqui](#): > > Episode 3? I thought there had only been 2 episodes so far… > > Anyway, entertaining episode, though I wonder how accurate the veto and Antony’s walk to veto scene was. It seems like it was designed to make Pompey look better (for he was considered a great man, even after his death). Though it could be true, but I’ve never heard of it, personally. Only 2 have been officially aired but, episode 3 is indeed on On-Demand. I’m seeing on Televisionwithoutpity that it’s not an error on HBO’s part. It was done on purpose. ---
**Author:** ![Trunk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/87869e/32.png) [@Trunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trunk)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2005, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-4-september/320203/39 "2005-09-07T13:33:10Z")
In real life, How far away was the encampment? How far away was/is the Rubicon? Pullo and the other guy (Lucius) looked like they rode there in 2 hours, and Lucius had a pretty good wound. I liked the “crossing the Rubicon” scene. It’s supposedly such an epic event and it was a muddy stream with a little kid playing in it. ---
**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:** [September 7, 2005, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-4-september/320203/40 "2005-09-07T14:19:42Z")
[Eyewitness to the crossing.](http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/caesar.htm) [Location of the Rubicon.](http://www.roman-empire.net/maps/italy/rubicon.html) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-4-september/320203.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rome-4-september/320203.md?page=3)