Rome 2x08: A Necessary Fiction

[vaznetti]

The crazy departures from the historical record are kind of confusing here. Usually I don't mind, but really -- at leat last year it was just the political history they were ignoring, rather than the social history as well.

I giggled when Octavian suggested that the she-wolf was the first of the virtuous women of Rome, since as every schoolgirl knows, lupa is Latin slang for prostitute.

* * *

I mean, starting with Livia! I nearly died laughing at that scene. "From time to time I shall beat you!" That's classic. Everyone knows that if anyone held the whip in that relationship it was her. The sad thing is that the marriage was a huge scandal -- she was married to Tiberius Nero and very pregnant with her second son, and she and Octavian basically eloped. Well, he eloped with her. He was crazy in love with her. And everyone in Rome was like, "So, the baby's yours, right?" And he was all, "I did not have sex with that woman!"

But her biting off the bird's head was classic. Perhaps she will grow on me, and will end up ruling her husband with an iron hand, as we all know she did. And at least they got her name right.

Livia was no wilting flower; she ran off from Rome to Sicily soon after Philippi, when her husband ended up there after the battle, supposedly all alone (aside from the infant Tiberius) in order to avoid Octavian and Antony's men. Tiberius Nero was one of the implacable enemies of the Triumvirs, and ended up fighting for a few years with Sextus Pompey, King of the Pirates.

I am rather sad that we're not getting Sextus Pompey, King of the Pirates, in this series.

* * *

So, perhaps we'll get at least one of the Antonias? The next generation is looking fairly thin at the moment, especially without the marriage to Scribonia. But it seems that Octavia won't be accompanying her husband east in this universe. Actually, I expect the baby will be Julia, at this rate.

I did rather like Antony's "Stella!" moment.

* * *

Woe. Eirene is dead. Pullo's eulogy for her was beautiful, but I would rather have had her alive. And Gaia is not dead. Yet, at least; I can have hopes on that point. Eirene's final scene, was so touching, though -- and her relationship to Pullo, although always somewhat alien, felt very real at the end.

Vorenus is really frightening when he's angry, and will now have to sit through Antony's Alexandrian phase, which is guaranteed to infuriate him. (I'm surprised he didn't try marrying Vorena off to Pullo; it's the obvious crazy, Roman solution.) I loved the scene between him and Vorena, though: I really bought it.

* * *

I guess the parallels just didn't really work for me, this episode. Octavian's attitudes toward women are just laughable, really: the whole crisis with Octavia and Atia and Antony and Agrippa feels rather forced. I mean, really, he married his mother's lover off to his sister -- what did he expect would happen? Whereas Vorenus' domestic crisis seems to come out something much more real -- his own very serious flaws, and his daughter's anger, which is both just and unjust. That he nearly kills her -- that he nearly made what she believes to be true about him the truth -- and that Pullo brought him back (poor Pullo, yet again left to pick up all the pieces)

And I do get the sense that the show's writers are still buying into the tradition of Roman misogyny -- the notion that women, and particularly sexually active women -- are responsible for the collapse of the Republic, and quite possibly for everything else that goes wrong.

* * *

So Pullo is left in Rome, and Vorenus in Alexandria. And at this rate they won't meet until Actium. The one piece of parallelism that did work for me was the two goodbyes -- Antony to Atia, and Vorenus to Pullo -- and the sense that it's quite possible that neither pair will meet again in life.

* * *

And somehow, I wrote that up and posting it without even mentioning Pullo's amazing head-bashing and tongue-biting move. Duh, Memmio. You should not have crossed Pullo and Vorenus.

Comments

[granamyr.livejournal.com]

It hasn't come on yet, but I'm not surprised that Eirene is dead. Still, Gaia seriously needs to die, the bitch.

Somehow, I think Pullo will have something to do with the Praetorian Guard, when Octavian finally creates it. Pullo just isn't happy with not being in the army.

[vaznetti]

I think Pullo will have something to do with the Praetorian Guard, when Octavian finally creates it.

I suppose, although he is retired from the legions. It's not the ending I would want for the character, to be honest.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

I also weep at the omission of Sextus, the Pirate King.

At the moment I think the writers want to have their cake and eat it too; there's the prurient issue of women out of control and then the advantage of showing Octavian to be sexually a bit odd and obsessed with controlling women. They can show us all the breasts they like and then say 'but we think Octavian is a bit creepy! We don't approve of how he deals with his mum and sister!'

I still want to know under what legal system Octavian has control over his mother, who surely married his father sine manu.

[vaznetti]

I still want to know under what legal system Octavian has control over his mother, who surely married his father sine manu.

Hahahahahahaha! Surely you don't think the writers actually care about Roman law? They don't appear to care about anything else aside from really nice sets.

At the moment I think the writers want to have their cake and eat it too; there's the prurient issue of women out of control and then the advantage of showing Octavian to be sexually a bit odd and obsessed with controlling women.

Yes, I think you're right. It's all a bit gratuitous, and frankly is the kind of attitude I don't mind so much in Tacitus but find more than a little off-putting in my own contemporaries. And Octavian comes out of it all seeming rather a comic book villain, except with less personality.

I was thinking this morning that they could have done the Livia thing rather neatly -- if she hadn't been there as a prospective bride, but as a chaperone, but he saw her and decided all at once, "That's the woman for me."

[loup_noir]

I wanted to ask about the control issue, too. I understand that Octavian is now the head of the household, but would he have that level of control? Over Octavia, who should be off with Anthony?

[vaznetti]

Not really, no. Although the fact that he has troops on hand might give him more actual control than the law itself would permit. Certainly, he wouldn't have that kind of control over Atia at all, and really Octavia ought to be off with Antony -- I'm not sure what the point of keeping her in Rome is.

[beck-liz.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what the point of keeping her in Rome is.

Gratuitous angst for Octavia and Agrippa? That's about the only reasoning I can see. Although seriously, they could've gotten that just as easily by sending Octavia off with Antony to Egypt and have her forced to watch the whole Cleopatra/Antony thing, while Agrippa's back in Rome. Not that Octavia'd probably care about Cleopatra, except I think Cleopatra might be the sort to rub her face in it.

[vaznetti]

Gratuitous angst for Octavia and Agrippa?

Or maybe, more opportunity for Octavian to act like a jerk toward her? Considering their incestuous history, you'd think he'd be more careful of her.

And now I am wishing that Octavia went to Egypt: she could hook up with Cleopatra, which would be very funny.

[maidenjedi]

The bird-eating scene with Livia saved her for me, I think. That was a cold scene and given what she had just witnessed, classic. Overall, though, I completely agree. And for that reason, Pullo was my champion this week - well, that and the moment at the end with Antony and Cleopatra greeting each other. It was rather like the moment in Star Wars Episode I when Anakin is introduced to Obi-Wan. Everything around it kinda lacked, and then BAM. Fate enters. Course set and fixed.

[vaznetti]

Chomping down on the birds head like that did rather rescue the character, who was otehrwise a little more giggly than one would expect. I am not feeling so keen on the Antony and Cleopatra thing, I think because I keep thinking of his farewell to Atia -- but certainly, Fate intervened there with a crash.

Pullo was completely awesome this week, though. Everything from his first scene to his last.

[forodwaith.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised he didn't try marrying Vorena off to Pullo; it's the obvious crazy, Roman solution.

Yes! I definitely thought that was going to happen. Who knows, it may still...