Yes and no. I disliked some of the too-obvious soap opera elements - although I chuckled at how they lampshaded the way the characters both manage to survive everything and end up near the historical figures, by claiming that the Gods protect them, and even Caesar doesn’t want to mess with the Gods!
It’s a difficult path to walk for writers - they want to show how normal citizens lived through difficult times, that’s very commendable; but they need to find ways to keep these small characters related to the big historical figures, which means they go through up and downs all the time. They can’t be killed off, because then the identification figures for the viewers would be gone; but they need to get into danger to show what life was like at that time (and the lawlessness, and how you’re in danger unless you have your own band of strong-men to protect you, comes across really well, I think).
The only other way would be a bigger ensemble of bit characters, but it’s already a bit difficult to tell the two red-headed scheming women (Attia and Servilia), the two young black-haired men (Brutus and Mark Anton), the women around Vorenus etc. apart if they only pop up for 5 min each ep.
I also liked how they finished the first season: Caesar “hiring” Vorenus both as bodyguard and to use his popular support is a smart move, and certainly Caesar would have had some kind of body guards (besides Mark Anton - even though with 70 attackers, nobody could’ve saved him).
But at the same time, the bodyguard couldn’t save Caesar, so he had to be distracted; and to use the long arc of Niobe’s cheating, the discovery, the secret wandering from Octavius to Octavia to Servilia to pay out for a distraction at a crucial point.
I don’t remember Vorenus saying to Pullo that he had not had sex with another woman in his long absence separated from Niobe. I do remember him going on about how much he missed her though. It’s been a while since I saw the episode though.
That’s interesting to hear - I already thought the first season was speeded up too much, leaving out the whole problems the Cleopatra-dynasty subplot caused in Rome.
It’s interesting because ARTE aired the two-part BBC docudramas - where history is told, and recreated battle-scenes etc. are shown - about “avenging Cesar” (and “the last border”, about the conquest of Britain) before showing Rome, so seeing “historical drama” and “drama occuring in historical times” some things are left out that I’d consider important developments.
cleopatra (crying): “does lucius vorenus wish to speak to me?”
vorenus (smug): “no.”
cleopatra (still crying): “then lucius vorenus will stop looking at me!!!”