{"id":913,"date":"2008-07-29T02:45:01","date_gmt":"2008-07-29T06:45:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/s265039441.onlinehome.us\/philpaine\/?p=913"},"modified":"2018-08-13T15:21:16","modified_gmt":"2018-08-13T19:21:16","slug":"hbos-rome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=913","title":{"rendered":"HBO\u2019s \u201cRome\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>

Ray Steven\u00adson as Titus Pul\u00adlo and Kevin McK\u00adidd as Lucius Vorenus<\/p><\/div>\n

HBO<\/span>\u2019s Rome<\/em> is a superb series. There are some his\u00adtor\u00adi\u00adcal inac\u00adcu\u00adra\u00adcies: Octa\u00advian was ship\u00adwrecked in his youth, but nev\u00ader kid\u00adnapped, and he was not in Rome when Cae\u00adsar was assas\u00adsi\u00adnated. Nei\u00adther was Cicero. Cae\u00adsar is shown offer\u00ading to give land in Pan\u00adnonia to the 13th Legion, though Pan\u00adnonia wasn\u2019t in the empire at that time. But as far as pre\u00adsent\u00ading Roman soci\u00adety, and the mores and behav\u00adiour of Romans, the series is quite accu\u00adrate.<\/span> It quite prop\u00aderly shows the casu\u00adal vio\u00adlence and bru\u00adtal\u00adity of a soci\u00adety that was not informed by any real eth\u00adi\u00adcal prin\u00adci\u00adplrs, but mere\u00adly by cus\u00adtom, caste con\u00adscious\u00adness, vengeance, and bar\u00adbaric con\u00adcepts of \u201chon\u00adour\u201d. Much of our world remains like that, today, and it is a pro\u00adfound dis\u00adtor\u00adtion of his\u00adtory to ignore it, as most his\u00adtor\u00adi\u00adcal film and fic\u00adtion usu\u00adally does. The real\u00adi\u00adty of slav\u00adery and Roman sex\u00adual prac\u00adtices are shown with rea\u00adson\u00adable accu\u00adracy. The death of Cae\u00adsar is shown as it is in Plutarch\u2019s account, rather than Suetonius.<\/span><\/p>\n

The act\u00ading is uni\u00adformly superb. Kevin McK\u00adidd and Ray Steven\u00adson are bril\u00adliant as the two cen\u00adtral char\u00adac\u00adters, Roman sol\u00addiers who find them\u00adselves (a bit improb\u00ada\u00adbly) with some of the key polit\u00adi\u00adcal events of the time. The series jumps back and forth between their per\u00adsonal con\u00adcerns, and the machi\u00adna\u00adtions of the his\u00adtor\u00adi\u00adcally known char\u00adac\u00adters. The series explores the role of women in Roman pol\u00adi\u00adtics, with fine per\u00adfor\u00admances by Pol\u00adly Walk\u00ader as Atia of the Julii and Lind\u00adsay Dun\u00adcan Servil\u00adia of the Junii. Antony is well-played by James Pure\u00adfoy, espe\u00adcially in the scenes show\u00ading the dis\u00adin\u00adte\u00adgra\u00adtion of his per\u00adson\u00adal\u00adity in Egypt. Tobias Men\u00adzies is a delight as Bru\u00adtus, reject\u00ading any influ\u00adence from the Shake\u00adspeare char\u00adac\u00adter in favour of a fine-tuned char\u00adac\u00adter study of some\u00adone you might find today in Amer\u00adi\u00adca\u2019s Con\u00adgress or the British Parliament. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"Max<\/a>

Max Pirkis as Octavian<\/p><\/div>\n

But the per\u00adfor\u00admance that real\u00adly hit the mark was that of Max Pirkis, play\u00ading the young Octa\u00advian. This was only Pirkis\u2019 sec\u00adond role (after play\u00ading a mid\u00adship\u00adman in Mas\u00adter and Com\u00adman\u00adder<\/em>) but he gave it an aston\u00adish\u00ading believ\u00adabil\u00adity. The role was split with Simon Woods, who played Octa\u00advian as an adult, and man\u00adaged to make the tran\u00adsi\u00adtion con\u00advinc\u00ading. These per\u00adfor\u00admances were made pos\u00adsi\u00adble by excel\u00adlent script\u00ading, and sup\u00adported by the best pro\u00adduc\u00adtion val\u00adues I\u2019ve seen in any his\u00adtor\u00adi\u00adcal series.<\/span><\/p>\n

I strong\u00adly rec\u00adom\u00admend Rome<\/em> to any\u00adone who is inter\u00adested in see\u00ading seri\u00adous his\u00adtor\u00adi\u00adcal fic\u00adtion on tele\u00advi\u00adsion, rather than just an excuse for bat\u00adtle scenes and stilt\u00aded speech\u00ades. The fac\u00adtual errors, such as they are, are mere\u00adly quib\u00adbles. After all, nobody minds that Shake\u00adspeare had a clock chime in his <\/span>Julius Cae\u00adsar.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

\"http<\/a>\"http<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"https<\/a>\"Rome<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HBO<\/span>\u2019s Rome is a superb series. There are some his\u00adtor\u00adi\u00adcal inac\u00adcu\u00adra\u00adcies: Octa\u00advian was ship\u00adwrecked in his youth, but nev\u00ader kid\u00adnapped, and he was not in Rome when Cae\u00adsar was assas\u00adsi\u00adnated. Nei\u00adther was Cicero. Cae\u00adsar is shown offer\u00ading to give land \u2026<\/p>\n

Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[948,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-d-viewing","category-ds-viewing-2008"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=913"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/913\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8458,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/913\/revisions\/8458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}