Rome: The Stolen Eagle
Jul. 15th, 2006 05:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
butterflySo, I watched the first episode of the first season of the new HBO series Rome. The show's focus is on the shift from the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire, with a nearly equal emphasis on the patricians and on a pair of plebeian soldiers named Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo (the names are, incidentally, those of the two soldiers mentioned in Commentarii de Bello Gallico by the real Julius Caesar).
Great fun, as you might imagine. My favorite character is the future Caesar Augustus, who'll end up becoming the first Emperor of Rome (incorrectly referred to as 'Octavian' rather than 'Octavius' as I believe he would have been at this point in his life, but this is a minor quibble -- the young actor who plays him is fantastic... and I suppose while I'm pointing out minor quibbles, my use of 'emperor' is a touch anachronistic -- he preferred to be called princeps, meaning 'first citizen', though he did keep the title imperator).
No spoilers, just mentioning that I really enjoyed the first episode and I'm looking forward to watching the rest of the season (and I hear that a second season is coming out in 2007).
Great fun, as you might imagine. My favorite character is the future Caesar Augustus, who'll end up becoming the first Emperor of Rome (incorrectly referred to as 'Octavian' rather than 'Octavius' as I believe he would have been at this point in his life, but this is a minor quibble -- the young actor who plays him is fantastic... and I suppose while I'm pointing out minor quibbles, my use of 'emperor' is a touch anachronistic -- he preferred to be called princeps, meaning 'first citizen', though he did keep the title imperator).
No spoilers, just mentioning that I really enjoyed the first episode and I'm looking forward to watching the rest of the season (and I hear that a second season is coming out in 2007).
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Date: 2006-07-16 12:43 am (UTC)I also am a big Octavian fan. After watching the show I had to go to the library and look up some books on Roman history so I could see what part he had in it. Now I wish there was more about him out there. The few books I found only listed him in a few paragraphs but no real details.
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Date: 2006-07-16 12:50 am (UTC)There really isn't enough about him out there. He's the first Roman Emperor and the most influential (that's not generally even argued about). He was the Big Cheese for forty-some years. He's just cool. There should be reams about him, the way there are about Julius Caesar.